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As discussed earlier in this Curriculum (Part 1) various pedagogical approaches are possible. Please review the list in Part 1 and decide which approach to apply to the suggested activities below and others that you may formulate.

• Information is generally divided into primary, secondary and tertiary sources. Any research product such as a scientific journal article, thesis, research report and first-hand output is regarded as primary source as long as it presents original data (including statistics, patents, etc.) Secondary sources are generally publications whose content abstracts, cites or summarizes primary information, such as a book, journals but also scientific or journalistic articles. A tertiary source is normally a compilation of sources such as a bibliography, a database, encyclopaedia, etc. Whatever source is used, you need to apply critical assessment if the objective of your research is decision-making, but also if you are reading for leisure.
• Information evaluation requires a critical process to identify the originality, reliability, and relevance of the information. This includes how updated/recent the information is, as well as the geographical and subject coverage. Information reliability means to assess the following elements: author, title, publisher, place, date, review the table of content, and bibliography. These elements exist under different names for monographs (books, thesis, reports, pamphlets), as with serials (journal, magazines, annuals, proceedings), web sources (websites, mass media, talks, tweets, etc.), and other type of sources such as patents, standards and mass media messages. The main academic sources in learning environments and in academia are normally journals and books.

Below is an example of how to assess the relevance of sources when looking for

specific information:

1. Title. The first element to check is the title. Does it indicate relevance to your information needs? Does it motivate you to read it? A good title will reflect the content of the publication.
2. Author. Review the authoritative weight of the author (or authors), i.e. how much knowledge and expertise they have shown in previous publications or research outputs. The affiliation of the author is another factor to consider that may give you an insight if the author has eventual biases.
3. Publisher. Check the publisher that has printed the publication. If the publisher is a well-established company or organization (for example a commercial one, research centre, university or government body) the publication is likely to have undergone a long editorial process that includes peer review, content and style assessment. A less reliable source will be, for example, a self-published book.
4. Secondary phase – Browse preliminaries. Once the author and the title has been assessed, in the monograph and serials, check the date, go to the preliminary sections of the publication, such as the table of content and the bibliography. These elements will give you a better idea about the relevance of this material to your work.
5. Third phase – Browse content. Read the introduction and conclusions, plus browsing chapters or sections of the article. When reading research products, it is important to check if the methodology was appropriate, the sample big enough, among other research methodology elements.

• The assessment of all aforementioned elements can be checked online using a search engine. Such cross-checking evaluation may be necessary especially for publications that will constitute the basis for your research or decision. As you get familiar with a subject, it will be easier to evaluate the relevance and reliability of sources.
• Finding the proper resources requires skills to locate and recuperate information that has to be evaluated to identify subject validity, geographic coverage, and its contemporary relevance, among other factors, as mentioned above. Information is normally generated after a long process. Information issued by academic and scientific institutions, or government data, undergo validation processes, such as editing in the case of books and peer review as regards journal articles. Contributions are published in all sorts of monograph and serial publications. Higher quality publications are often part of subscription journals that are usually indexed and distributed through databases that normally have high subscription costs. In addition to paid-subscription databases with access to journals, e-books and other types of materials, including business information such as patents and standards, there are open access publications, that are gaining in prominence.
• Open access repositories are compiled by universities, knowledge organizations, and governments. There are institutional, regional, national and even international repositories that are built under international compatibility standards. Libraries, either academic, public, school, especial and national ones, are, on the other hand, the best sources for quality information as they acquire, organize and distribute them to their communities, and act as gateways to reliable open access information available on the Internet, since they often have reference services that provide information guidance and assistance to users.