I’m Elizabeth Ramsey, an Associate Professor and Librarian at Boise State University’s Albertson Library. This course could not have been deployed for the first time without the assistance of Associate Library Academic Program Coordinator, Danielle Worthy. The first member of the Disinfo Squad, Valeryn Shepherd, was also a contributor to this resource through his reviews of the course material.

I developed this 8-week course as part of a grant project funded by the Department of Homeland Security’s Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program. The project, Raising Societal Awareness, Media Literacy and Online Critical, Youth Resilience Programs Thinking Initiatives, is listed under 2021 Promising Practices. The Media Literacy Reference Desk referred to in the project description developed into a more proactive group that we called the Disinfo Squad. Squad members completed 5-7 hours of weekly assignments on their own, then met in person for a 2-hour weekly lab at Boise State University’s Albertsons Library as part of their training to be social media influencers and educators.

Our overarching mission was to be an active part of the community, creating live and virtual opportunities to interact with people on campus and in the Boise area as information literacy ambassadors. The project objectives, Spring 2023 Job Description and Disinfo Squad Expectations are included in the Appendix in case you’re interested in using this resource to create your own Disinfo Squad.

You’ll find that a number of the course assignments refer to an online guide, the Disinformation Debunking Station. The guide is part of a collection of guides related to information literacy objectives developed by the staff at Albertsons Library. The Disinfo Debunking guide was created as a community resource, so it largely relies on freely available resources rather than literature that lives behind paywalls. You are welcome to use it in your own coursework.

Unfortunately, not all of the resources in this course are freely available, as all too much peer reviewed research still lives behind paywalls. Links are provided when access is freely available. Citations are provided for those resources that require subscriptions to access in Weeks 6 and 7. Those affiliated with Boise State can use the “Boise State Access” links at the end of citations to get to subscription resources. If you do not have Boise State credentials, contact your local librarian for help in accessing those items.

Fortunately, the News Literacy Project has made their excellent Checkology course freely available. A number of modules in the Checkology course were used in Weeks 1, 4, 5, and 6 of Disinfo Squad training, so you’ll have to set up your own course and add the necessary modules to use those assignments. Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about any of the assignments included in this course at elizabethramsey@boisestate.edu.

I’m grateful to my supervisor, Assistant Professor and Librarian Georgann Kurtz-Shaw, who has been supportive throughout the grant process. I also want to thank the grant lead, Isaac Castellano, Clinical Assistant Professor in Political Science, and the super efficient research administration team of the School of Public Service, especially our point of contact for the project, Britney Whiting-Looze. Thank you all!