Assignment Week: Day 2 One Search

This week the blog is looking at how to find and reference information for your assignments and projects.  Yesterday, we looked at plagiarism. 

Today, we are looking at how to search the library databases or One Search.  One Search is a powerful search engine that searches all of the library databases, and the library catalogue, simultaneously.  The library databases contain journal articles, conference papers, magazine articles etc.  They are full of the type of scholarly information that your lecturers want you to use in your assignments and projects!

Have a look at this short tutorial on how to use One Search.  At the end, you should be able to:

• access One Search
• construct a basic search
• refine your search results to find the most relevant articles
• recognise how to find the article PDF in any database
• import article references into RefWorks

Assignments Week: Day 1 Plagiarism

It's Semester 2 - that usually means more original research and projects!  Instead of getting book-lists from your lecturer, you might have been asked to research a topic...  

This week, the blog is looking at how to find and reference information for your assignments and projects. 

We will start off by looking at plagiarism.  Learning to recognise and avoid plagiarism is important for all students.  Before you can avoid plagiarism, you will need to know exactly what it is!  Have a look at this short tutorial.  At the end, you will know:

• how to define plagiarism
• why understanding plagiarism is an important part of college life
• the type of information that can be plagiarised

Happy birthday to the Hub!

Happy birthday to the ITB Student Hub - it's 1 today!

 

Over the past year, there have been almost 8,000 unique visitors (or unique devices!) with over 33,000 page views.  So, do you have questions about any of the following...

Read more here: ITB Student Hub

Doing a research project this semester?

Do you have an important project to complete this semester?  Are you starting to do original research?  Compile a literature review?  Conduct interviews?  Learn about quantitative and qualitative research methods?

If so, there are lots of books in the library that can help you.  As research is such a broad topic, these books are shelved in various places.  Have a look at some of the examples below or search the library catalogue.

General research

A gentle guide to research methods

Internet research skills: how to do your literature search and find research information online

Doing a literature review in health and social care: a practical guide

Conducting literature reviews: from the internet to paper

Research methods

Approaches to quantitative research: a guide for dissertation students

Qualitative research: the essential guide to theory and practice

Doing narrative research

Survey research

Case study research: principles and practices

Writing up your research

Writing research critically: developing the power to make a difference

Doing and writing qualitative research

Writing an assignment: how to improve your research and presentation skills

Researching and writing in the sciences and technology

Business

Research methods for business: a skill-building approach

Research methods for business students

Business research methods

Engineering

Research on PBL practice in engineering education

Ethics in engineering practice and research

Social care

Doing your early years research project: a step by step guide

Research methods in early childhood: an introductory guide

Doing research with children

Sports management

Research methods in physical activity

Research methods for sports performance analysis

Research methods in sports management

Engineers Week 2014

It's Engineers Week!  Best of luck to anyone involved in any of the events for Engineers Week 2014.   If you haven't gotten involved yet, here are some of your choices...

(1) Fail Better at the Science Gallery
The goal of Fail Better is to open up a public conversation about failure, particularly the instructive role of failure, as it relates to very different areas of human endeavour. Rather than simply celebrating failure, which can come at great human, environmental and economic cost, we want to open up a debate on the role of failure in stimulating creativity: in learning, in science, engineering and design.

(2) TOG. Engineers Week: an Evening of Inspiring Ideas
 - Chemical Engineering: Science, Art and TV / Greg Foley
 - Wind Energy – Irelands Oil / Ciaran Donnelly
 - Engineering Change / Elaine Doyle
 - Intro to simulation: particles and clothes / Eoin McLoughlin
 - Connecting the continents / Liam O'Tailliuir
 - How Robots should look like and how they should behave / Conor McGuin

(3) Zoom! An Exploration of Size, Scale and Structure in Engineering
Dr Ian Johnston is fascinated by the links which exist between engineering at different scales, and “Zoom” is a fast-paced mixture of lecture, demonstration, experiment and audience participation, exploring the challenges and opportunities for engineers along a journey from the unimaginably tiny to the incomprehensibly large.  Ian is a Lecturer in Engineering at the Open University and has worked as academic consultant for TV programmes including “Battle of the Geeks”, “Electric Dreams” and seven series (so far) of “Bang Goes the Theory”. He achieved worldwide fame (or notoriety) as the man who crushed LEGO bricks to measure their strength...

Read more here: http://www.engineersweek.ie/

Increased Library access for ITB students

Did you know you can now visit any DIT campus Library or ITT Dublin's Library (IT Tallaght) with your ITB student card? On production of your ITB student card, you may visit any of these libraries and use their print materials for reference purposes. No letter of introduction is required. While you're there, you may also access ITB Library's online databases using Eduroam on your own mobile device, laptop, mobile phone etc.

Some terms and conditions apply! Books may not be borrowed and the Library may refuse admission during busy times, for example during exams.

Take a break!

Do you have 10 minutes between lecturers?  Or need a break from working on your assignments?  Don't forget the library gets four daily newspapers, and four newspapers each weekend!

 

 

Each day you can read:

• The Irish Times
• The Irish Independent
• The Financial Times
• The Guardian

We also receive the Sunday Business Post and the Sunday Independent, as well as the Saturday editions of the Irish Times & the Irish Independent

The library also holds three months of back issues for all of the above titles

You are free to read the newspaper in the library at any time. You dont need to borrow it to your account (just make sure you don't take it with you when you leave!!)

 

(Image: "Reading A Newspaper By A Wall" by Garry Knight via Flickr)