Off The Shelf

With the changing of the quarter comes the changing of the RefWorks Group Code. You can always find the current RefWorks Group Code by going to the RefWorks Information Page (go to the Library Homepage and click RefWorks). For security purposes the code changes quarterly.

The current Group Code is Si3cly.

You only need the Group Code if you’re using Write N Cite, exporting from Google Scholar, or accessing RefWorks from outside of the Capella Library. Logging into RefWorks through the Library eliminates the need to use the Group Code.

For more information about RefWorks, check out the following guides:

• RefWorks Basic Features
• Importing from Library Databases
• RefWorks Advanced Features

If you’ve been using EndNote and would like to make the switch to web-based RefWorks, then check out this guide: Transferring from EndNote.

-Sommer

I know books aren’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Capella’s online Library, however the Library does have approximately  90,000 electronic books. You access them much as you do journal articles by doing a topic search in  databases such as  ebrary and NetLibrary. Ebooks aren’t as familiar to some as a print copies of  books. However  just think of the advantages: they are available immediately so you don’t have to check them out and they can be searched by keywords.

 If you want to search for books outside the Capella Library the librarians recommend a couple of different tools. Both WorldCat and Google Books can be searched by subject for books outside of the Capella Library on a particular topic. Google Books frequently provides a Table of Contents and sometimes a limited preview of the book.

You can request books not in the Capella Library through Interlibrary Loan. They will be mailed to you and you will get a prepaid mailer to send them back. You can also request specific chapters in book and they will be electronically scanned and sent you you via email.

 Have other questions? Check out this guide from the Library’s Guides & Tutorials page How Do I Find Books and Ebooks?  or Ask a Librarian.

Robin

You may have heard that there’s a new edition of the APA manual in the works – and it now looks like it’s done. Scheduled to hit the shelves on July 1, 2009, the 6th edition will have a few updates.

While there are no specifics about what will change, the APA website has released some information about what areas area being modified:

• new ethics guidance on such topics as determining authorship and terms of collaboration, duplicate publication, plagiarism and self-plagiarism, disguising of participants, validity of instrumentation, and making data available to others for verification;

• new journal article reporting standards to help readers report empirical research with clarity and precision;

• simplified APA heading style to make it more conducive to electronic publication;

• updated guidelines for reducing bias in language to reflect current practices and preferences, including a new section on presenting historical language that is inappropriate by present standards;

• new guidelines for reporting inferential statistics and a significantly revised table of statistical abbreviations

• new instruction on using supplemental files containing lengthy data sets and other media;

• significantly expanded content on the electronic presentation of data to help readers understand the purpose of each kind of display and choose the best match for communicating the results of the investigation, with new examples for a variety of data displays, including electrophysiological and biological data;

• consolidated information on all aspects of reference citations, with an expanded discussion of electronic sources emphasizing the role of the digital object identifier (DOI) as a reliable way to locate information; and

• expanded discussion of the publication process, including the function and process of peer review; a discussion of ethical, legal, and policy requirements in publication; and guidelines on working with the publisher while the article is in press.

For now, keep using the 5th edition along with the APA Style Guide to Electronic References.  And perhaps all our burning APA questions will be answered in July!

- Erin

The librarians often get calls about course readings that never open and RefWorks exports that never work. Sometimes this is due to a real technical problem, but very often they are due to a very simple issue:

Hidden pop-up windows

Course readings open in a new window, which usually pops up right in front of the window showing your Courseroom. That makes reading the first article very convenient. But the second you switch to something else on your computer, that pop-up window gets buried. And when you open the next reading, it may not pop up in front. Instead it opens in that hidden window.

RefWorks can result in similar hidden windows. If you are going back and forth between a database search and a RefWorks export, you may find that the RefWorks window doesn’t show up the second time you try to export. Also, if you are exporting from different databases, you could end up with several different RefWorks windows. This won’t hurt your RefWorks data, but it does mean you’ll have to search for the one that just got your export information.

So, how do you deal with hidden pop-up windows? Here are three easy options:

• Always close the pop up when you’re done with it. That forces a new pop-up window next time, which should appear on top of everything else.
• Minimize your windows until you find the window you need.
• Look for your pop-up window listed in your computer’s taskbar. It may have a confusing title.

- Erin

For those of you who have discovered the value of cited reference searching, you can now rejoice in knowing this feature is now available in ProQuest databases. (For those of you unfamiliar with the search techniques of bibliography mining and cited reference searching refer to this Guide.)

The following ProQuest databases now include this feature:

• ABI/INFORM Global
• Psychology Journals
• ProQuest Education Journals
• ProQuest Medical Library
• Dissertations & Theses Full Text

“Cited reference searching and bibliography mining are advanced research techniques that help you look both backwards and forwards in time to discover how an individual article or book relates to the development of a discipline. It can help you trace ideas back to their source, discover seminal works, complete a literature review, watch concepts mature over time, and analyze the importance of a single article in a discipline.” (Definition from the Bibliography Mining and Cited Reference Searching guide.)

Keep in mind that like other databases that include convenient bibliography mining and cited reference searching links, ProQuest only has links to articles and dissertations that are indexed in the ProQuest databases.

Below is a screen shot showing how the links appear in your results. Be sure to sort your results by Relevance instead of Date, as the more recently published articles are less likely to have been cited by anyone. Writing, research, and waiting for publication takes time!

-Sommer

RefWorks will be down late Saturday night through early Sunday morning for some maintenance.  The official times are from 10pm Eastern time through 6am.

During that time you won’t be able to send citation information into RefWorks.

Perhaps you can take the opportunity to make up on some lost sleep before the quarter gets too busy . . .

- Erin

Twitter, Facebook, RSS, Wiki’s, Blogs, and Podcasts there is so much new technology out there it is hard to keep up.

The next time you hear about something new and you think ….what? Check out a Commoncraft Show.

These are three to four minutes videos that are both informative and have a humorous touch. The subtitle says it all …. “In Plain English”

Robin

As with every new quarter, the library’s been getting a lot of questions about accessing textbooks and course readings. Exactly one year ago today we posted to the blog a FAQ about these common questions.

The answers are still the same, so if you have a question about what to do about your required readings, take a quick look at our post:

Course Readings & Textbooks

- Erin

As a learner, your main concern is often simply “is this peer reviewed or not.”  But there’s a lot more to it than that.

Despite being considered the “gold standard” of academic publishing, peer review is a complicated, sometimes messy, process that comes with its own sets of frustrations and drawbacks.  Getting scholars all on the same page can be a bit like, well, herding cats.

For the basics on peer review, see our guide: What are Peer-reviewed Articles & How do I Find Them? (Flash with audio) (PDF).

For a deeper understanding of what peer review can mean within a discipline, you can start with this short interview with researcher Michele Lamont from the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Although she doesn’t speak to the specific programs we have at Capella, you can gain some understanding about how the nature of the discipline can affect the peer-review process.  When peer review is supposed to identify what is good scholarship, the definition of “good” becomes very important.  Do you know what “good” looks like in your field?  Do you agree with the definition used in your discipline?

- Erin