CreaComp

Competency 1.1

Search and source information

Boundary this domain concerns our relationship to the content we receive. It judges content and cultures, never technical systems — understanding algorithms, platforms and data belongs to the Analyse domain.

Definition

Deploying effective search strategies across varied environments (search engines, social platforms, documentary databases, conversational AI), identifying the nature and origin of sources, and systematically tracing information back to its primary form. This competency grounds all the others: you cannot create soundly from false material, or from second-hand material whose origin you have not identified.

Components

  • Formulating and reformulating queries according to the tool (search engine, platform-internal search, prompt addressed to an AI)
  • A typology of sources: primary, secondary, tertiary; authoritative source, committed source, anonymous source
  • Tracing viral information back to its origin: first emitter, date, initial context
  • Reverse-search techniques (image, excerpt, quotation) to recover provenance
  • Assembling a coherent documentary corpus in preparation for a creative work

The four levels

  1. N1 Discovery Lower secondary · complete beginner

    Is able to formulate a search by varying keywords, and to identify the author, date and medium of a piece of content found.

    Evidence of assessment

    Trace the origin (author, date, initial context) of a simple viral image or item of information.

  2. N2 Application Upper secondary · advanced beginner

    Is able to cross-check at least three independent sources on the same subject and to distinguish a primary source from a repost.

    Evidence of assessment

    Assemble a sourced dossier on a current topic, with an explicit hierarchy of sources.

  3. N3 Adaptation Tertiary · junior professional

    Is able to build a multi-tool search strategy (engines, specialised databases, AI, archives) adapted to a precise creative objective.

    Evidence of assessment

    Produce the methodological research note that prepared a piece of content actually published.

  4. N4 Orchestration Experienced professional

    Is able to design a reproducible sourcing methodology for a newsroom or a collective project, and to arbitrate cases where sources contradict one another.

    Evidence of assessment

    Produce a sourcing guide applied to five documented real cases, including two disputed ones and how they were settled.