A collaboration between a Viterbi professor and librarian earned an award from the Modern Language Association this year. (Sammy Bovitz)
Arianne de Trenck has done research many times before, but she wasn’t always confident if the information she had found was legitimate or even relevant to what she was looking for. This semester, that has finally changed.
“I have a lot more tools for making sure that the studies I’m using, or the articles I’m using, are actually legit,” de Trenck said. “I didn’t even know that we could search articles and get access to academic articles through the USC Libraries, which I probably should have known.”
We currently sit in a crisis of information literacy, even as resources like the USC Libraries remain readily available to students. Accurate and deeply researched information is out there, but many students have never learned how to find it.
Helen Choi, an associate professor of technical communication practice at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, would often discuss this issue with head science and engineering librarian Cari Kaurloto. She eventually invited Kaurloto to her advanced Writing 340 class, the required upper-division writing course for all USC students. Together, they developed a new idea for reaching those students.
“I noticed that in the writing class, [one class] was not enough to teach students how to use the library, and more importantly, why it was important to learn certain techniques and strategies for research in general,” Choi said. “So, we got together, thinking, ‘We can make a whole class out of this.’”
The duo then proposed, developed and are now co-teaching a new course to give students the tools they need: “Information Literacy: Navigating Digital Misinformation,” which is currently completing its first year at the USC Viterbi School after launching this spring. The course recently won the Collaboration for Information Literacy Prize from the Modern Language Association (MLA) and research database company EBSCO.
“Looking for information is a life skill that all of us need,” Choi said. “I assumed that students knew a lot about social media misinformation and AI because they’re prolific users and have grown up with devices. But I was surprised to learn that many students do not know why and how misinformation is so easily disseminated. And while many think about AI tools as a means of making funny videos, they might not be aware of the important ethical questions surrounding the ways in which AI companies train their products with the work of others without consent or compensation.”
Stephen Bucher, a USC Viterbi professor of technical communication practice and the director of the Engineering in Society Program (EIS), is thrilled with the new class.
“This course is an invaluable addition to the Viterbi curricular landscape,” Bucher said. “Helping students to be able to discern facts from misinformation is becoming more important every day, and this skill is an important characteristic of a trustworthy engineer.”
In fact, the class is so important that it motivates students to begin their USC Viterbi journey, including de Trenck, a junior majoring in game art at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. De Trenck had planned on adding a computer programming minor for years, but this class pushed her to declare the minor just so she could take it this semester.
“I declared it really quick so that I could take this class,” de Trenck said. “I’ve seen so much about how there’s misinformation on social media, on the Internet… So, I wanted to learn more about how to root that out.”
The course has many goals in mind, but it all centers around how students look for and understand information. This is a useful practice even beyond the world of engineering: it also helps students recognize what they see when they’re scrolling,” said Bucher, the EIS director.
“Hearing and conveying truthful information are really important, especially in the age of AI,” Bucher added. “Finding information is no problem. Finding accurate information is a little trickier.”
That said, this class isn’t all about the students just being lectured to about information skills. Choi and Kaurloto, as co-teachers of the discussion-based class, said they welcome the wide-ranging conversations with unique Gen-Z viewpoints in mind.
“We’re all from different generations and backgrounds, so it’s really fun hearing the current conversation, or what students today are working with and dealing with in their college environment,” Kaurloto said.
The students, for their part, have become fans of the two professors leading the conversation.
“I really love the professors for this course,” de Trenck said. “They’re really nice, but they’re also informative. Every time we have an in-class assignment, they’re always sitting there — and then I’ll go up and ask them a question, we’ll have a whole conversation, and I’ll learn something new. It’s great.”
Nathaniel Lam Johnson, a senior majoring in computer science, advised incoming Viterbi students to take this class as soon as they could.
“I really do think it’s one of the better classes to start off your undergraduate career at in Viterbi,” Johnson said. “There’s just so many foundational skills that you’re not going to learn anywhere else. You’re not going to be there just blindly struggling in the dark, learning how to do good research, how to use the USC Libraries’ website. This is an actual unit where you learn how to use it.”
Published on December 17th, 2025
Last updated on December 17th, 2025
