Month: February 2016

Understanding copyright and photocopying

Daren Mansfield / / University Library

Capture cla

The CLA Higher Education Licence permits the copying of extracts from books, journals and magazines in print or digital format including copying content from some free-to-view websites. The licence is issued annually and provides easy access to millions of copyright works. The following is an abridged section of what can and cannot be copied from:

https://he.cla.co.uk/your-he-licence/your-he-licence/about-the-cla-higher-education-licence/

What can be copied?

Our CLA Higher Education Licence provides you with a wide range of permissions to help support teaching and learning at your HEI and allowing you to make full use of your print and electronic collections.  The CLA HE Licence does this by allowing you to:

  • Photocopy books, journals and magazines published in the UK and 33 other countries giving your HEI access to a wide choice of published information.
  • Make digital copies by scanning for distribution to students from titles published in the UK and 17 other countries.
  • Make copies of content from a wide range of digital material such as online magazines, eBooks and certain website materials.
  • Use copies with digital whiteboards, VLEs and Microsoft PowerPoint programs.
  • Copy photographs, illustrations, charts or diagrams where they are included in an article or an extract.

How much can be copied?

You can reproduce extracts of up to one chapter or article, or 5% of the whole (whichever is the greater); where proportions can’t be identified (e.g. websites), estimate an extract of a fair and reasonable length.

Indemnity is also included as standard, provided an HEI has acted within the Terms and Conditions of their Licence, so HEIs have peace of mind that they will be covered to copy from any title (books, journals, magazines) except those that are specifically excluded.

Digital Material Publishers

The HE Licence covers the re-use of digital original material and these rights are granted by publishers on an ‘opt-in’ basis.

Please refer to the list of Participating Digital Material Publishers for the Higher Education Licence to check whether copying from a particular publication is permitted.

International Territories

Current agreements permit CLA licensees to copy titles published in certain countries outside the United Kingdom.

Search by title

You can simply check permissions for a title (or ISBN/ISSN/web domain) to know if you are permitted to copy from a particular publication.

What can’t be copied?

The CLA Licence covers millions of titles encompassing printed books, magazines and journals as well as digital original material such as electronic, online publications and certain website material, but there are some categories and individual works which are excluded and therefore cannot be copied at all under the CLA Licence.

Excluded categories

There are particular categories that are generally not covered by CLA Licences. Click on the list of categories below for a further information about where to get a separate licence or permission

  • Printed music (including the works)
  • Maps, charts
  • Newspapers
  • Newspaper Licensing Agency
  • Workbooks, workcard and assignment sheets (you will need to contact the publisher directly)
  • Any work which the copyright owner has expressly excluded

Excluded Works

Some categories of published works, as well as some specific works by individual authors, artists and publishers, are excluded.

 

Revision tips for language students

Daren Mansfield / / Study Skills

CaptureLANG

As revising for a language exam may be considered slightly different than revising for a two or three hour written exam,  I run a search for an alternative approach and came across the Open University’s exam revision section on their website. They advise that revision tips for language students should include:

  • Regular practice will make you more fluent and confident. Last minute cramming is difficult!
  • Little and often produces good results. Intensive, focused revision will help you to absorb new language structures.
  • Arrange vocabulary alphabetically, under topics or according to word families.
  • Learn the appropriate article at the same time as the new word (e.g., le/la/les, der/die/das).
  • Write notes and language structures without looking at your module material. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you can remember. Then work on the things you didn’t get right.
  • Do any exercises you haven’t done before.
  • Find someone to talk to in the language.
  • Use the language to summarise a unit, saying what you have learnt about the theme.

 

Some simple tips on speech making

Daren Mansfield / / Study Skills

What occurred to me whilst writing this blog piece was how similar blogging is to speech writing, adopting similar connectivity  techniques to engage the reader, particularly repetition, rhetorical questions, and employing direct address. 

