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Welcome back to the Student Hub Live. So we've shown you the Open University Library. And you'll have noticed that there was some module material in there, but very few books and archives and things like that, a lot of services going on and a lot of help.
So, I have two very friendly librarians with me today, Katherine Moore and Wendy Chalmers. And we are going to talk about what library services do for you. Now, this is your chance to ask questions.
And, Katherine, as you have said before, the only foolish question is one you don't ask, which I think is very, very true. Now, you've both worked at the OU for quite some time in a variety of various different roles. You've worked on the help desk answering questions. You've done online training sessions, of which you do a lot. But over the years, you've answered many, many different questions. And we've got some already that we've organised from students about the most popular things that we think they'd like to know. But why don't you put your questions in the chat as well? And Zach and Moroya are going to add those to the conversation as we go through.
OK, so shall we start with a question, or would you like to briefly explain what the library does first?
KATHERINE MOORE: Oh, let's explain what the library does. So as you would expect, we give you access to loads of online resources, e-books, journals, articles, and some more exciting things, things like online versions of paintings, statues, film. As well as that, we provide training for how to use that, how to reference. What other training do we provide that I've forgotten?
WENDY CHALMERS: Well, we have our online training and our library training events, which we run regularly. And information is available on the library website. But we also work quite closely with module teams. So if students are asked to do some independent research, find articles, find material for their assignments, we try and work with module teams to make sure students have enough, there's enough support there in the module so it's not too daunting a task for them.
MODERATOR: I know many people who continue studying to have access to the OU library because, all jokes aside, it is one of the best library services. I mean, you subscribe to so many services that cost a fortune. I mean, when you try and go onto Google Scholar and download some of these papers, 60 pounds for an article. I'm not paying, and it's all free.
And also, you've got books and various things going on. So you provide an amazing service. But our students are incredibly excited. And I sort of want to give them a cautious note about going off to the library and finding all of this amazing stuff, because whilst you help and support things, and whilst things are embedded, there is a sort of scaffold to some of this learning, whereby you start off with a lot of stuff, and then maybe level two, you'll start doing a bit of searching and literature review, and your referencing will probably happen all the time and stuff.
But there's a sort of level at which you need to source your own material, et cetera. So students at different levels are going to be coming to you for different things, which is great that you've got such a range of platforms there for them, from level 1, where they're going to be looking at some of those literacy skills and referencing skills, right up to level 3, where it's going to be literature reviews and compiling references and digital referencing tools and all those other things as well.
WENDY CHALMERS: That's right. So we really try and work with academics and module teams to build those skills up from level 1, level 2, and level 3. So hopefully, students will feel a little bit confident when they get to level 3, and they have to do some in-depth research for the projects.
MODERATOR: Now, you've mentioned some of the sessions you do. You do the online sessions. You've also got this fab live chat thing at any time of night. How does the nighttime one work? Because we were talking about Nightline before. So are you all in the library at night?
KATHERINE MOORE: Yeah.
MODERATOR: Because it closes.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
KATHERINE MOORE: So we're part of a co-operative, so that's US librarians who are trained librarians who work in universities over there answer our chats when we're out of hours, when we're happily asleep. They're able to answer OU students' questions. So we make sure that they have, the US librarians have a bank of information that they can call on that they still have their own, that students' answers are at their fingertips.
MODERATOR: So you've got a nice collaborative relationship. And you both help each other out through day or night. And so students can ask questions on that, can they?
WENDY CHALMERS: Yes.
KATHERINE MOORE: Yes.
WENDY CHALMERS: And American students, they're using the same type of resources. So in most of the cases, our partners can answer the questions. And if not, they're referred on to the OU library.
MODERATOR: And they send you their TMA questions?
[LAUGHTER]
MODERATOR: And you can find the answers.
WENDY CHALMERS: We offer advice and guidance.
MODERATOR: OK. Let's get some of these questions, then. Zach, could we have a question, then, from our audience?
WENDY CHALMERS: Definitely. I think the first question that I will get to is about referencing. Now, where was that? Yeah. So does the library provide any training for their OU students? Because I know that a lot of people want some help and guidance when approaching the library.
And Juliana actually mentioned as well, "How can I access library resources and do all these things close to home, as opposed to coming in and everything else?"
MODERATOR: All right. So where can Juliana access the library first?
