Course write up - Web of Knowledge Update Training workshop Nov 2012

This update session focussed on features and enhancements recently applied and also looked at forthcoming features. The event was a mixture of presentations and hands-on practical searching.

I was interested in attending this event because I do not use WoK frequently and needed to know more about it before promoting it further within the Faculty and to the PhD students.

The agenda for the event covered the following topics.

Search engine and navigation enhancements

>> you can now use ‘left-hand truncation’. For example: *saccharide retrieves polysaccharide/sialylsaccharide/eligosaccharide.

Alerting enhancements

>>if you have a personal account for WoK you can now renew all your search and citation alerts simultaneously.

Author identification enhancements – improved author finder tool and ResearcherID now searchable across WoK

>> an updated Author Search option in the Web of Science guides you through a series of steps that are designed to disambiguate common author surnames. You type in a surname and initial; select the author’s research domain and then choose their organisation from the list. This search might be useful if you are looking up an author and you have some background information on them. As a warning, this search is only as good as the information you have available on the author and frankly is rather fiddly.

>> try the Author Search by looking for Stephen Hawking.

Cited reference enhancements

>> the Cited Reference links now display the full reference of the citing article – so it has more in common with the Cited by links in Google Scholar.

ResearcherID and ORCID integration

>>For me, this was the most interesting piece of information gained at the workshop. Researchers can set up a personal ResearcherID (basically a code that is unique to them; the code is attached to all their research output indexed in the WoK). This ResearcherID only works in WoK however a new ID option is gaining popularity – ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID).

ORCID is rapidly becoming the preferred ID option because it can be used across multiple database platforms rather than just WoK.  So if a researcher has an article indexed in WoK or Medline their ORCID will be displayed in both databases – allowing the researcher to get maximum exposure and for readers to follow ORCID links and see the researcher’s full output. ORCID allows researchers to attach their ID to their research output. See http://about.orcid.org/

Introduction to the new Data Citation Index

>>This is a new database in WoK – it provides a single point of access to research data from repositories across disciplines and around the world. Most of these repositories contain data sets such as statistics about ice and snow levels from The National Snow and Ice Data Centre. Essentially it offers access to sets of data which can be used in research. Most (but not all) of the repositories seem to be freely available so the Data Citation Index acts like a resource discovery tool.

>>Apparently there is no standard way to reference data sets so WoK provides a recommended way of citing the data.

In summary

There was a lot of jargon – taxonomic; supatax; DCI record; geospatial field….. this was a little tiring and not something that you could engage students with. The event was not particularly interactive – the group followed the presentation on their computers and then did a short worksheet. We sat in regimented rows and I only managed to speak to two other people! However, it was comforting to see that live demos can be problematic for everyone – search results looking different and resources on a go-slow.

I’m not convinced that undergraduate students would find this level of detail useful however there are some items that will be relevant to the PhD students  – I will be investigating the ORCID scheme further as this seems most relevant to the students I support.

Inductions: done and dusted

Inductions are done - well until April when I get a new cohort.

It has been exceptionally busy - busier than last year although I can't figure out why.

The last week included:

Two introductory talks for distance learning students who were visiting for their block placement. Always a treat to meet these students - not only are they lovely but I get to visit them at a 'Jane Austen' country house - the kind of place where you imagine taking a turn around the room and promenading in the garden for the afternoon!

A couple of student tutorials - squeezed in between this and that.

Three workshops on searching for evidence - I usually say that you can tell when a workshop is not going quite as planned (blank faces, confused faces etc) and I thought that was the case with all three of these workshops. However the students' comments at the end and on the evaluation sheets were all extremely positive. I think the session was forcing them to think about new search techniques and the strained faces were a sign of learning rather than not understanding.

A drop-in session for the final year students who are embarking on their dissertation - I had a queue form outside the door which I took as a compliment.

Wrote an article for the departmental newsletter about my work during the induction period - attempted to highlight all the non-tour type of induction work that goes on.

A lot of workshop planning for events looming in the coming weeks.

A couple of meetings in which I volunteered to run library update sessions at the next meeting. I vaguely remember saying something like "I'll do some stuff on copyright, linking to the VLE and e-Library troubleshooting". I have a feeling I may regret this next term when they only give me 5mins on the agenda.

Now that inductions are over I can focus on some workshop planning, book ordering and getting ready for next term. As a friend once said 'Academic librarians are for 3 years, not just the 1st semester'.

Inductions: going, going...

I'm in to the penulitmate week now - phew!

This week rattled by at the speed of sound.

