The term paper is a traditional way to facilitate students' acquisition of information management skills (specifically, can they identify, obtain, evaluate, and use published information sources?). There are methods that can be used in conjunction with or independent of term papers...
Assignments using information resources is a practical, hands-on way for students to develop life-long learning skills. To take full advantage of this opportunity, it is important to assign an effective assignment, whether it is a research paper, an annotated bibliography, or a set of exercises. (For more information about alternatives to the term paper, see Assessing Information Skills). This page provides a list of issues to consider when developing an assignment using information resources...
Students who are novice researchers may not have a good grasp on the body of tabs knowledge in their disciplines and may not have gained enough knowledge of the subject matter to handle basic assignments. They lack the characteristics of the expert researcher: 1) a long process of acculturation to the field, 2) knowledge of the discipline and supporting fields, and 3) well-developed personal information seeking strategies...