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8 free tools for learning to evaluate information like a librarian
SIFT (hapgood.us/2019/06/19/s… - Mike Caulfield's four moves for checking anything online: stop, investigate the source, find better coverage, and trace claims back to their original context. The sequence works across a wide range of online claims, from viral posts to studies.
Civic Online Reasoning (cor.stanford.edu) - Free lessons and assessments built on research into how professional fact-checkers work, including the habit of leaving a site quickly to check what independent sources say about the page. The curriculum came out of Stanford research and is now maintained by the Digital Inquiry Group, an independent nonprofit.
News Literacy Project (newslit.org) - This American nonprofit publishes free lessons and classroom activities on how news gets made and where the process can break down. Checkology, its learning platform, is designed for educators and students, and independent learners can work through the same materials.
MediaWise (poynter.org/mediawise) - Poynter runs this program across roughly 30 countries, partnering with local fact-checking organizations so the free courses reach learners outside the US. Recent material covers AI literacy and synthetic media.
AllSides Media Bias Chart (allsides.com/media-bias…) - US news outlets are placed on a bias spectrum using blind bias surveys and editorial reviews by a politically balanced panel. Each rating page explains the methods behind the placement.
Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart (adfontesmedia.com) - Sources are mapped on two axes, reliability vertically and bias horizontally, with each article rated by a politically balanced team of analysts. The static chart download is free, while fuller database access and search tools are subscription-based.
Bellingcat's Online Investigation Toolkit (bellingcat.gitbook.io/t…) - The toolkit is a browsable database organized by task, from geolocating a photograph to archiving a page before deletion. Entries describe what each tool does and where it falls short.
Center for an Informed Public (cip.uw.edu) - This University of Washington center studies how rumors and misinformation move through information systems and shares its findings for general readers. Its Empowering Informed Communities project develops information-literacy programming for public libraries.