I've run two session from this weeks programme (Enhancing Employability, and Effective Presentation) and really enjoyed the use of MindMup (http://mindmup.com) as a means of collective ideas from those attending. I was particularly pleased when I asking what they wanted from the session, when one attendees said, learn how to use the tool you are using to collect and manage our ideas.
If you'd like to know more about MindMup, it's referenced within the following slides.
Getting organised with RefWorks
Finding a way to keep track of and organise your sources of information can seem daunting at first but RefWorks can help, and anything that helps must be good. RefWorks seamlessly integrates with our online resources, converts your references into UCS Harvard, UCS APA or Footnotes and can generate a bibliography for you.
Wednesday’s workshop covered setting up and customising your account, creating folders and organising your references, where to find referencing help, importing from Summon and a database, 360 linking and creating your bibliography.
The group included a mix of levels and subject areas, some students had knowledge of resources beyond Summon and some were just at the start of their studies, for this reason I selected Proquest Central as the database to use for importing references into RefWorks. I also felt confident that I wouldn’t have any technical difficulties as the products come from the same company. For the majority of students the export worked, but for a handful there were technical issues where we waited for RefWorks to respond.
As is the way with mixed groups some students forge ahead with confidence while others take a little more time and while most databases are straight forward to use Pubmed is one of the exceptions - so it was good to see that the students who queried how to use Pubmed with RefWorks managed to work out how to do it from the hand-out, this gave me the opportunity to help those who needed it.
Everyone managed to get the basics covered, but there were a number of additional tools and topics that we could have covered if there had been time, creating an entry from scratch, installing Write-n-Cite (a tool to integrate RefWorks with Word to manage in-text citations) and RefGrab-it are just a few - maybe a second session on more advanced techniques is the answer?
Finally, how might you start thinking about enhancing your employability through a more effective online presence? The following, might help, and arrange to see a member of the Careers Team.
If you have any questions concerning the workshop programme or other development and suport opportunities, please email learningservices@ucs.ac.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment