Collaborative online writing necessitates new types of information literacy skills. Students write blogs on WordPress, post content to social media sites like Facebook, read breaking news on Twitter, and discover information on Wikipedia. These practices have led to a paradigmatic break with conventional literacy practices from even a few years ago. A recent qualitative study examines the information assessment methods of high school students while they build a collaborative online information source.
The study investigated high school students at two educational institutions—one was a top-ranked suburban public school, another was a private suburban high school with a 100% graduation rate. It focused on two major research questions. First, how do high school students assess and understand information sources when they are within an open collaboration framework? And second, how does producing information sources affect this understanding?