Information Exploration: Becoming a Savvy Scholar
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this freshman-level course on research and information literacy for science and engineering students. Lessons cover the scientific publication cycle, the distinction between primary and secondary sources, and how to navigate bibliographic databases both online and in print. Students learn to search, evaluate, and cite sources, work with indexing and abstracting tools, and use specialized resources such as patents and grey literature like technical reports and conference proceedings. The course also covers effective web searching and building a literature review. Materials include the full syllabus, assignments, and readings from MIT's Materials Science and Engineering department, freely available through OCW with no certificate offered.