KATHERINE MOORE: OK, so obviously, the online library, anywhere with an internet connection. But in terms of being able to access a physical library, the OU is part of something called the SCONUL access scheme. And what that does is it allows users to go and visit other university libraries and use their print resources and have a quiet place to study. The SCONUL access scheme is available to UK students. And more information can be found on the library website.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
WENDY CHALMERS: So as regards ...
KATHERINE MOORE: SCONUL.
WENDY CHALMERS: Yes.
KATHERINE MOORE: We had, other questions in there were online training ...
WENDY CHALMERS: And referencing as well.
ZACH: Yep.
WENDY CHALMERS: There is guidance on the library website on referencing. Under Help and Support, there is a referencing and plagiarism page, which will give lots of guidance. We also have an OU Harvard guide, which is a fairly extensive guide. But it's very easy to navigate. And you'll find examples of how to reference almost any type of material. For example, if you want to use a tweet and reference a tweet, you've come across a useful tweet. You want to use it in your assignment. You want to reference it. You'll find guidance in the OU Harvard guide.
I think one of most important things to think about referencing, well, you reference to provide evidence for your own arguments. But you're thinking about, can someone else find that sort of piece of information from the details I'm putting into the reference. So you're really thinking about the author, the title, and a link or a location for that particular source. And all that guidance is in the OU Harvard guide.
And we also have a collection of activities called Being Digital. And these are short, bite-size activities. And one of the pathways in that is referencing and plagiarism. So the really short activities which will come, give basic guidance on referencing. And of course, students should always look at the module sites as well, because they're usually quite good at giving the basic required guidance.
KATHERINE MOORE: We do also have a live engagement training session that talks about why you would reference and the absolute basics to try and demystify it and help students calm down, because we know it's something that does worry some students, often because you're just coming to it at the end of your assignment when actually, you've done an awful lot of work, and you just want to get the thing over and done with. But actually, that session, I think, really helps to sort of demystify and bring things back down to a calm level.
MODERATOR: So yeah, you've got a lot of material, though, and particularly a lot of material in the Harvard guide, which I know I'm always going on about being very long. But you do have a lot of ways of communicating with students, which I particularly like, because sometimes, you just want to help me I'm stuck. Sometimes, you want to, I would like to read a whole guide, because I'd like to understand it, or at least print it out. Sometimes, you might want to watch a video or watch an activity.
So all of this is sort of, I guess, looking at different ways of helping students. And different students will learn in different ways as well. But a lot of students, particularly new students, get very hung up on referencing, as you've said. Now, why is that? And should they be as worried as they are?
KATHERINE MOORE: I think a lot of the time, referencing is sort of lumped in with plagiarism. And students, a lot of the time wrongly, think if I put a comma in the wrong place, I will be accused of plagiarism. I will fail my assignment. Everything will go horribly wrong.
That's not the case at all. Plagiarism is intentionally saying I have bought an essay off the internet, or I've copied all this work, and I'm not going to be bothered to reference it, because I want to say it's all me. And that's very naughty. And very few of our students actually do that.
But they lump that in with the ins and outs of getting an absolutely perfect reference. And that's not true at all. But you can understand when students make that sort of error, that they will become a bit worried where there's actually no, just having, if you attempt to do, if you attempt to reference whenever you've used another piece of work, that's all you need to do to avoid plagiarism. And your references don't have to be perfect. They just need to be there.
MODERATOR: Absolutely. And if you're very interested in that, we did a whole session, a whole two hours on good academic practise, which included things like writing in your own words, acknowledging sources, primary and secondary sources. That's all available on YouTube from the Student Hub Live website. Or you can subscribe to the YouTube channel.
Juliana's just said that you've mentioned SCONUL, but she's in Germany. So can she access that system then from abroad?
KATHERINE MOORE: No. Unfortunately, SCONUL is only available in the UK.
MODERATOR: OK.
KATHERINE MOORE: SCONUL is an acronym. And I think one of the letters might even stand for UK.
But in terms of if you are abroad and wanting to be able to use other universities, so you've got a physical library space to study in, we do advise students to contact their local university and explain their situation and ask if they're able to use their library. But it's done on a sort of case-by-case basis. There's no way we could promise any access.
