Learning about research and information in the Covid-19 pandemic. No.5 Finding and using statistics

Finding and using statistics

During the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us have been watching the daily briefing from the government and a regular part of this has been reporting on the number of cases and deaths as well as displaying a number of graphs.

Statistics (or data) are more than just numbers and have been used to predict the need for more hospital provision, PPE, to look for the peak of the infection, the "flattening of the curve" and to inform government decisions about social distancing, for example. We've seen they can tell a story, they can help us understand what is happening, they can show trends and inform theories.

Statistics however, are just numbers without context. The number of Covid deaths, though large and too many (especially for those directly affected), on their own mean nothing unless you can compare this to the normal expected death rate last year, for example. We also need to know what is being counted. Only recently have care home deaths been included in the figures.

Statistics have been used to compare and contrast. We have been able to see the UK death rate in comparison to other countries. They meant decision-makers drew similarities between the UK and Italy for example at the beginning of the epidemic. However, at the same time, statistics are to be viewed with caution. No one will truly understand what the statistics mean until the pandemic is over and lessons can be learned. Statistics ideally should be viewed with some analysis.

In the video below from the BC's Andrew Marr Show, Professor David Spiegelhalter (an expert) talks about the whole complex issue of using statistics during the Coronavirus crisis and why numbers on their own aren't always helpful. Also, he discusses how statistics can be used to help measure risk and put things in perspective.


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Using statistics in your research and assignments.

• Statistics are great sources to use for showing the scale of a problem or issue you are writing about and to make comparisons. Use them to show trends over time and predictions.
• Make sure you get your statistics from reputable sources. ONS (Office of National Statistics) collate a lot of information and make it available on their website. Specialist organisations e.g. charities also collect data on their particular area of expertise.
• It is worth checking what the numbers mean.  What definition was used to identify what was counted? For example, Mintel (a marketing database UCP students can access) uses information from MORI polls and outlines this on the website. 
• UCP students also have access to a database called Statista. By using this resource you know the statistics have come from reputable sources. Analysis is provided too and it has a section devoted to directing users to publications and websites where they can find statistics online for free.
• If you have a lot of data, try to present it in a graph or pie chart. Visual representation usually means more to the reader (and uses less words!). Try different types until you find the one which makes your point best.
• Always show where you have got your statistics from (i.e. reference).
• Be aware that people with an agenda may use and even manipulate statistics  to bolster their argument. Think critically as you read.
• Be wary of making statistics say what you want them to say - unless they really do. 

Coming Soon - Fantastic Beasts event

Coming soon - Fantastic Beasts event

Next Wednesday we are holding a Fantastic Beasts event to mark the release of the second film the Crimes of Grindelwald. Various curriculm areas are joining us. The hospitality section are making and selling biscuits, the Raptor Foundation are bringing owls and the animal care section are showcasing some of their insects and reptiles. The youth centre are holding a craft stall and we will have a tombola to raise money for Wood Green Animal Shelter.

We are also giving everyone the opportunity to enter our pet photography competition (open for entries now - send your photos to the LRC) or even win a prize for dressing up in fancy dress for the day!

Fantastic Beasts resources and activities for you to try (with some Google tips) - 

To get you in the mood, we've put together some activities and online resources with a Fantastic Beasts theme. Some will help you learn how to find things on the internet, some will help you learn, some will make you think about the websites you view and some are just fun.

• Use Google's image search to find what a niffler looks like.

• Use Google maps to find out where the place Grindlewald is (slightly different spelling to the film character).

• Find a trailer of the Crimes of Grindelwald on Internet Movie Database. Just put the keywords - (fantastic beasts crimes Grindelwald) - in to your search. You don't need to use the "of" as this will be ignored anyway.                                                                                                          IMDB can also tell you who is in the film and by clicking on their name you can see what else they have been in. Who plays Leta Lestrange and in what other films/ tv dramas will you see her? Was she in the first film?

• Find out when Fantastic Beasts Crimes of Grindelwald is on at the cinema by typing movie: crimes grindelwald in to the search box in Google. It will usually default to your nearest location but if you want to know when it is on in Norwich for examples type movie: crimes grindelwald norwich. You can use this for any film and location.

• Find out how to make baked nifflers:

• Read the BBC's article Can exotic animals make good pets? How many licensed tigers were there in the UK in 2016? Why might you think twice about using this web article in an assignment?

• The RSPCA has advice about keeping exotic pets. Do you think keeping exotic pets such as snakes and reptiles is a good idea? Discuss with your friends the pros and cons or why not ask some of the animal care students at the event?

