Tag Archives: dissertation

Dissertation Week Reflection

Posted on by
Reply
Dissertation Fair presentation

Dissertation Fair : #WeHaveGreatStuff – Rachel Hosker, Archives Manager and Deputy Head of Special Collections

It’s the final day of our very first Dissertation week at Edinburgh University Library. Here are some reflections and impressions of how it all went.

What we did
Our Dissertation week highlighted over 20 events delivered by the Library Academic Support Team, Research Data Management Team, Centre for Research Collections, Institute for Academic Development and Digital Skills team which could help students make the most of their dissertation experience. With some of these being delivered online, these events were able to reach a wide audience. A Dissertation Week guide https://edinburgh-uk.libguides.com/dissertation supported a timetabled social media campaign and will form a curated collection of the rich range of resources and support. We were able to incorporate student voices into these resources, with the School of LLC supplying a video clip on dissertation tips written by Francesca Triggs, a former LLC student, as well as including ‘Data Mindfulness’ videos by PhD student Candela Espeso Sanchez-Rodilla.

At the heart of Dissertation Week was a brand new Dissertation Fair event, which focused on exploring what library resources are available to support a research question, and managing the bibliographic and research data students find. The stalls at the fair featured not only our University teams but also digital resource suppliers, the National Library of Scotland and National Museums Scotland Libraries. Over 100 staff and student attended the Dissertation Fair and the programme of bookable presentation sessions which accompanied the Fair.

What staff thought
We were pleased that several Dissertation Course Convenors for Schools and Subject areas across the University were able to attend the event and delighted with their obvious enthusiasm. These academic staff spent time talking to Dissertation Fair stallholders and at the staff preview lunch. “Absolutely brilliant” was the comment from a paediatric surgeon who spent at least an hour there. One member of staff had moved his timetabled classes so that his students would be able to attend the Dissertation Fair. Others talked about how they wanted to integrate the event into their future programmes for dissertation students. One commented, “We’d like to be part of a discussion about how we can make as much of this as possible available to our online students”.

What students thought
We had 122 pre-registrations for the Dissertation Fair event which was encouraging, and on the day, students were engaged and enthusiastic. One commented that the most useful part of the event had been “Talking with all the stalls. Found out so many things and places to research I didn’t think about”. Lots of students had positive comments about the presentation sessions which gave in-depth introductions to digital resources.

What we thought
Planning this event, in close collaboration with the Centre for Research Collections and the Research Data Management team, generated a lot of energy and creativity in the Library Academic Support Team. This was rewarded by the successful turnout to events, but even more so by the depth of engagement that we had with visitors to the Dissertation Fair day. One colleague commented, “Of all the student & staff facing events I have been involved in over the years – and there have been many – I felt that we were making a very real impact yesterday.”

What we’ll do next
We received 67 feedback responses from the 171 attendees across all of the Dissertation Fair events on 14 November, and we’ll be taking time to look at these and learn from them. We’d like to run the Dissertation Week and Fair again, potentially in semester 2, 2020. Next time around we think we can make it bigger and better, and we’d like to have greater student involvement in planning and developing Dissertation Week. Watch this space.

If you would like to get in touch about Dissertation Week, please contact Christine Love-Rodgers Christine.Love-Rodgers@ed.ac.uk

How using a reference manager can help you manage the references for your dissertation

Posted on by
Reply

Finding literature and gathering references from here, there and everywhere? Don’t want to get to a few days before hand in and realise you don’t have the full details of one (or more) important articles/books/etc., to cite properly? Find typing up your citations and bibliographies time consuming? Well, reference managers may be exactly what you are looking for.

Why do you need to use a reference manager?

When you are collecting information from a variety of sources, it can all overwhelm before you know it!  A reference manager can help you by providing a space to keep all your references in one place. You can both create references manually or import from external source such as database. You then have the option to annotate them and/or keep them in different folder.

It gets better!

When you are working on your dissertation, you can cite your reference in your work as you write. The reference manager will insert the references for you in your particular style, e.g. Harvard, MLA, Chicago, APA, etc., and create your bibliography at the same time. Continue reading →

Getting Beyond Google Scholar – great tools to help you find information for your dissertation

Posted on by
Reply

Are you planning on consulting Google Scholar to find literature for your dissertation? While it is very easy to use and can be a good place to start, particularly since you can set it to retrieve what we have in the Library, it does have its limitations. As its coverage is not clear, you cannot be sure just what you might be missing with Google. Which is where the Library can help!

Details from the ceiling space of the McEwan Hall during the 2016 refurbishment of the building. © The University of Edinburgh

We offer a whole range of electronic ‘finding’ tools and resources, across a broad range of subject areas, to help you locate the research literature and other information for your topic. Although we have pulled them together as ‘databases’, you will find they present a mixture of bibliographic databases and other searchable full-text resources.

So why use them?

