New form(at): using the Web to teach research and critical thinking skills

States that at Colorado State University, the library liaison works with the director of the first‐year composition program to design Web pages for courses. Updated annually, program assignments include a “library research” overview, created by the librarian, that identifies catalogs and indexes, along with suggested terms to search the sources. Research strategies and assistance pages describe how to use sources generally guiding the students to teach themselves to evaluate and analyze books, articles, and Web pages for validity and usefulness. Additionally, there are interactive exercises for basic skills. By using the Web to distribute this information, library assistance is available when it is needed – anywhere on campus, or remotely from off‐campus. Library evaluation includes an analysis of “hits” to each page, and reflects feedback gathered from an evaluation form completed by the instructors.