Cindy Harrigan
or
Heather Sanderson
Full Schedule
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
11:00 – 12:00 Is There an App to Help with That?: Using Generative AI in your Research
Julian L'Enfant, Educational Developer, Studio for Teaching and Learning
Heather Sanderson, Information Literacy Librarian
This session will discuss ways generative AI can be useful for your research, along with some important considerations to keep in mind when using it in your work. If you are not familiar with these types of applications (beyond ChatGPT, for example), there are many new tools that are being developed specifically for tasks in academic research. There will be some demos and opportunities to ask questions.
2:00 – 3:00 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 you up for the sessions that follow.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
11:00 – 12:00 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 how to conduct comprehensive literature searches using key tools and advanced search strategies, such as citation searching, that will aid you in finding the important studies and related literature for your projects.
2:00 – 3:00 Internet Expertise for Researchers
Cindy Harrigan, Instructional Development Librarian
This session will focus on how 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.
Thursday, May 8, 2025
11:00 – 12:00 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 various impact measures and journal ranking systems and useful strategies to identify the “best” articles in a subject area, as well as the benefits of open access and how to avoid predatory journals.
2:00 – 3:00 An Introduction to Knowledge Synthesis: Systematic, Scoping, and the Rest of
the Review Family
Alison Manley, Cataloguing & Metadata Librarian
This session will provide an overview of systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and other reviews under the knowledge synthesis umbrella. We will look at the review process, and how to determine which is the right kind of review for your project (or if a review is right for your project at all). We will talk about how to formulate a research question appropriate for a systematic or scoping review, and cover tools and resources to support knowledge syntheses.
Tuesday, May 13, 2025
11:00 – 12:00 Research Design and Research Data Planning: An Intro to Library Resources
Nicole Carter, Reference and Research Services Librarian
Dan Phillips, Data Services & Copyright Librarian
Research design is the strategy behind how research questions get answered. Whether you wish to better understand the research design and the data behind the literature you read, or you’re planning your own research project, this session introduces resources to support your work. We’ll cover methodology, methods, data collection and analysis. We'll also speak about places where you can find data available from other researchers, and how you can prepare yours to share with others.
2:00 – 3:00 Managing Your Research with Zotero
Heather Sanderson, Information Literacy Librarian
Zotero is an open-source citation manager that enables you to gather and organize 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 14, 2025
11:00 – 12:00 Finding and Using Primary Source Research
Hansel Cook, Archives, Special Collections & Records Management Librarian
This session will look at doing research using primary sources in a variety of disciplines. We will define primary sources, look at a variety of library tools and primary source databases, and discuss effective search strategies. These resources will include historical and current newspaper collections, archival material, datasets, patents, government records, and more.
2:00 – 3:00 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 resources and strategies to explore. Resources covered will include survey data from Statistics Canada, an essential source of socioeconomic data on Canada and Canadians.
Thursday, May 15, 2025
11:00 – 12:00 Tidy Data, Happy Life: Spreadsheet Survival Skills
Joyce Thomson, Collections Librarian
Does the word “spreadsheet” make you want to run the other way? You’re not alone! It’s easy to drop information into a spreadsheet—but making sense of it later (or sharing it with someone else) can be a real headache. This session will walk you through simple, practical ways to organize your spreadsheet data so that it’s clean, consistent, and ready to work with. We’ll cover things like formatting dates, keeping your data “tidy,” and avoiding common pitfalls that can slow you down.
2:00 – 3:00 Copyright & Research: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Dan Phillips, Data Services & Copyright Librarian
Sarah West, Library Assistant, Copyright
This session begins with a concise overview of copyright issues commonly encountered in research contexts, including the use of third-party materials, permissions, and fair dealing. Following the presentation, we’ll host an open discussion to explore your specific questions or concerns. And, time permitting, we'll wrap up with a brief game of Copyright Trivia!