Continue reading →

Dissertation Fair 14th Nov

Posted on by
Reply

Dissertation Week starts next week (11-15th Nov).  Today we focus on the Dissertation Fair on Thursday 14th Nov. The Fair highlights the range of resources and support available across the University, including the Institute for Academic Development, IS Digital Skills and more. Come along to find out more.

Attending:
Centre for Research Collections(*);
Library Academic Support; Institute for Academic Development; IS Digital Skills; Research Data Service 

Adam Matthew(*); Gale(*); Proquest(*); SAGE Research Methods(*)

National Library of Scotland; National Museum Scotland Libraries

(*) Attending and presenting.

There are a number of presentations throughout the day.

Exploring ProQuest Primary and Secondary Resources to Improve your Dissertation  – Ali Nazari-Nouri, Proquest

Join Ali Nazari-Nouri, Training and Consulting Partner at ProQuest, to learn about the wide variety of primary and secondary sources that are available at the University of Edinburgh and how you could utilise these resources to explore and collate the necessary information for your dissertation.
Time: 10:10 – 11:00
Register here

 

Using Primary Sources to Improve Your Dissertation – Dr Laura Blomvall, Adam Matthew

Critical engagement with primary sources is an essential component of a successful dissertation in arts and humanities. As a student at Edinburgh you have access to films, diaries, theatre records, historical newspapers and government files from archives around the world through Adam Matthew Digital primary source collections, covering periods from the Middle Ages to the 21st century.

Dr Laura Blomvall, Product Specialist in the Outreach team of Adam Matthew, will talk you through Edinburgh’s collections, from Shakespeare’s Globe Archive to Service Newspapers of World War Two, from Foreign Office Files for China to Literary Print Culture, from Mass Observation Online to Eighteenth-Century Journals. She will give you tips on how to navigate archival material online and how to use primary sources to enrich, enliven and expand your dissertation.
Time: 11:00 – 11:50
Register here

Dissertation Fair
Time: 13:30 – 16:30
Register here

We Have Great Stuff – Rachel Hosker, Deputy Head of Special Collections and Archives Manager at the University of Edinburgh

The University holds a vast range of rare/unique material including manuscripts and archives, rare books, photographs, printed and handwritten music, theses and microforms. Hear more about the University’s Collections and the interesting ways they have been used.
Time: 13:10 – 14:00
Register here 

Fake News vs Real News: Discovering News Sources (Digital Skills)

In this half hour session you will learn:
How to spot fake news and check your facts.
How to find trusted news sources provided by the University of Edinburgh.
Time: 13:15 – 13:45
Register here

Sage Research Methods: What every researcher needs  – Jordan Brooks, SAGE

SAGE Research Methods supports research at all levels by providing material to guide users through every step of the research process. Resources range from books and reference, to case studies, academic video, and exclusive research tools. Join Jordan Brooks from SAGE Publishing to find out more about how you can make the most of this resource for your own research activities!
Time: 14:10 – 15:00
Register here

Gale Primary Sources for your Dissertation: Archives and Platform – Martin McCall and Carolyn Beckford from Gale

The University of Edinburgh has access to a fantastic collection of primary source archives from Gale, covering centuries of content. Including, historical newspapers from the British Library, as well as The Times, The Economist and The Daily Mail, literature drama and plays from the 18th and 19th centuries and thematic collections such as the Archives of Sexuality and Gender.

As part of Dissertation Week at the Library, Martin McCall and Carolyn Beckford from Gale, will introduce a number of these archives as well the Gale Primary Sources platform, where these archives are cross-searchable. The Gale Primary Sources platform greatly enhances the research experience for students and researchers by broadening their discovery of primary source documents through the use of multiple search options and powerful research tools, such as:

Topic Finder – which allows users to explore the frequency of one or more search terms in the content over time, which can suggest the changing importance of particular concepts over time

Term Frequency – where users can discover related terms that commonly occur in relation to their own search term, which helps uncover hidden connections, or can be a helpful starting point in the early stages of research.
Time: 15:10 – 16:00
Register here 

More information at https://edinburgh-uk.libguides.com/dissertation

 

Making the Most of Your Dissertation Week

Posted on by
3

For the first time at the University of Edinburgh Library we are planning to hold a Dissertation Week in November 11-15 2019. This week is all about how the Library can support the student dissertation experience : from exploring what library resources are available to support a research question, to managing the bibliographic and research data students find. During the week a series of events will highlight the training, support and resources we offer to our undergraduate and taught postgraduate students undertaking their dissertations, as well as staff supervising dissertations.

Dissertation Fair : Thursday 14 November
At the heart of the week will be a Dissertations Fair event on Thursday 14th November, held at the Main Library. We’ll be inviting academic staff supporting student dissertations to a preview of the fair, which will host stalls from digital resource suppliers alongside other stalls run by Library teams including Library Academic Support, Research Support and the Centre for Research Collections. Running alongside will be a programme of presentation sessions on library services and digital resources. In the afternoon, the event will be open to undergraduate and postgraduate students to attend.