• Some of you may want to get some advice on taking photos of your pet for our competition (we already have a lot of entries which will be on display on Wednesday). Have a look at these 2 websites and decide who are they written for.Which would you use and why?https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/technique/wildlife_photography/photographing-pets-pet-photography-tip-566                                                                              https://www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-advice/how-to-photograph-pets

• Have a look at some animal anatomy in our eBooks Introduction to veterinary anatomy and physiology textbook, Animal biology and care or  The complete textbook of animal health and welfare. You will need to use your network login and password.

• Finally for a bit of fun do the Beano's personality quiz - Which Fantastic Beast are you?

• The Independent also has a Which Fantastic Beast from Harry Potter are you? quiz but you will have to watch an advert first! They also have another more challenging quiz What mythical creature are you?

Google - tips and pitfalls

Using Google to search

A large number of us use Google as the search engine of choice, but is it really the best way to search for information for your academic work?

Google searches for information using algorithms - a set of automated rules which are applied as it trawls for keywords you've put in the search box. Google does not index everything and there is a lot of good information in the hidden web (not to be confused with the dark web!) which will never find it's way in to Google results. The hidden web includes contents of specific databases and collections held by organisations which haven't made these searchable by Google.

The problem is that Google does not exist first and foremost to bring back the information you require. It exists to make money in advertising revenue and so your top links are likely to be sponsored links (whether they are relevant or not). It will often put the most popular results first and you may not want the most popular - you want the most relevant.

Google tracks your use - either by your login or IP address and remembers what you searched for and this will influence what results are brought back in future. Google will assume you want information  from the country in which you are searching  and in the language in which you typed. It tries to mould it's results to you and so two people can get totally different results from the same search.

That said, its academic arm Google Scholar is a useful tool for students for finding articles and papers, but again does not give access to everything. Also, full text access will still often only be available with your University login.

For more information, see the relevant chapter in Phil Bradley's book Expert Internet Searching. available in the LRC.

Image CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/magnifying-glass-google-76520/

Tips for using Google effectively

• If you want to keep your searches private so your searches can't be tracked, you can apply relevant settings or delete search history.
• Use Advanced search to be more specific about your search. You will find this hidden in the Settings menu.
• Use Google Scholar if you want to search academic resources. You can set it just to search just for sources provided by ARU, for example, but you will need to log in to the ARU Digital library first to read the resources. You may want to try turning off the settings too to see everything else that is indexed.
• Use the image search for photographs and images.
• Put words in speech marks to keep them as a phrase "University of Peterborough", "health and safety"  "prime minister". Google tends to look for words next to each other first anyway, but using speech marks is standard for phrase searching in most databases.
• Save typing by using an asterisk (*) to indicate missing letters. Paint* will search for paint, paints, painting, paintings, painter, painters.
• Type the most important search word first in the search box.
• If you just want to search for sites from a particular country type site:.uk (before your keywords), for example, for UK sites. If you just want results from UK government sites, for example, use site:.gov.uk before your search term(s).

Further resources

Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a useful guide to searching Google (but setting Google Scholar up for MIT is not relevant unless you study there!).
The University of Bedfordshire have some useful Google Scholar tips on their library site.
Google itself has provided some video "power searching" courses which you can work through.

New Information Literacy Definition

Information Literacy

Earlier this year, the CILIP Information Literacy Group updated the original 2004 definition of information literacy. Teaching and fostering information literacy is something information professionals (e.g. librarians) and teachers collaborate on.

To be information literate means having a range of skills involved in seeking, evaluating, using and presenting information and doing this ethically. More and more it involves digital literacy (e.g. using the internet and digital environments to find information) and is relevant not only to the academic world but also the workplace and in everyday life. It is key to lifelong and independent learning.

To see the definition (less than 4 sides of A4), see the document here.

Some of the skills involved in information literacy are:

• Critical thinking and problem solving.
• Questioning techniques
• Evaluating information including identifying fake news
• Using information/ images ethically (copyright).
• Understanding the limitation of online reviews and information
• Plagiarism and referencing
• Identidying and understanding bias.
• Identifying what information you need before you look and being able to express this in the right way for the tool you use to search for it.
• Understanding where the best place/source is to get the information you require.
• Identifying the best resources for the information required.
• Presenting information in the best way.

Staff in the LRC are keen to help students and staff develop the skills to help them handle information both in the academic setting and also as a life skill for everyday life and in their future employment.