Inspirational speeches: Do you recall a memorable speech at some point in your life and now you have to write a speech or make a presentation to a large group? I recall Barack Obama’s moving acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in 2008 as one of the most memorable in my life. Perhaps you have one which inspires you when you are preparing a presentation or going to a job interview? What are the skills involved in effective speech making? There are some useful tenets involved in compiling a speech that will connect with the audience.

Naturally you will need to prepare thoroughly and practise your speech so you know your material inside and out. Look up at the audience during your speech, use eye contact, to reinforce that connection you are working towards. What are you trying to say? Be memorable. Some politicians are famous for their speeches. For those old enough to remember, former prime minister Tony Blair was famous for making a speech that included the reiterative phrase “Education, education, education”. His use of repetition made the speech memorable and helped his audience identify his central message. During Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign he reinforced the slogan ‘ Yes, we can’ at speeches which roused his audience and fuel-injected his election campaign to the White House. Some speech making tips to remember include:

  • use rhetorical questions as devices to connect with your audience.
  • repetition reinforces your message.
  • using alliterative lists of three words (e.g. vicious, violent and vindictive) also reinforces your message.
  • emotive language stirs the audience, and focuses your speech.
  • direct address alerts the audience to your message.
  • evidence such as statistics, quotations, examples, et al makes your argument more solid, more convincing, and supports your central message.
  • well considered humour can be an effective tool.

Deploying these techniques you will be able to deliver a confident speech that persuades your audience,  so that you can become an inspirational speaker. Browsing other university sites it is clear that speech making is something not generally covered by learning development, but many of us will find ourselves holding onto some lectern in the future trying to convince or motivate an audience.  Remember Michelle Obama’s speech at a London girls’ school in which she encouraged those present to take education seriously in the most wonderful terms? Such speeches can change lives.

Capturemic

Michelle Obama speech making.

 

Becoming an active note-taker

Daren Mansfield / / Study Skills

Do you really need all the information relayed in a lecture? Of course not, but how do you determine what is relevant and what is going to crowd out any relevant information? What gems were overlooked as a result of poor note-taking? Have you heard of active note-taking? No, neither have I…until today. But it makes perfect sense.

Capturepen

Apparently active learning helps you to prize meaning from what you learn whilst inferior passive learning is ‘allowing yourself to be an empty vessel into which knowledge is poured with no way of organising or making meaning from it’ (University of Reading, 2016). A mess in other words. Passive learning means you may forget what you’ve been taught,  and you’ll be re-reading your notes while you’re writing assignments, and repeating the unenviable process when the exam period looms. Lectures might simply be floating over your head.

 

Passive note-taking includes:

  • underlining words
  • cutting and pasting from online documents
  • trying to write everything you hear in a lecture
  • copying slides from the screen
  • copying lots of direct quotes rather than putting the ideas in your own words
  • writing notes on everything you read, because you’re not sure what will turn out to be important
    not evaluating or criticising the sources you use, but just accepting them as suitable evidence

Active note-taking means:

  • thinking about what you want to get out of your research before you start
  • looking for answers to any questions you may have about the topic
  • looking for connections within the topic you’re studying, and to other topics on your course
  • writing notes mostly in your own words – your own explanation of what something says or means
  • recording direct quotes only when it’s important to have the exact words that someone else has used (i.e. when how they say something is as significant as what they say)

When I read this sound advice from the University of Reading (2016) I realise that when I was an enthusiastic undergraduate keen on absorbing as much information as possible, at most lectures I attended I comprehensively covered all the passive note-taking elements listed above. Knowing what I know now, the trick with writing essays and carrying out research is to be selective. It’s a brave step away from the security of hoarding dense notes, and adding everything to an assignment before the long adventure of redrafting. It’s not efficient to be a passive note-taker, and wastes a huge amount of time. With the amount of assignments that need to be submitted for an undergraduate degree, managing your time effectively increases your chances of submitting work on time and allows the requisite space for redrafting without the uncertainty of not knowing what was relevant from a pile of passively taken notes.

