Digital Content Curation

We are constantly bombarded with information. The good news of living in the 21st century is the reality that we have access to more information than any other generation in history.  Social media, Google searches, Internet browsers, electronic databases, cloud-based storage...all a part of our daily lives and intertwined with everything we do.  The challenge is one of sorting through vast volumes of information to find answers to our questions while also feeling confident that the results of our search are accurate and relevant.  This reality points to the need for all of us to become skilled at digital content curation.  This course will acquaint you with a seven-step process for curating digital content.   

We propose that the skills involved in digital content curation are critically important.  For all of us, as consumers of Internet content, it is important to

• Search for information and answers to our questions in a logical and systematic way
• Be able to distinguish between truth and nontruth
• Identify misinformation and disinformation
• Establish personal disciplines for examining digital content
• Effectively synthesize information to solve problems and generate personal or scholarly products
• Maintain alertness to typical ploys designed to disseminate information that is intended to deceive
• Create strategies for storing digital content

These skills will be the focus of this mini-course.  This course was developed by Brad Garner, Director of Faculty Enrichment in the Center for Learning and Innovation at Indiana Wesleyan University. The content comes from his book Teaching Students to Become Digital Content Curators (2019).  Excerpts from this book have been included in this course.