Welcome back to Khalifa University

Welcome to a fresh new semester! For those who have newly joined us, we are proud to have you as part of Khalifa University family.

This semester promises to be a productive and exciting one as Khalifa University announced the establishment of its College of Medicine and Health Sciences. It is the first medical college based in Abu Dhabi. KU established a Pre-Medicine Bridge program to prepare students for the medical program. The educational goals of the program are to prepare students for entry into Khalifa University's Doctor of Medicine (MD) program. The Pre-Medicine Bridge program is designed to provide courses to current students who have completed a Bachelor's degree.

The Pre-Medicine Bridge program consists of courses that are delivered in person by a lecturer or via an online facility. The courses given are designed to fill gaps in information as well as develop reading, comprehension and math skills. By developing these skills, the program will establish whether a candidate can demonstrate advanced knowledge and fulfils the requirements of entry into a Postgraduate Medical program or not. The students were introduced to the library first through a presentation about services & facilities provided and then had a tour in the library to have a look at the facilities and meet their friendly librarians. 

For more details on the program please visit our website here.

FOLIO Roadshow Workshop, Khalifa University Abu Dhabi, UAE

FOLIO, which stands for the Future of Libraries is Open, is a new community coming together to develop a re-imagined library services platform (LSP), which aims to provide a complete integrated solution for libraries. The platform supports traditional resource management requirements and functionality and allows for extensibility into new services for libraries. Khalifa University in collaboration with EBSCO has conducted a workshop on FOLIO, a next-generation open-source Library Platform. There were about 40 participants from across Middle East countries. Nikesh and Brian from Khalifa University libraries presented the experiences and challenges they faced during their successful implementation of KOHA system. Khalifa University Library is a proponent of Open Source and is keenly watching the development of FOLIO and other open source technologies for libraries.

To learn more about Folio visit their website.

ORCID

Khalifa University of Science and Technology has acquired an institutional ORCID account to facilitate tracking faculty publications and generating various reports. ORCID is a non-profit organization founded to assist researchers in tracking their publications, research awards, and other research activity by providing a single ID that operates across many platforms such as Scopus or Web of Science. In order for this effort to be successful, all faculty is requested to register for an ORCID and connect it with Khalifa University. The goal of this exercise is to broaden the visibility of your work as a researcher, and of the University as a whole. To assist in this endeavor, the Library is offering workshops on ORCID which will cover the following topics: Why ORCID?, To register for this workshop visit the library webpage.

iThenticate and TurnItin

iThenticate and TurnItin are plagiarism detection tools, optimized for use in classrooms to check students assignments for plagiarism. They enable faculty and students written drafts and assignments against a large database of academic materials for originality. TurnItin is mainly used by faculty to upload and check multiple assignments. iThenticate is mainly used by graduate students for checking single research papers. To register for this workshop visit the library webpage.

Mendeley

Mendeley is a free reference manager and an academic social network. Mendeley is a desktop and web program produced by Elsevier for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online. To register for this workshop visit the library webpage.

RefWorks

RefWorks is a reference management service that supports the needs of students, faculty, and librarians. With an improved user experience, full-text management, and collaboration features, RefWorks gives students and faculty a tool that enables a more efficient and reliable process for producing research papers. To register for this workshop visit the library webpage.

Book ordering bonanza!

KU libraries are at a frenzy to order books for the collections before the end of October! The library acquisitions specialists have conducted a workshop on the means to recommend Library books for the nominated faculty through the two current ordering platforms, ProQuest OASIS and EBSCO GOBI. The workshop demonstrated the ordering workflow. Acquisition Librarians introduced the various methods of recommending titles; through the OPAC https://khalifa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=971KUOSTAR_INST:KU, e-Form https://library.ku.ac.ae/requesttitle/, and slip notifications from Oasis and Gobi for the faculty representing the various departments. Faculty showed enthusiasm regarding this collaborative effort to engage in the collection development process of the libraries.  Don’t forget to get hold of your department representative for ordering a list of titles, be quick, time is running out. For any questions regarding book orders, please contact newmaterials@ku.ac.ae.

This book provides an excellent starting point for navigating social media, focusing on the different ways as academics we can use social media to our advantage. Carrigan guides you through the complex web that is social media in a confident and well-informed manner. The book is broken down into 9 easy to read chapters made accessible with subheadings, chapter themes and directions for further reading. Topics vary widely and include how to engage the public with your work, build networks and different strategies to help build social media into an academic schedule. The author incorporates David Gauntlett’s work (2011) around creative production, an action that brings people together through shared acts of creation. These creations become structures around which a person can form an integral part of their life. We can use this concept academically, using social media for networking not simply as a tick-box exercise, but as a way of connecting with like-minded people and raising awareness of our cause without the boundaries and restrictions that may once have been in place. Social media is open to everyone. Given the fluidity of social media, this was a difficult topic for the author to grapple with as ideas constantly changing and developing. This limitation is named in the book from the very beginning and instead, the focus is shifted to more theoretical pointers that provide rationale and reasoning behind why someone would enhance their online profile using social media. This book would be most helpful for people that are actively involved in generating and publishing research. However, the information could also be applied by any professional wanting to generate awareness and use social media to promote their personal message. This book is definitely worth a read and to all those hiding behind their chair in fear of technology. It challenges you to try something different. Using social media to make your academic speciality more accessible. 

Review by Jennifer Bradbury
Assistant Clinical Psychologist, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Jennifer.bradbury@cwp.nhs.uk

The review has been edited for brevity.

Volunteering is giving back and feeling part of a community. This is what happened on Friday 7 September at the WTCM for the ‘Back to School’ 3 days’ event the mall has organized. Shaima Baroudy, a student at KU, along with one of our librarians, was busy giving a helping hand to ’Wanna read?’ book sale and book reading sessions for little children.

There are so many ways we can help others, by genuinely taking the time to think how best our skills are utilized and the ideal place or environment we would like to see ourselves making a difference to. The library has had a very successful volunteering program last academic year and we continue to avail of the precious time student volunteers are giving us. You really make a difference, thank you!

 “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” — Mahatma Gandhi

There are a lot of tools out there to help with your writing and papers. These can be tremendous work savers, though some do require more time upfront to learn the ins and outs. Here are a few you should try out for yourself.

Mendeley

Citation management tool, this means it can keep track of articles you’ve read and created a bibliography for your paper. Key features include a plug-in for MS Word to insert references and cloud-based storage to access your personal library anywhere. Requires a desktop app for functionality. Best freeware reference manager tool available. Visit mendeley.com to get started.

MindMup

A browser-based mind-mapping tool that helps you organize your thoughts on a topic. Use this while thinking about what you want to say. Extremely useful to use in a group to organize who is focusing on what section of a paper, or who is doing what topic. Free for basic use, with a subscription available to store projects. Featuring a clean user interface and a short learning curve, this is an ideal tool ramp up your research. Visit MindMup.com and sign up for a free account.

Evernote

Create notebooks, clip web articles, images and other types of files. EverNote is a freeware app with a subscription option. You can sync it across all types of devices and importantly features a “Save to EverNote” plugin for your web browser. EverNote allows to quickly save notes from class, or from anywhere, and search them later. Works in a browser and has a desktop app. Visit EverNote.com to get started.