MODERATOR: How much do people need a library these days? I mean, I know you'll obviously say libraries are essential. My question, really, is that in the literature I've been looking at lately, I think only one of probably about 200 things I actually needed a book version of. Most of it, I could get online through either chapters of books or papers.
KATHERINE MOORE: So in terms of how much you need a library, it's essential. How much you need a physical library, I completely agree with you. It's not necessary at all.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
WENDY CHALMERS: A lot of students ...
KATHERINE MOORE: ... like to.
WENDY CHALMERS: ... use a local library for the study space. They like the quiet study space. They like the environment. And they do have the option of borrowing print books if they wish to.
KATHERINE MOORE: Yes, but it it's very much an optional ...
WENDY CHALMERS: Yes, yes.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
WENDY CHALMERS: And it's probably more, well, it's popular with our students. Postgraduate students, perhaps, in certain subjects will use them more. For example, perhaps art history, they may need to go out a bit and find the different types of sources.
MODERATOR: Yeah. OK, excellent. All right, other questions, Zach and Moroya?
MOROYA: Yeah. So I've got a question from a student, "I have a topic, and I need to research for my TMA, where do I start from?"
WENDY CHALMERS: Well, I think the first thing to think about is what type of material they want. Are they looking for journal articles? Are they looking for images, a report, a book chapter? And then you probably look at your module site and see if there's any recommended material. And also look at the references included in the module, because you may well want to follow up those references.
And a good way to follow up references is Library Search. So, Library Search searches across the majority of the library's sources. So if you simply want to find a journal article or a book, just simply pop the title into Library Search, and you will, most often, be able to retrieve it very quickly.
We have databases which you can search. We have generic databases or multi-disciplinary databases. And they're quite useful to do a topic search. But we also have subject-specific databases, for example, PsycINFO for psychology students, Literature Online, a whole range of subject-specific databases. So those are good starting points.
And if you're not sure which one to use, there's a section on the library website, and it's called Select Resources for Your Study. So simply go there, go to art history, go to biology or business, and you'll find the relevant databases for you. So just enter your search terms once you've thought about them, and hopefully, you should find useful material.
There's also lots of material freely available, although the library's massive. But sometimes, you, for example, you might want to look for a report, for example, Oxfam or the World Bank. And there's some really good material out there. So, to go to some of these key organisations is also quite useful, but also depending on your topic. So I think start from the beginning, think about what type of sources you need for your assignment, and then go from there.
MODERATOR: And this is a very interesting point, because one thing I really want to clarify is that this question, I think, was it about somebody who had to find, like, their question was about going off and finding resources for their assignment. Sometimes, students can think, ah, you've given me this question. I'm going to go and find out about it. But actually, the question is about the module material, which is very different. And I think this is often a real trap that students, especially enthusiastic and diligent students, can fall into is thinking, wow, how interesting is this? Right. I'm off to the library. And in actual fact, what they're being assessed on, and particularly at level 1, is the understanding of the material that's in the module.
KATHERINE MOORE: So, level 1 and level 2 students in TMA, EMA guidance, it's always if they are expected to go outside the module material, they are explicitly told, and normally, with guidance where to go, whereas what we're talking about in terms of using the library for things like using a particular database, it's very much a level 3 skill. And again, even level 3 students are normally told, we want you to go outside the module material for this, just for clarity.
WENDY CHALMERS: You will be given some direction about where to go, perhaps recommended some databases or some sources.
MODERATOR: So, these are the activities you two build in with module teams, when, for example, they're going and doing the literature searching, components, and then it's all nicely scaffolded together.
We asked people at home what they think that they would need most help with from the library. Now, this was some time ago. But the highest was identifying quality material. So this was at 54%. And then 23% said referencing. 15% said finding information. 8% said digital lives. That's because they don't know how important digital lives are, and how important it is to protect your identity, and not let your employers see what you're doing on Facebook.
So finding quality information, now, we've done a lot of this before. And we should really cross reference, I suppose, being diligent, some of the other material that you've done in identifying sources and being able to evaluate those sources. So you can find those on the Student Hub Live YouTube channel, with things like the prompt criteria, et cetera.
But this quality aspect of material, because there's lots of information. But some of this is better than others, isn't it?
