Instructors - open education mini-grants

The Office of the Provost and the University Libraries are joining together to support faculty interested in providing their students with a less expensive yet educationally rewarding alternative to expensive commercial textbooks.

The high cost of commercial textbooks (print and electronic) is a major concern for both students and their parents.  The Open Education “Mini-Grants” Initiative, encourages instructors to use low-cost or free alternatives to expensive course materials; these can include open-access scholarly resources, library-licensed and owned resources, and learning objects and texts that faculty create themselves.

Fifteen $1000 “mini-grants” will be available this spring. These modest yet significant sums are meant to offer an incentive for the time it will take you to identify new resources, adjust syllabi, and modify assignments and can also be used to cover any actual expenses you incur.

We invite you to engage in this transition through a competitive grant process.

If you are interested in applying for this initiative, please attend one of the Open Education Initiative information sessions to be held Feb 13^st or 14^nd from noon to 1 pm in Jackson Library, Room 216.  Please RSVP prior to the workshop or any questions you have to Beth Bernhardt at brbernha@uncg.edu

The deadline to apply for the “mini-grants” is March 9^th.  You can apply at https://goo.gl/forms/Mgci6vdiAm6e7VUO2.

Thank you for your interest in pursuing non-traditional educational resources as an alternative to the traditional high-cost textbook.

Feature Films for Education (20th Century Fox)

Our libraries have just gained access to Feature Films for Education

Current and classic films from 20th Century Fox that faculty and students can watch streaming from their computer or link to or embed in their Canvas class. 

This is the first time these films have been available to libraries streaming. 

Faculty and students can go to the above website, browse films by subject or search for a specific film and then hit play.  Most films have closed captioning available in English.

There are many collections of online films available through the UNCG Libraries.  To learn more, see our library guide to streaming films.

Difficulty getting to online videos or other library resources

**update**

The health sciences librarian wasn't feeling so hot this morning after teaching last night! I posted an internal message for coworkers in this public spot intended for students, faculty and staff outside of the library.  Ack!!

I'm updating this post so that it makes more sense for folks who don't work in the library ---

Having trouble getting to a class resource that came from the library?  Contact us for help - there's a good chance that we can show you a way to get your resource through the library website.

This advice has to do with a problem that recently came up with some online videos. Your experiences may vary from this :)

Contact the library 

Chat with a librarian is good "frontline help" available many hours - http://library.uncg.edu/info/ask_us.aspx

Or contact your liaison librarian - look on the research guide for your subject/major/home department

 Have information about what you need so that we can help, or at least notify library e-resources staff if a database/website is down -

--- What kind of thing you need. A student recently let us know that she needed  online videos from Sage Research Methods - very helpful!  librarians also sometimes hear about problems getting to articles or ebooks.

---WHICH thing you need.

Please give the title and author so that we can see if there's a way to get to the resource through the library website (the first student who contacted us for help getting to online videos did not give the title and author of the videos and did not respond to follow up questions - without that information we couldn't help)

If you need an article, we'll want to know the article title, journal title, first author, and year of publication. Yes, we can help find some of this info and we understand if some of this info simply doesn't exist, but if we're just told "I need help getting to an article" there's not much info there for us to search.

 For resources from the Sage Research Methods database, here's one way that you can get to the videos through the library website if you're off campus.

1. Start at library home page: http://library.uncg.edu/

2. Choose databases (bottom of the red search box)

3. Navigate to databases beginning with S, choose Sage Research Methods.  This link should get you into that database: https://library.uncg.edu/dbs/auth/go.aspx?vdbID=1077

4. Go to Advanced Search (linked under the search box)

5. There are a lot of materials in this database, here are some advanced search options that will help you get directly to a specific video:

Type the title of the video that you need, with the exact spelling of each word and each word in order (if you misspell something, you probably won't find the video).

You can put the title in quotes so the words are searched together in that order.

You can change full text to title, so you're only searching titles.

Scroll down.  You can uncheck other formats so that you're only searching videos.

Hit search (it's a little picture of a magnifying glass way down to the lower right)

5. Hopefully you see a result like this, and the title or the picture of the video leads to a page where you can play the video (it does for me right now)

 This is very long, but I hope helpful.  It's pulled from an email sent to one of the students who recently asked me for help getting to online videos.

Cheers!

Film screenings and short film competition

Here are some annoumcements from Sarah Dorsey, "Music and Dance Librarian and sustainability nut"
 
An Inconvenient Sequel this Thursday, Jan 25th - will be screened at the Weatherspoon Art Museum at 6:30PM with IAR prof Anna Marshall-Baker leading post film discussion.

February: Saving Sea Turtles will screen on Thursday, February 15 in Sullivan Science Room 101 at 6:30PM with Bio prof and turtle expert Ann Somers leading discussion.

March: In Pursuit of Silence will be shown on Thursday, March 15  in Sullivan Science Room 101 at 6:30PM with Geo prof and ecomusicologist Aaron Allen leading discussion.

April: Sustainability Shorts (see info below about the competition currently afoot) will be happening on Thursday, April 19 at the Greensboro Project Space (GPS) - stay tuned for more info about that event. 