Image used under Creative Commons Licence CC0
 http://www.tes.com.c.timeshigheredprod.ent.platform.sh/news/smart-glasses-teachers-help-pupils-learn

Presenting numerical information and misleading graphs

Presenting numerical information/ data.

Information can be presented in many ways and it is a skill to decide which is the best way to do this depending on its purpose. Directions may be best shown on a map, what someone looks like is best shown in a photo (than a written description) and the different parts of the heart, for example are probably best shown in a diagram. Numbers or statistical data are often best shown in graph format.

Numbers on their own can be difficult to interpret and so don't obviously mean something to the reader. See below for a table showing the number of visits we had in the LRC this year so far.

	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Totals
Totals	14666	16333	20823	11721	18611	13963	17732	10377	16719	140945

On their own the numbers mean little especially if you don't know the College. If you know the College, you may decide that from these figures we have a lot of visitors.

However, if I present this information as a graph like this, you can more obviously see the ups and downs throughout the year.

The information means even more if it is then compared with last year. It becomes more obvious to see that we have been busier in some months but quieter than last year in other months. This can be down to when holidays fall. It is then more useful to look at the total figures to see that this year we have been busier overall than last year. (140945 this year compared with 135101 last year for the months September to May only).

Misleading Graphs

Lots could be written about the usefulness of statistics and graphs and how they can be used to argue anything (that's a blog post for another day!), but have you thought about how the layout of a graph can be helpful or not so helpful. If I include the totals in the graph at the end, the scaling is less helpful and the difference in the bars for each year disappears.

Have a look at this quiz by the BBC on misleading graphs. Can you see what is wrong with how the information is presented and how this can skew how the information is read and understood.

The skill is to be aware of this, not only when presenting information, but also when looking at statistics and graphs as part of research. Check the facts and also check how this has been presented. Would it show a different picture if presented in a different way?

With our figures we have assumed that the people counter has been working properly and that the figures are as near as correct as they can be. Also the figures themselves are just quantitative data and just show numbers/ amounts. We have no information from this on what people do in the LRC, how long they stay, what they do and whether they like it. We have to collect that another way - usually through comments and interviews. This is known as qualitative data. Last week's blog post contained some of this from comments made in the UCP student survey, for example.

Health and Safety at Work and finding trustworthy organisation websites

World Day for Safety and Health at Work

On the 28th April, it is World Day for Safety and Health at Work so we thought we would take a look at resources which may help when learning about health and safety. It is something which affects the workplace but is also relevant to the home, for example.

Most  (if not all) vocational courses at College cover this topic and everyone who works needs to know about it. You may even be asked about it in an interview. Health and Safety covers anything from use of computers and manual handling to fire safety to working with chemicals, food or specific tools.

Finding quality websites on health and safety

When using the internet to help with research, it is best to concentrate on information from trusted organisations. For example:

Government departments - identify these by the .gov at the end of the URL e.g. www.hse.gov.uk is the Health and Safety Executive website and www.food.gov deals with food hygiene. The Health and Safety Act  itself (plus other legislation) can be found at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37 .

Charities and other trusted organisations - identify these by the .org at the end of the URL e.g. e.g. http://www.safetygroupsuk.org.uk (Safety Groups UK - a  charity that promotes health and safety).
You may find a .com website useful like The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (https://www.rospa.com/) but as a rule you need to treat these sites with care as anyone can set up a .co.uk or .com website whereas organisations and government departments can only register to use the .org and .gov websites.

Hospitals and NHS websites - identify these by the .nhs.uk at the end of the URL. The NHS patient safety website has all sorts of interesting information for those of you working in/ studying Health and Social Care particularly.

Academic websites, identified by the .ac.uk web extension, can also be trusted but perhaps not so relevant here. The College's moodle site (including your course page) has .ac.uk at the end of the main URL and includes information and resources created by your Lecturers.

If you are not sure, take a look at the About Us section of the website (if there isn't one, think twice about using it). Who are they? Who writes the website? What is their experience/ qualifications?

Google tip: To restrict your search to just government websites, for example, use site:.gov.uk in your search (Others would be site:.nhs.uk or site.ac.uk or site:.org.uk). You can also do this site:.uk to just find UK sites - something that is very important with anything to do with legislation. Other countries do not have the same standards and laws for health and safety as the UK although much may be the same.

Other online resources

The Health and Safety Executive website has a list of the ten worst Health and Safety myths. They also have a collection of videos on their website and a related YouTube channel. These include case studies and examples where health and safety has gone wrong.

