Promoting information literacy with EDS

Katherine Rose Information Systems Librarian Regent’s University London

Regent’s University London interesting times… Higher education on the site since 1908 through Bedford College Regent’s College grew out of different educational institutions 1984 – 2009 Became a University and acquired AIU London in April 2013

We are… An independent university A charity A not-for-profit higher education formed of seven schools A multisite Library service with c. 50,000 items

Let’s start with RULDiscovery… EBSCO Discovery Service, chosen in summer 2012 Implementation: August – October 2013 Launch: October 31st 2013 Search box integrated in Blackboard, created referring URL and access button on intranet

Why now…? Shift of culture at Regent’s, moving from a small college to TDAP university Increasingly research-focused Expansion of Library: new positions, new site, new expectations Need to maximise usage of eresources

Information literacy (or what it means to us…) SOURCES RESEARCH USING YOUR MATERIAL

SOURCES Basic understanding of different sources Different sources are good for different things How to tell what kind of source a piece of writing comes from

How does RULDiscovery help? We start our RULDiscovery sessions by pointing our the Resource type limiter and talking about different types of sources

Identifying where it comes from… Before introducing the referencing function on RULDiscovery, we talk through the source information on the record, showing different examples so students can start to identify what comes from an academic journal.

Introducing students to the concept of peer review… We ask the students what peer review is, talk about what it means (sometimes using audience participation!) and then describe what peer review material is useful for.

Thinking around your topic Following the trail to more information RESEARCH Searching Thinking around your topic Following the trail to more information

Creating searches… We don’t usually introduce our students to the Advanced Search screen, we focus on the drop-down options on the Basic Search box and introduce the AND and the “” operators

Thinking around your topic… We introduce the idea of keywords and breaking a topic down into bite-sized search terms, and then show students to Subject limiter.

Following the trail… We encourage students to follow references/ other issue options to build their research base

USING YOUR MATERIAL Storing Organising Referencing

Personal folders… We push our staff and students to create their own folders, some lecturers have made it a mandatory exercise for their students.

Organising material… We recommend creating Custom folders, but not Sharing folders – much simpler in Dropbox!

The Export options have prompted Directorate to keep on our subscription to EndNote for another year and we are running a new training course on EndNote and RULDiscovery next term. We show the citation option only with the approval of each lecturer. Referencing…

Building collaborations… Key academic contacts Strong links with Learning Technology team, help with training videos etc. Growing collaboration with Study Skills Tutor (Project Management Office, Marketing and Communications, IT)

Thanks for listening Any questions. Katherine Rose Katherine Thanks for listening Any questions? Katherine Rose Katherine.rose@regents.ac.uk