WENDY CHALMERS: Well, we can start with the library. Most of the material in the library has been selected because of its quality. If you're doing a search for an article, you mentioned the criteria, the prompt criteria. So you can always have those criteria running at the back of your mind. For example, the prompt, the first piece, provenance, perhaps think about the source of the article, whose the author. Where is it published? Is it published in perhaps a peer-reviewed journal, which means that the articles have been reviewed by other experts in the field, which means the fighting should be fairly sound, and they're always sound. There are some controversial articles. But they should be fairly sound.
And the other, someone mentioned earlier how do you judge whether an article is academic. And some things you can look at is, does it look like it's objective. Are the arguments supported by evidence? Are contrary arguments discussed? And is the methodology, for example, clearly laid out? What was the sample size? So, these are things you can be thinking about all the time when you're trying to select good quality information.
KATHERINE MOORE: One of the easiest ones to think about, and if you're talking about quality of information, is who has published it, especially when you're talking about things like freely available reports that may be published by a particular charity or an organisation. You can normally quite quickly build up whether there's likely to be any bias in there. And then that should be part of your evaluation whether something is going to be relevant to an academic piece of work or not.
MODERATOR: Excellent. Right. Can we have some more questions from our Hot Desk?
ZACH: Yes, of course. We've got a good one about, "I've been told to use the database Academic Search Complete. How do I access it?"
WENDY CHALMERS: Well, that's quite a simple one. There's actually a few ways you can do it. But I mentioned Library Search earlier. You'll find Library Search on the library home page. And you simply enter Academic Search Complete into the search box. And in your results, you'll see Academic Search Complete. And you'll see a database icon next to it. Sometimes, you may, there may be a result, a book, a journal. But if you look for the database icon on the left and just click on the link, View Online, you can access Academic Search Complete.
KATHERINE MOORE: Can I talk about the other way, because it's my favourite?
WENDY CHALMERS: Yes, yes.
KATHERINE MOORE: So we also have the other way. We have all the databases that the library subscribes to on the library website, which would obviously include Academic Search Complete. And you can just browse through that list.
Now, the reason I like that is if I've slightly forgotten the name of the database, which I do really regularly, it's much easier to have a list to browse through. But yeah, those would be ...
WENDY CHALMERS: There's an alphabetical grid, so you don't have to browse through all 500.
MODERATOR: Can you tell students, because this is something I think we often assume people know, is what a database is, and what the point of a database is. Because like you said, there are certain ones, and sometimes, if I'm after something, because some of them I like, because I can limit things, and they've got different functionalities.
But equally, sometimes, you need them. Sometimes, you don't. So when do students need to know if they need a database? Or can they just go on one of these Academic Search Completes or advance searches and find anything? When do they need to decide that?
WENDY CHALMERS: I recommend databases, if, for example, you're studying psychology, and you could use a database called Psych Info, it has relevant material. But it also has relevant refine options as well. So you can refine by subject. You can refine by methodology. So in that case, but if you have quite a broad topic, you could start off with Academic Search Complete, which is multidisciplinary, or Library Search. And the good thing about Library Search is if you start your search using Library Search, it will tell you which databases your results come from. So you can then say, oh, there's a lot of results in this database, perhaps Science Direct. I might go to Science Direct and do another search there. And then I'll have more refined options. Does that make sense? Do you have anything?
KATHERINE MOORE: It does. I think to sort of give students a really basic guide about when they might be wanting to use databases, if you're studying at level 3, and if you have, or if you have a very specific topic or question that you want answered, so you know, maybe you've been told to research X for this TMA, then you'll want a subject-specific database, especially if you're at level 3 in your studies, or Talk Master's.
WENDY CHALMERS: And if you're looking for a specific type of source, there's primary source databases. You want some material which was written in the 16th century, you'll go directly to a primary source database. And you would be recommended to go to that database.
MODERATOR: Brilliant. Excellent. Well, that's something our level 1 students can save to worry about a lot later. And we'll be all nicely structured into their modulars. They can go through. But it's really helpful, I think, to identify when and how you might use those. And there's certainly no harm in going off and researching things, if indeed you're interested in them.
I think we've got time for two more questions.
MOROYA: So I've got a question, "Some of my colleagues are using Google Scholar. But when I try to access articles, I'm been asked to pay. Am I doing something wrong?"
WENDY CHALMERS: Google Scholar can be a useful tool. You can set Google Scholar up so you can link directly to the full text of an article in your results if it's included in the OU library subscriptions. So, I won't give you details of how to do that. You certainly would go to Settings and select OU Library.