 

New Library system to be moving to a cloud

Daren Mansfield / / University Library

We will be launching a new library management system to be hosted by Capita in order to improve the student experience. We will be moving our library services to a cloud enabling students to locate resources in different systems from a single search box (see screenshots below). A web-based interface from Capita, known as Soprano, will support staff in the library and may be used for stock management, reservations and general library tasks, such as quickly responding to student enquiries. University librarian Ian Snowley noted that the user satisfaction is critical if the university wants to attract students: “Capita’s LMS will enable the library to deliver a great experience for our students by making it easier for them to search for and find the resources they need” ….“it will also equip staff with the tools to deliver excellent customer service.”

CaptureBAL

 

 

CaptureOX

Search results can appear colourful, clear and much like the functionality employed by a famous American electronic commerce and cloud computing company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington.

Captureshoe

The following links are examples of other university libraries using Capita (Prism):

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/ncirl/

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/edgehill/

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/gsa/

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/roehampton/

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/dmu/

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/rcs/

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/yorksj/

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/birmingham

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/mmu

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/uclan

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/dcu

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/bournemouth.ac/

https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/brookes

https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/fife

https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/gloslibraries

https://capitadiscovery.co.uk/swindon

 

 

 

 

13 steps to literature review success

Daren Mansfield / / Study Skills

CapturestepsIn this blog post I want to outline the process of conducting a literature review on a chosen topic, such as ‘buyer behaviour and ethical purchase intentions’. My main advice whilst carrying out this type of research is to be open-minded and explore ideas as though it’s the first time you have come across this topic.

 

 

 

 

 

Literature searching and the art of reviewing literature 

  1. Allow yourself time to browse the library catalogue (library.lincoln.ac.uk > resources > Library catalogue…) http://catalogue.library.lincoln.ac.uk/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=
  2. Search for relevant material on your chosen topic.
  3. Search for ‘BA marketing’ for instance as this will bring up undergraduate dissertations. (282 titles matched)
  4. Search Find it at Lincoln on the Library webpage (on Find it at Lincoln you can ‘add to folder’ which makes it easier to collate your research, and send it via email then save on your student drive, memory stick, et al).
  5. Search the Advertising and Marketing Library subject guide: http://guides.library.lincoln.ac.uk/advertisingandmarketing for relevant databases like Warc.com and ABI Inform using keywords like ‘buyer behaviour and ethical purchase intentions’ (ABI Inform has some 7, 154 results).
  6. Identify key articles, conference papers, quality newspapers (check out the Lexis Library database), and interesting chapters relevant to your topic.
  7. I might amend my searches by adding ‘motivation’ or ‘actual’ to refine my research .
  8. Explore some ideas and focus your reading, BEFORE writing any draft (but be adaptable, open to change as your literature review may veer from its original course).
  9. Critically evaluate what you read; don’t take things at face value, look deeper. It is healthy to question everything but remember to be objective to form a balanced opinion.
  10. Look for ‘chains’ (they will make the structure easier) when you design the essay plan. How does one piece of research or set of ideas influence the next? Use a mind map or flow chart if necessary.
  11. Write brief notes about the development of the research over time
  12. Note the key 5-10 pieces of research that most influenced the subject. Briefly chart how each piece of research influenced others in the chain.
  13. Identify how your research will follow on from previous research. Will it add to knowledge about the topic or methods? Add this to your introduction.

(indebted to Stella Cottrell’s ever popular Study Skills Handbook, 2008). Making study easier. Incidentally, Stella’s now PVC for Learning, Teaching and Student Engagement at the University of East London.

For a more detailed overview of a literature review I found it a pleasure to read the University of Leicester’s Student Learning Development webpage on Doing a Literature Review. http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/writing/writing-resources/literature-review which contains invaluable advice on structure, editing, remaining focused, amongst other gems. Reviewing literature can be overwhelming and it is a skill in knowing where the boundaries lay (i.e. what to leave in, what to leave out) and is a cause of many a student headache so it’s worth to remember the valuable advice from Rudestam and Newton (1992:49) when they said to ‘build an argument, not a library’.

References

Cottell, S. (2008). Study Skills Handbook. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rudestam K. & Newton R. (1992). Surviving your dissertation. London:Sage.