1. Workshop on behalf of another colleague. Had a student who said she didn't 'do' university computers and proceeded to do the workshop using her iPad - how I marvelled (and fumed with jealousy) as I tried to get the mouse to work on my university computer.

2. Student tutorial - discussions about a set of articles and whether they were quantitative/qualitative/mixed methods.

3. The second workshop for my Foundation Degree students - refresher of last week; moving on to advanced searching and creating a search strategy for their assignment task.

4. A workshop for the Masters group - think I changed a few students' views about databases - they seemed to agree by the end that there are some full text articles there but you just have to click!

5. Staff tutorial on using reference management software for a project/keeping track of module reading lists.

6. A meeting about a project by three local universities - we're looking at student experience at one of our shared sites.

7. Lecture for new distance learning students who were here on their block placement - a bit wide-eyed and nervous but seemed happier as soon as I said all my slides would be on their VLE.

Next week is my last week of induction-type activities - I am looking forward to it - a lot.

Inductions: nearing the end

Nearly there - almost. Another busy week but there was some variety in terms of student groups.

The week began with a session for the new PhD recruits - the group spanned a range of subjects and specialist topics. Myself and a colleague attempted to engage them in conversation about the resources they already use, how they feel about literature searching and what sort of problems they have faced before when searching for literature. We wanted to gauge their confidence levels in terms of searching and - as we had guessed beforehand - there were some who seemed to bury their heads in the sand and ignore the fact that they might have to search for something and those who did it but didn't enjoy it. We tried to get them to share their favourite resources with each other and we've set up a wiki so they can continue to share as their researcher development course continues.

Mid-week I met some Foundation Degree students who - and obviously I'm making a sweeping general statement - always seem up for a laugh. No use for PhD type discussions with this group - they were desperate to know what a journal was. Their tutors and handbooks had all prattled on about journals and yet they had not actually shown them one, told them what it was or why it was useful. Once I had demystified journals we messed about putting search strategies together (they had to swap their keyword thoughts with the person next to them who had to try and think of more keywords on the same topic) and merrily clicked around on databases whilst working out what all the buttons did. This was their gentle starter workshop - next week I will whip them all into shape and get them started on their assignment.

I ended one day this week with a call from a publisher who wanted to ask about budgets and my selection criteria for online resources. I can't remember the exact details but my replies were along the lines of 'I do indeed have a policy I refer to when selecting new resources for the online collections but it all goes out the window when you tell me the cost of the resource'. Still they were very nice and got the feeling that they had heard that response a lot that day.

I managed to fit in three walking tours of our 4 storey building and another orientation activity complete with tour/worksheet/freebies. Plus a couple of student tutorials; writing my appraisal objectives for this academic year and planning some upcoming workshops.

I have endless emails tagged with little red flags but they'll sort themselves out at some point....

Inductions: technical hitches

Another week of inductions done and it was certainly eventful.

Day one was spent helping with a couple of orientation events for other subjects; advertising some drop-in sessions for dissertation students; organising workshops/rooms for more courses in the Autumn term and answering emails from my Chartership mentees. My main aim was to clear my inbox because I knew that on day two I would be unable to check my email.

And on to day two - in my diary I had written "busiest day of year!". What I had forgotten to do was to find a four leaf clover; dig out my lucky charm and cross my fingers (and toes).

First up was a lecture for two hundred students. On arriving at the lecture theatre (early, in order to test and set up) I found that the projector was not working and there was no spare bulb available. After a discussion with the tutor we decided it was best to cancel the lecture - no slides, no internet and no other room to move to made achieving the aim of troubleshooting database problems rather tricky. So it was time to operate the back up plan - meaning that at some point in the next few weeks I shall have to talk to each of the 10 groups involved individually.

Next was the same lecture but for the other 200 students in the year. Projector working - check; students - check; me - check; microphones - no; dimmed lighting - no. I spent 45 minutes almost shouting at students who were mostly sat in darkness except for the light emitted from my PowerPoint slides. A tricky morning.

Then the afternoon. Three groups of 50 for a database searching workshop - oh and no access to the databases because the e-Library was having a tantrum. Another back up plan was unleashed - I talked about databases and why we use them etc; showed them some screencasts of their key databases and got them to ask me any question they wanted to about the library. The time passed but it certainly didn't give them hands-on searching practise which was my main aim - their timetables are so tight that I can't scheduled more workshop so this may come back to bite us later in the term.

As you can see from the previous three paragraphs it was a trying day where I was thwarted by technical hitches and glitches. It proved to be a long day and one that I am still trying to erase from my memory.