But in the Library Help and Support section, there's a little section on Google Scholar. And it will outline the steps that you need to do that. So, once you've done a search in Google Scholar, you should then see a Find it at OU link under the results. And you can just simply click on that link. And if we, the library subscribes to that journal, you will be able to access the full text. Otherwise, as our student said, a lot of the material on Google Scholar is not freely available. There is some freely available material, but a lot of it is behind a paywall.
MODERATOR: Yeah. I'll talk to you about that later, because often, I will go and then have to go back in the library.
Amy's got a brilliant question about e-books. And she says, "Can they be downloaded and read when you like on the move?"
KATHERINE MOORE: Some of them can. Not all of them can. It's something that we are continually to pressure publishers to enable us to be able to buy e-books for our students in that manner. It's been something that they were hugely happy to do with articles. But making whole books available to download has been a bit of a struggle.
So, the only way you can tell is to access the book and click where it says Download and see what the options are. Some providers, you can download the book for a whole 24 hours, some, 100% indefinitely. Others, you'll only be able to download a chapter. It really, unfortunately, it still varies book by book at the moment, well, technically publisher by publisher.
MODERATOR: Yeah. No, thank you. That's, I think that's going to hopefully change in the long term. I mean, I get so much of my stuff on Facebook and book chapters and things. And they're in bite-sized chunks. But it's really difficult sometimes. You'll download a book and then look at the contents, and it's hard to know what to do. It feels quite different online in some ways. So it's about being able to navigate that confidently and not feeling overwhelmed as you're scrolling through. OK, let's have one more question.
ZACH: OK, I've got a good one, "I want to quote a tweet in my assignment but do not understand how to make the reference for it. Does that mean I can't use it in my assignment?"
MODERATOR: Very interesting question, because often now at the Open University, we're using different things, like write a tweet, or use 140 characters. We're using all of these new digital literacies to communicate information.
KATHERINE MOORE: So, some resource types aren't covered in the OU Harvard guide. If that's the case, don't panic. Just try and choose the resource type that's closest to the thing that you want to reference and then create your reference. You won't get penalised for not following guidance that isn't there. I mean, that would be unreasonable. And we're really not unreasonable when it comes to marking assignments.
So yeah, don't panic. Yes, you can use it if it fits into the flow of your assignment. And don't worry too much about the reference. Just make sure you put one in.
MODERATOR: Because returning to that idea about anxiety for students about referencing, often, it is these uncommon things, like some modules will have links to YouTube, and then the students are saying, quite rightly, am I referencing YouTube? Am I referencing the module? Who has provided this? So what you're really saying is as long as you have a go, it's more about, I guess, identifying the origin of that source, where you got it from, and when.
WENDY CHALMERS: That's right. And then thinking, can someone else find that source from the information I've provided.
MODERATOR: Yeah.
WENDY CHALMERS: So, we do have some interesting queries on the help desk. We have, for example, someone asking how to reference a seed packet and how to reference a gravestone, things they wanted to refer to in the material. And again, if you let the reader know how they might find that information, that's all you need to do.
KATHERINE MOORE: So yeah, essentially, when we get asked those questions about something that isn't in the OU Harvard guide, we're on the other end of the phone going, "Well, essentially, we can make it up, because there's no guidance." And the student always goes, "What do you mean? Oh, my god."
[LAUGHTER]
"No, no. It's fine. We just have to do it logically." And then they get to the end and go, "Oh, yes. No, that makes total sense." And then ...
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
MODERATOR: ... the library, and you're all really friendly. But I bet you love it when you get those sorts of questions. Oh, I know you do, actually, because you come here and show us how to do it.
So if you're interested in finding out more about referencing, do check out the session that we did last week, which was in our Good Academic Practise discussion. And we showed you all about primary and secondary referencing, when to do it, and how to avoid plagiarism.
But thank you very much, Katherine and Wendy, for coming along and being the lovely, friendly face of the library. I hope you engage with the library in your studies. They really, really are helpful. And I hope that we've showed the range of ways that they can support you in their studies.
So what we're going to look at now is what is an online library in this quick video. And then we're going to be back talking about the careers, and employability services and how they can also help you in your studies. See you soon.
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