Library@bvu.edu

BVU : Library : Faculty Support.

Faculty Support

Library instruction sessions
Scheduling library instruction
Designing effective library assignments
Services for Online Course Designers
Ideas for Incorporating Research into FYS Courses
Methods for Detecting Plagiarism
Tips for Preventing Plagiarism
Current Awareness Services
Assistance with Copyright Issues

Library instruction sessions

     Do your students know how to research a topic?
     Can they find reliable, relevant, authoritative, and timely sources?
     Are your students aware of what databases are most appropriate for their topic?
     Do your students think surfing the Web is researching?
     Do they know how to request an interlibrary loan?
     Do they give credit and cite sources correctly?

Arrange for an instructional session tailored to meet your class needs and assignments! Possible points to be covered include:

Research strategies

Insights on searching the library catalog
Selecting and searching the most appropriate databases
Advanced search techniques (boolean logic, truncation, phrase searching)
Recognizing authoritative sources of information
Locating and evaluating internet resources
Documenting and citing sources consulted
Tips for avoiding plagiarism

We can meet with your class on campus either in the library or in your usual classroom. We are also available to meet with Centers classes "on the road," and available to speak with your students individually by phone or email or to participate in a discussion forum with your students. Let's talk about how we can best meet the needs of your students.

Scheduling library instruction - Guidelines

Contact Jodie Morin or Jackie AlSaffar to arrange for a class visit.
Please allow at least a week's notice to allow adequate scheduling and preparation time.
Plan to be in attendance at the Instructional session with your students.
Instruction is most beneficial when students have an assignment to complete.

Designing effective library assignments

Services for Online Course Designers
Designing an online course is a lot of work, but you don't have to do it alone. The BVU Reference Librarians, Jodie Morin and Jackie AlSaffar, can help you in the following ways:

Identify library resources and services that we can offer to online students.
Review or design research assignments for your class.
Recommend electronic books, articles or web pages for your student's use.
Create specific library tutorials or pathfinders to meet your student's researching needs.
Determine copyright provisions for book chapters or journal articles that you want to load into your course and provide assistance in securing copyright permission.
Purchase library materials needed to support your course.

Effective library assignments >>

Term paper alternatives >>

Methods for Detecting Plagiarism
Here are some clues to look for:

Vastly different writing styles within the paper or from other in-class student writing.
Does the paper address the assignment requirements or are portions left out?
Is it the correct type of paper - descriptive, persuasive?
Incomplete references, made-up references, mixed citation styles
Bibliography: are there recent sources or are they all 4 or 5 years old?
Common facts footnoted, controversial points or statements not documented.
Last minute topic change
Unusual formatting, uneven margins, broken lines of text.
Odd sentences stuck into an otherwise smoothly written paper.
Many sources used that are NOT owned by local library.
Web sites listed that are inactive.
Sources used are mutilated or lost-destroying the evidence.
Strange anachronisms.
Quality is grade-school.
No current information or referring to historical events in the present tense.
Smoking guns-paper handed in with URL's in the footer, labels that say "Thank you for using Termpapers.com!", names or titles or headers that don't match title page, obviously whited-out names.

Be careful when confronting student about plagiarism. It is often possible to get a "confession" about plagiarism if the student is asked "Why is your writing style so different on other assignments?" "I was surprised at your findings and I've done some investigation into the sources you used. Before I tell you what I found out, is there anything you would like me to know?"

Tips for Preventing Plagiarism

Have students submit papers through the detection software TurnItIn.com.
Make sure students know what plagiarism is.
Make the penalties for plagiarism clear.
Let them know that YOU are aware of the ease of cut and paste and term papers mills on the web.
Analyze an online paper in class, focusing on its weaknesses. This sends a signal to students about the quality of what they will find on the web and is a useful critical thinking exercise.
Demonstrate or provide guidance on proper citation methods, especially for web-based formats. Be sure to properly cite or give credit to ideas you present in class or on your class handouts.
Provide specific instructions for the paper, including periodic deadlines to review progress. Make the PROCESS of writing the paper as important as the final product! Annotated bibs early in the process are good to get students going.
Have students take their list of references to a librarian for analysis and consultation about other possible research sources they might use.
Demand papers that go beyond regurgitation of facts. Have students make judgments and express opinions. They shouldn't just find the answer, they should make the answer.
Have students turn in drafts with the paper.
Require up-to-date references, or specific types of references (e.g. two websites, two books, two articles)
Have students hand in copies of title pages and articles used in their research.
Do oral reports or either private or classroom question and answer sessions.
Have students write a post-paper essay about what they learned. This gives you another writing sample for comparison.
Have an essay question on the final that addresses the student's paper.
Consider requiring shorter, but more frequent papers. Most term papers on the Internet are longer than 6 pages.
Make papers due before the end-of-the-semester crunch time, to avoid desperation cheaters.
Do alternative assignments that require library research.

Current Awareness Services
Keeping abreast of the literature in your field can certainly be difficult in these times of information overload. However, there are ways to help you stay on top of the literature in your discipline or of a particular research interest.

The two most common types of service offered through our databases are:

Table of Contents Alerts: As new issues of a journal are added to a database, an email message containing the full table of contents will be sent to you. If the alert is provided through an electronic journal publisher, the message will usually include hyperlinks to each article in the issue.
Automated Searches: After developing a search statement for your subject(s) of interest in a database, you will save the search to an account you create and issue a command so it is rerun at set intervals (e.g., once a month). Your search will be run as new material is added to the database, and if new items are retrieved, the results will automatically be sent to you by email.

Because current awareness services are customized to your individual preferences, it will be necessary for you set up a personal account in the database you select. This process requires you to complete a simple form and establish an individual username and password.

Once created, personal accounts are easy to edit. You may add and remove journals from a table of contents alert service or make changes to any automated searches you have established.

For assistance in setting up alerts, please contact a Reference Librarian.

Assistance with Copyright Issues
The BVU Library endorses and adopts the Buena Vista University Copyright Policy. Furthermore, the library encourages all faculty to become familiar with copyright law as it pertains to higher education. The Library works in conjunction with the Copyright Review Committee to monitor copyright law, to determine whether copyright permission is necessary in any particular case, and to assist with obtaining permissions for the use of copyrighted materials.