Library Workshop Options for ARCs and RCs
Are you teaching an ARC seminar or advising students in a Residential Community? We would be happy to work with you to bring a workshop to your students. You can partner with a librarian to develop a custom workshop (or workshops) based on learning outcomes that you develop together. Or, you can select from our pre-developed workshops designed for first-year students. Some of the workshops can be customized, and some are ready to go without customization. We will bring the workshop to your students, or set up a time for you to come together to the library.
Ready to get started?
If you have questions about these library workshops, please contact Chloe Barnett, Undergraduate Engagement and Student Success Librarian.
Workshops
Our library workshops for first-year and transfer students are described below. If you are not interested in these options, let us know on the sign-up form that you would like to work with your subject librarian to develop a custom workshop for your students.
Pre-Developed Workshops that a Librarian Will Work with You to Customize
If you select one of these options we will consult with you about how we might customize the session so that it best aligns with the topic, theme, or discipline of your course.
This is more than just a library tour—it's an immersive, hands-on experience that helps students feel at home in the academic heart of campus. Students will engage with library spaces, resources, and support services in the library building best aligned with the topic or theme of your course: Knight Library, the Price Science Commons, or the Design Library. They will book study rooms, find material on course reserve and in the stacks, get a preview of our research consultation services, and meet key people who can support their success. They will even get a behind-the-scenes look at how a library system operates on a university campus.
In this workshop, students will work in small groups to complete a series of purposeful tasks using the library website and databases. The activity is structured like an Amazing Race and, as students complete each "leg," they will learn about constructing searches in library databases, accessing sources, using library spaces, and getting research help.
Pre-Developed Workshops with a Few Customizable Elements
If you select one of these options, we can customize some content for your course, but only if you want us to... we also have a version that is just ready-to-go. Some workshops have more options for customization than others.
How do you know if sources you find online are trustworthy and credible? In this workshop, students will focus on evaluating online information including scholarly sources as well as popular sources like social media posts, websites, and online news sources. They will work in groups to practice source evaluation using specific examples, applying the S.I.F.T. method and lateral reading, two techniques used by experts to evaluate online information.
Students in this workshop will think about the nature of scholarly activity and their own identities as scholars in the university setting. They will examine how scholars pose questions, construct arguments, and respond to previous positions in a developing exchange we call the “scholarly conversation.” What sorts of procedures do scholars follow and why are they important? How are scholarly publications produced, reviewed, and disseminated within academic communities? What different forms does scholarly inquiry take across the academic divisions of the humanities, social sciences, and sciences? In addition to reflecting on these large questions, students will practice finding and evaluating scholarly sources in an area of interest.
In one or more workshops, students will engage with popular platforms for research and communication of the instructor’s choice: UO Blogs (WordPress) or TimelineJS. They will complete activities designed to teach introductory practices for accessibility, writing for the web, and digital storytelling.
Pre-Developed Workshops that We Cannot Customize
These workshops are fully developed and ready to go!
This workshop will help students develop foundational AI literacy skills. We will take a close and critical look at Generative AI - exploring what it is, what it does, and how it really works. Students will learn a framework for effective prompting, discover why it is important to use AI carefully and thoughtfully, practice evaluating AI-generated information, and consider some of the ethical issues surrounding AI use. Finally, students will learn how to make sense of their instructors' expectations surrounding AI use for their courses and consider questions surrounding academic integrity and AI use.
Interested in getting your students to use original historical materials? This hands-on workshop introduces undergraduate students to primary sources—what they are and how to interpret them effectively. Using materials from the University Archives that tells the true story of a UO student’s 1960s legal fight with national implications, students will engage in an interactive activity that builds critical research skills. The session emphasizes strategies for interrogating unfamiliar sources and provides transferable tools that can be applied to research in any discipline. Whether your students are writing a paper, developing a creative project, or just love investigating an archival riddle, this workshop will help them build confidence in using unique, firsthand evidence.
In this workshop, students will be introduced to how computers store and organize information. They will do activities to explore concepts such as files, folders, and cloud storage, developing systems for storing, backing up, and keeping track of their homework and assignments.
