Have a CCOW: A CRAAP alternative for the internet age

Abstract

The CRAAP Test is a popular tool for teaching students to evaluate information. Its simplicity and ease of understanding make it suitable for teaching in the limited time of a typical one-shot library instruction session. However, it has recently come under criticism for being unequal to the internet age. Critics hold that students treat the CRAAP criteria as a checklist, rarely leaving the source under evaluation to gather more information to aid their assessment, an activity crucial for internet factchecking. This paper details a new set of evaluation criteria that seeks to retain the convenient conceptual packaging of CRAAP while encouraging an investigative mindset. Students are asked to actively investigate the Credentials, Claims, and Objectives behind the information they are evaluating. A fourth criterion, Worldview, prompts metacognition and builds the self-awareness critical to making good judgements about information. This paper explores the CCOW criteria and details a flipped, online guide and exercise which has been successfully used to teach information literacy (IL) to college students in their first year of study using CCOW.