Resources for Teaching: Information Skills Classes
Information Skills Classes offered
Staff from Academic Liaison and Special Collections can offer a range of Information Skills classes to meet the needs of your students, including:
- Library introductory sessions
- Finding, evaluating and using appropriate academic resources
- Special Collections staff currently teach into specific modules, and can also work with staff who want to use special collections materials in their teaching
- Seeker
- Specific databases for your subject
- Google Scholar
- Reference Management Tools (Endnote, Mendeley etc)
- Conducting a literature search
- Dissertation sessions
- Refresher / update on new resources
Classes can be tailored to meet the needs of your students. They can be in the form of presentations, lectures or workshops, or consider asking us to contribute to an existing class. You may want us to arrange a session:
- At the beginning of a module
- Before a piece of assessed work
- Following a piece of assessed work if you have identified areas of weakness within the class
- To highlight resources you would like your students to use
Classes can be provided for students at any stage of their course, whether undergraduate or postgraduate.
Contact your Academic Liaison Librarian or Special Collections if you would like to discuss organising a session for your students.
Locations
Academic Liaison and Special Collections staff can work with you to develop a class that meets the needs of your students.
Within the Library there is a Teaching Room which Library staff can use. This can accomodate 10-14 people.
Special Collections use the New Park Seminar Room, located in Martyrs Kirk Research Library. The room can accomodate 15-20 people.
Classes can be run in these locations, or within other teaching spaces in the University. Special Collections use the New Park Seminar Room for all their sessions.
Examples of First Year Undergraduate Information Skills Classes
Groups of approx 30 students in a PC Classroom - 1 hour sessions in advance of assessed coursework, covering:
- A introduction to the Library, navigating the Library Website; finding key information for your subject; getting help
- Explanantion of scholarly/peer-reviewed resources
- Using SAULCAT and Online reading lists to find print and online resources
- Using Seeker
- Using Google Scholar
- Where appropriate, using Web of Science / SCOPUS / key subject database
Optional class, following the submission of coursework where it was identified that some students needed help finding and using academic level resources, 1 hour in a PC classroom, covering:
- Ensuring students can find the recommended readings for their module on SAULCAT / Online Reading Lists
- Using records on SAULCAT to find related resources
- Journals - what they are, why you should use them, how to find them - print and online
- Using Seeker
- Finding key resources for your subject using the Library subject guides
- Academic reference resources - alternatives to wikipedia
- Referencing questions
- Getting help
Academic Liaison Team
Support for individual students
In addition to classes, please feel free to refer students to the library for one-to-one support whenever you have students needing help:
- Finding appropriate academic resources
- Reading beyond the reading list
- Finding journal articles, etc
- Using databases
- Managing references
Students can come along to one of our drop-in sessions or email to arrange an appointment with one of the Academic Liaison Team.
Events also run throughout the year, which students can sign-up for.