Cindy Harrigan
or
Heather Sanderson
Full Schedule
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
10:00 – 11:00 Laying the Groundwork
Cindy Harrigan, Instructional Development Librarian
An important part of being a successful researcher is knowing what's available in your toolbox. From advanced database search options to the library's research supports, this session will give you confidence to develop your research game and will set up for the sessions that follow.
1:00 – 2:00 Managing Your Research with Zotero
Heather Sanderson, Information Literacy Librarian
Zotero is a tool that enables you to manage bibliographic references as you research and automatically create bibliographies using a wide variety of citation styles. Topics covered in this session will include creating an account, setting up folders, adding references, generating bibliographies, inserting citations into an essay, and sharing your citations with other researchers.
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
10:00 – 11:00 Internet Expertise for Researchers
Cindy Harrigan, Instructional Development Librarian
This session will focus on how to to find useful, quality information for academic or scholarly research, using Google and Google Scholar. Topics covered will include grey literature, search strategies, and tips on how to evaluate search results.
1:00 – 2:00 Researching the Literature Review
Heather Sanderson, Information Literacy Librarian
This session will focus on the literature review, an essential component of a new research project. We will discuss the distinctions between a systematic review and the literature review for an article or a thesis. You will learn about key tools and strategies, such as citation searching, that will help you be more comprehensive in your literature searches.
Thursday, May 9, 2024
10:00 – 11:00 Copyright and You!
Suzanne van den Hoogen, University Librarian and Copyright Officer
Copyright is more than knowing the limits of what you can copy. There are many scenarios where knowledge of copyright can be helpful – from knowing how to apply exceptions found in the Copyright Act to knowing what you need before you submit your defended thesis to the Institutional Repository. Come join Suzanne in this session where she will cover Copyright best practices and how the Copyright Office works at SMU and the services provided.
1:00 – 2:00 Statistics and Data Resources for Academic Research
Peter Webster, Information Technology Services Librarian
This session will focus on key concepts and challenges in finding data and statistics for your research as well as several useful places and strategies to explore, particularly for survey data from Statistics Canada.
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
10:00 – 11:00 Scholarly Journal Quality and Open Access
Peter Webster, Information Technology Services Librarian
This session will focus on how to identify scholarly journal quality, a key skill for researchers and authors. Topics covered will include the various impact measures in use and strategies to identify the “best” articles in a subject area, as well as the benefits of open access and how to avoid predatory journals.
1:00 – 2:00 Cool Tools for Business Students
Nicole Carter, Reference and Research Services Librarian
What types of information might you, as a business student, seek? Academic studies, news, company, industry, market research? What tools does the Patrick Power Library have for locating business information? Learn how to use a few of these cool tools at this session.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
10:00 – 11:00 Primary Source Research – Deep Dive into Newspaper Searching
Hansel Cook, Archives, Special Collections and Records Librarian
This session will look at doing research using primary sources, with a focus on newspaper collections available through the Patrick Power Library and beyond. This will include where to go for historical and current newspaper collections, how to find both local and international news articles, recommended search strategies, and more.
1:00 – 2:00 Excelling with Excel: Beyond the Basics (note: this is a 2-hour workshop)
Jesse Elliot, Digital Technology Assistant, Software & Application Support Centre
Excel is an incredibly powerful tool for organizing, analyzing, and presenting data. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to some of Excel's features, including functions, data tools, tables, and charts. In addition, strategies for using qualitative and quantitative data will be demonstrated, along with examples of Excel's real-world applications.