CSM’s Stephanie Roach has been honored on Stanford’s Global Studies Division’s Facebook page for her fellowship research course project.

Stanford posted: “Stephanie Roach, Assistant Professor and Digital Resources Librarian at the College of San Mateo, redesigned her research course to explore how global forces impact access to information & knowledge. Here’s how she did it: http://stanford.io/2zHj5AE #IEW2017.”

Roach completed a fellowship at Stanford Global Studies in June 2016. The fellowship allowed her the opportunity to reenvision her introduction to research course so that it reflects the global nature of the information ecosystem and acknowledges the inequity within it.

In order to successfully navigate a complex information environment, students must interact with data, information, and technology despite rapidly changing conditions. In so doing, they must come to recognize the issues that complicate discovery, use, and creation of information, including economic, social, legal, and ethical aspects. Global and local forces such as natural disaster or war that interrupt or prevent access to information, and techno-forces such as algorithmic editing of the web, the digital divide, and the spread of misinformation and disinformation online are explored by students in the course as they learn research strategy. Students are asked to challenge their own cognitive biases as they seek out diverse voices representing multiple points of view and a variety of stakeholders.

Roach’s work on this project was presented at the 2016 Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum Symposium at Stanford University, is featured on the Stanford Global Studies website, and in the August 2016 issue of the International and Foreign Language Education Newsletter from the U.S. Department of Education. Roach presented on topics developed for the project at CSM’s World Village celebration in November 2016.