It is important for students to be able to use reliable sources in courses they are taking or for their thesis. It can also be useful to make use of online news articles.
This educational research project at Utrecht University collaborates with Sourcer (https://getsourcer.com), an organization that provides a tool that helps students self-assess the reliability of online news articles. We would like to know what students' experiences are with this tool.
Therefore, in this exploratory project, we are asking students if they could test this tool for us. Participation is, of course, completely voluntary. Moreover, they can decide to stop their participation at any time, should they change their mind later. They also sign an informed consent form. REBO's ethics committee has approved this educational research project. S
When students participate, we install the tool on the laptop they use when they search for online news articles for a course or their thesis. This is a tracker they use only for the news articles they find online and use. So only the results of their searches for online news articles are tracked (anonymized, not traceable to their person), their other searches on the Internet are not tracked. And the answers to the questions abut their experiences with Sourcer, we will ask them, after the project, about their experiences with this  tool cannot be traced back to their person either.

• prof. dr. Eugène Loos
• prof. dr. ir. Marcel Boumans
• prof. dr. Bruce Mutsvairo
• dr. Rianne van Lambalgen
• dr. Marie-Louise Goudeau

• Wout Haakman MSc

MECCA aims to identify adaptation and mitigation strategies by analyzing the gap between stakeholder’s perceptions of change and risk and projected impacts of human activities under changing climatic conditions in East Africa (Lake Victoria) and West Africa (Lagos). For more information see: MECCA website

• dr. Karlijn van den Broek