Day three was much improved - a bit of planning for a workshop to be delivered to the new PhD students; a couple of meetings with colleagues and two more tours.

Day 4 was back to workshops again - same workshop delivered four times. Only one technical hitch involving a very slow database - think it was using a card catalogue to search for its journal articles.

Final day saw another lecture and many questions about e-resources. They students did a lot of furious scribbling so hopefully they took away some hints and tips for their assignments. One more orientation tour and a tour for one student who had missed their slot meant my legs were very tired by 5pm.

A long, busy week featuring some hiccups but I still had lots of students say thank you for the advice/support supplied.

So that's four weeks done - only another 4 weeks to go until things get a little calmer (fingers crossed xx).

Inductions: my oh my!

What a week. Busy, manic, busy and exhausting.

The week began by delivering a one hour lecture to the new first year students. They have started a two week academic skills module where I meet them three times. The lecture was about what is information, why do we use it and where can we find health and social care information? We talked about books, journals (because often they have not heard of them before) and databases. It was a full-house in the lecture theatre and miraculously everything went to plan - including the IT. We played a game to introduce Boolean and they were quite happy to shout out when I asked them questions. I had to deliver the lecture twice to cover all the students on the course so I was worn out by the end. I don't know what I did to deserve it but I spent the rest of the afternoon at a Quality meeting!

I ran seven orientation sessions (each lasting 1 hour) over 1.5 days. Good attendance and some of the tutors joined in with their students. Most of them engaged in full with the talk/tour and task but inevitably there were some who preferred to do as little as possible - I usually find they are the ones who get to the third year and still haven't used a database. Still you can't take a horse to water...

Mid-week I managed to deal with all the emails I had red-flagged and photocopy everything I needed for the rest of the week. It's difficult to keep up with the induction timetable yet alone do 'normal' work in addition. I also got lots of requests from students to meet for search tutorials - I've had to tell them all I'm fully booked for the next 3 weeks. I always send them guides and hints and tips to keep them going in the meantime but it feels bad to keep them waiting. Most of them understand that my time is currently consumed by meeting the new students but some get a little cranky.

The end of the week saw me deliver two more lectures for the third year dissertation students. They were furiously scribbling down everything I said about truncation and wildcard searches so I think I hit the nail on the head with content. I demonstrated reference management software and got a round of applause. We had the usual banter about why I didn't show it to them in the first year but they were keen to try it out for themselves. Just before I left for the weekend one of the students sent me a lovely email. He said that he had previously cross-searched lots of databases but had tried my suggestion of using one at a time and making full use of their limit/refining functions. Apparently it has changed his searching habits and he was surprised and relived to find he got lots of relevant, quality articles in his results list. Hearing things like this is greatly rewarding and is validation for all the time spent creating the presentation. I've saved the email in my special 'Comments' folder as such emails come in handy for appraisal/end of year review time.

It was a very tiring but rewarding week. From looking at the timetable next week looks to be more of the same - hopefully my voice will not diminish from croak to whisper....

Inductions: a pause in proceedings

This week was a little calmer - thankfully. It consisted of:

a) a meeting with one of my Chartership mentees.

b) two student tutorials where I offered assistance with developing keywords and accessing the full-text. One of the students had compiled a rather extensive and impressive Boolean connected concoction of keywords. It was a valiant attempt but they had ended up in a bit of a pickle. Once we had unpicked it all became much clearer and they are now finding articles here, there and everywhere.

c) a refresher workshop for a group of MSc students - they were bowled over by reference management software.

d) a meeting with a colleague to 'thought-shower' ideas for some workshops the team is putting together for a new cohort of PhD students. I always think we'll be discussing advanced search techniques and how to access various archives elsewhere but every year they want (and need) the same old talk covering logging-in/passwords/explaining what databases are for. One day they'll surprise me and ask about truncation or institutional repositories!

e) a couple of tours - more practise for next week. I'm almost on auto-pilot now.

f) I showed a librarian, from a nearby University, around my library. They were impressed with the facilities and we exchanged library-gossip.

g) one team meeting looking at last minute preparation for upcoming inductions and a discussion about the business plan for this year.

h) I had to return my journal renewals spreadsheet to our Periodicals librarian. I've basically signed up for another 12 months of expensive material that will probably go up in price without any real explanation and wipe out the budget by Christmas. But hey ho that's journals.

i) the last task of the week was to run a library orientation activity for library staff in order to refresh their memories for this year's inductions. They will be helping out with some of the scheduled activities.

A busy but relatively calm week. I've looked at the timetable for next week - my feet are hurting at the thought of all the upcoming walking tours.... see you on the other side.