In my interviews with students about which technologies have been 'threshold' ones for them, referencing software often comes up. An important realisation seems to be that referencing software doesn't just allow you to get referencing right, it can also allow you to start building up your own conceptual map of the subject area - and to share it. Students often wish that they had started using such systems regularly at an earlier point in their studies.

However, I do wonder about introducing these systems too early, when students are just working out what it means to reference and want to get it 'right' with the minimum effort. There tend to be a lot of tools crammed into the first few weeks of study and not used regularly enough after that to embed the learning - and Endnote along with the more social referencing tools have quite a steep learning curve. Especially if you are not already familiar with the purposes and conventions of referencing. So - with very limited first hand experience of teaching such tools - from the perspective of student interviews I feel that this might be something to introduce when they are ready to take a step up in their academic learning. An early-stage alternative could be to get students sharing references using a bookmark or reference sharing service. In my experience this is a more familiar activity, it embeds the idea that sharing academic resources is not only permitted but encouraged, and it gets at the essence of referencing which is acknowledging and accurately reproducing a source. I also wonder whether third year and postgraduate students - talking about how they choose and use referencing software, and how useful it has been to them - could support learning advisers and library staff with this task. By PGT level there is a very wide range of practices and services in use.

Helen

Helen Beetham
Consultant in Higher Education
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On 16 May 2014, at 15:34, "Holley, Debbie" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Just to completely agree with Jacqui - I teach a third year dissertation preparation module - and show the students how to use REFworks, with support from the librarian but also modelled by me in class. Students complain that they weren't taught this from year one - academic writing is best supported by all of us! 

Debbie 

Sent from my iPad

On 16 May 2014, at 14:58, "Jacqui A Bartram" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Paul

 

In our previous role as ICT Learning Advisers, my colleague Trish Challans and I have worked collaboratively with 2 academic areas to provide training to their first year undergraduates in using bibliographic software (both EndNote and Refworks at different times).  This was embedded into core modules and took the form of timetabled 1 or 2 hr training sessions in a large computer lab.  In the case of one department, students had to evidence their use of the software in at least one assignment by providing a screen shot of their library as an appendix to their first essay.  To be perfectly honest though, I am not sure how many of the students ever used it beyond then. As with learning any new technology, it often seems to take longer initially and be more inconvenient to use the software than to reference manually.  They would have needed to use it regularly to see its true benefits.

 

Since our change of job role, we no longer teach directly on academic modules and I am sad to say that neither department has continued to offer this training.  The assessment requirement has been dropped accordingly.  It always surprises me that even though many academics recognise the need for their students to develop these skills, they are often unwilling to learn to use them themselves (in order to support the skills development within their own departments).  They still see this sort of training as something that it is easier to leave to others if possible.

 

We now offer both EndNote and RefWorks training as part of our open access workshop programme.  Despite this being open to all students and staff, I would guess about 90% of attendees are postgraduate or early career researchers, with only the odd one or two being first year undergraduates.

 

I do think this is an area that we can promote more to first years, they need to be concentrating on why they reference and when to cite rather than the technical details of where a colon goes.

 

Kindest regards

 

Jacqui

 

Jacqui Bartram
Skills Adviser, Skills Team

University of Hull, HU6 7RX

 

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From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of PAUL BREEN
Sent: 15 May 2014 13:41
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Use of Endnote with new undergraduate students

 

Dear LDHEN members,

I would like to know if anyone has experience of using Endnote with first year undergraduates or students on Foundation courses progressing to undergraduate studies. My college is talking about introducing this and from the perspective of teaching students basic writing and research skills, I wonder whether there is a danger with undergraduates that the perception is that because it's there they will be able to use it, and what measures you could introduce to ensure that students still get the required training through the pedagogy rather than simply the provision of the technology. I think sometimes the danger is that there's an assumption that providing technology alone will give rise to the skills that are part of the academic literacy required for higher educational studies i.e. because Endnote can enhance referencing, research and writing when used correctly, students will develop these skills by usage alone.  

So if anyone has any ideas how we complement the technology with the associated training in how to use it, or experience of introducing Endnote into a new undergraduate context I would be glad to hear from them.

Regards,

Paul 

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