 

2018 NINTH ANNUAL

SUSTAINABILITY SHORTS

FILM COMPETITION

You are eligible for one of 3 prizes ($500, $300, $200) if you:

1.  Create a short film about sustainability (under 10 minutes)

2.  Submit it by March 16, 2018

All entries will be screened as part of the UNCG Sustainability Film and Discussion Series at the Greensboro Project Space on Thursday, April 19, at 6:30pm, where winners will be announced and celebrated.

Entries must address sustainability, which UNCG defines as the “enduring interconnectedness of social equity, the environment, the economy, and aesthetics.” Judging is based on relation to sustainability as well as concept, cinematography, acting, production quality, costuming, writing, etc.

Submit films on DVD or in screenable online format (YouTube, Vimeo) together with your name, phone number and email address, and the title and length of the film by 5pm on March 16, 2018 to Sarah Dorsey sbdorsey@uncg.edu (if you have questions, contact Sarah via email or at 336.334.5610).

By entering the competition, entrants agree to the following: 1) Films must be original work, must not infringe on any rights of others, and must have all necessary permissions. UNCG will not be held liable for any copyright infringements. 2) To claim prizes, winners must be present (in person or via audio/video connection) at the screening. 3) Entrants will retain all ownership rights to their films. 4) UNCG reserves the right to not screen any film(s) for any reason. 5) Prizes are not negotiable or transferable. 6) The decisions of the judges are final.

PubMed is surviving the government shutdown, other sites not so much...

I'm so relieved that PubMed is still operational.  But it looks like it will be going out of date as new records are not added.  Here is an announcement on their website -

I just received an announcement that the U.S. census website will be shutting down, including American FactFinder. Here's a blurb from Bob Coats, Governor’s Census Liaison, North Carolina State Data Center -

The US Census Bureau is a Federal agency and is impacted by the Federal government shutdown.

The Census.gov website including the American FactFinder data engine are currently running, but Census staff plan to backup data today and shut down the Census website.  This is to eliminate hacking risks to unmonitored resources during the shutdown. 

State resources such as the Log Into North Carolina (LINC) online database and State Demographer websites remain up and running.

This sounds similar to what we experienced back in 2013.

Hang tight, everyone.

Human Rights Film series - Citizen Four screening on 2/1

Please join us for the Spring Human Rights Research Network film series starting February 1 at 6:30 pm in School of Edu 120. We will be showing Citizenfour, a documentary about Edward Snowden, and Dr. Jerry Pubantz from Political Science will be our discussant. You can see more information about the series on our new website: https://sites.google.com/uncg.edu/hrrn/current-film-series 

Wiley seeking feedback on research support tool - Tues 1/23, 12 pm

On Jan 23rd (Tuesday), 12 - 1 pm Wiley representatives will be in Jackson Library Room 216 to demo a new product called Wiley Researcher Academy (www.wileyresearcheracademy.com).   They would like product feedback from librarians, graduate students, and early career researchers. 

Our library does NOT subscribe to this product.

Wiley is providing lunch for the first 20 graduate students and early career researchers who sign up to attend and give feedback:   https://goo.gl/forms/cu83y61fXe9dIBm43

ProQuest ebook central not available this Saturday afternoon and evening

FYI if you use ebooks from ProQuest Ebook Central - Due to scheduled maintenance, ProQuest Ebook Central will be unavailable at: Saturday, January 20, from 1 pm - 7 pm EST

Apologies for the inconvenience!

Remember to check on whether the library has the ebook that you need from a different source.  Here's a 3.5 minute video that shows how to find out if the library has your book online: 

Introduction to R workshop Fri 1/12

This news was just shared with me -

 

The Introduction to R workshop will be offered this Friday, Jan. 12. Please alert any students or colleagues who might be interested.

For more information and to register, please visit the QMS website: https://www.uncg.edu/mat/qms/

--

Scott J. Richter, PhD
Director, Statistical Consulting Center (http://www.uncg.edu/mat/sta/consulting.html)
UNCG Quantitative Methodology Series (https://www.uncg.edu/mat/qms/)
Mathematics and Statistics
107 Petty Building
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
(336) 334-5836 (Math/Stats office)

First library webinar of the semester on 1/11 - APA Style Central

The UNCG webinar series covers topics on library resources and research tools.  

Thursday, January 11th at 10am:

“APA Style Central” by Lea Leininger, Health Sciences Librarian and Karen Grigg, Science Librarian.  

Learn about APA Style Central, an online guide to writing style from the American Psychological Association. See tutorials, sample papers, and more.

Monday, January 22nd at 1pm:

“AccessMedicine” by Lea Leininger, Health Sciences Librarian and Karen Grigg, Science Librarian. 

Learn about a database with medical ebooks, videos, drug information and more. Available to any UNCG student, instructor, or employee with a current iSpartan account.

Tuesday, February 20th at 1pm:

“Data Management” by Lynda Kellam, Data Librarian.

Tuesday, March 13th at 11am:

“Digital Media Commons (DMC) and Digital ACT Studio (DACTs)” by Armondo Collins, Head of Digital Media Commons and Vaughn Stewart, Director of Digital ACT Studio.  

Thursday, April 5th at 11am:

“Online Teaching and Library Resources” by Samantha Harlow, Online Learning Librarian.

Please sign up through the Google Form or the UNCG Libraries workshop page. We will record these 30 minute webinars in WebEx Meeting Center and make them available on this library guide.