They also have an e-learning package Slips and Trips which is free to use.

The Jisc Hairdressing Training resource (available from our Electronic Resources page on Moodle) has an activity where hairdressing students can test their knowledge of Health and Safety when blow-drying hair. It includes particular hazards in a salon environment like turning heating tongs off and not leaving them unattended, safety with perm solutions and keeping the salon clean.

Use Infotrac to find examples in the news or in magazines which demonstrate what happens if health and safety good practice isn't followed or where accidents have happened.

Remember also, that we have books too. The general books are at 363.11 with other subjects having specialised books in their own areas (e.g. construction 692.9 or 624.0684).

Stephen Hawking and Finding Theses

Stephen Hawking and Finding Theses

Stephen Hawking

This week we heard the news that cosmologist and scientist Stephen Hawking died at the age of 76. He worked as a Professor at Cambridge University and became famous for his research in to cosmology - especially black holes. His book A Brief History of Time became a bestseller.

Black hole CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/black-hole-nebula-stars-space-2483571/

The BBC have put together a Stephen Hawking quiz if you want to test your knowledge of the famous scientist.

In October 2017, Cambridge University put Hawking's PhD thesis online for the first time and the demand to read it crashed the system. It was read two million times.

Theses

What is a thesis?

According to the Collins Dictionary the definition of a thesis is a long piece of writing based on your own ideas and research that you do as part of a university degree, especially a higher degree such as a PhD. 

Are they useful?

• They are valid academic sources of information and can be used as sources of background reading and research for dissertations and assignments.
• They are published sources of information with copyright restrictions and must be cited and referenced when used as part of your academic work. ARU has instructions on how to do this using the Harvard system on their website.
• Theses will have reading lists and bibliographies like books and journals which may lead you to other sources/ authors you can read.
• Looking through recent theses in your field may give you an idea of the sorts of issues currently being researched. It may help you pinpoint what you want to choose for your research topic or give you background for a job interview.
• Some research written up in theses may also be summarised in academic journals so you may want to search the author (or the Professor who supervised the research) in a journal database too to see if you can find more context or read a summary.

Where are they stored? How do I find them?

Most universities have their own repository - usually online. ARU's for example is here. These online databases/ websites give open access to a University's research. Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis is on Apollo - the name Cambridge University have given their online repository.

However, you can be forgiven for thinking that trawling through every University's online repository one by one - especially if you don't know which University to look for - is not ideal. These online resources make this easier.

EThoS (Electronic Theses Online System) is the British Library's online repository for over 475,000 doctoral theses awarded by universities across the UK. Most are available in digital format but details of how to get a copy is given if the digital copy isn't available.

NDLTD (Networked Digital Library or Theses and Dissertations) offers access to theses mainly from America and Canada but there are some from other countries.

Finally...

We leave this week's blog with a quote from Stephen Hawking

On life...
❝One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away❞ - Interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, June 2010

Be Healthy Stay Safe Be Green

Be Healthy Stay Safe Be Green event

This week the LRC had a stand at the College's second Be Healthy Stay Safe Be Green this year. This time we went green with planters and piggy banks made out of old plastic bottles. Thank you to everyone who donated these and the seeds we planted.

LRC's Be Healthy Stay Safe Be Green stand
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

We also had a tree of encouragement. On the leaves were written some words of encouragement. Students were asked to take one from the tree and replace with a leaf of their own (with their encouraging words). This proved a popular idea with students.

Some of the words left on the tree at the end were:

• Spring is just around the corner.
• You need to be in the darkness to see the stars
• If everything goes not right, go left!
• Never give up!
• Get a goal in life and never let it go until you have achieved it.
• Today is a good day to smile.
• Keep trying your best.
• Always stay positive, fight the demons.

Trusting Health Information on the Internet

BBC's Trust Me I'm a Doctor recently did some features on using the internet to find health information and whether we should trust health apps. The links are here if you want to find out more.

Can you trust any of the health information found online?

Do the health apps on your phone really work?

Why are health headlines so confusing and how can you know which to trust?

Focusing your topic

Help with choosing an assignment topic and breaking a topic down.

LRC staff have been going in to a lot of groups over at UCP (University Centre Peterborough) and also holding 1:1 dissertation sessions with students this year. One skill lots of students find difficult is deciding exactly on what specific topic to pursue. As it was World Thinking Day this week, we thought it an ideal opportunity to think a little about this in our blog. Please note: the examples used below are used to show a process rather than as a recommendation of a good title. Always check your topics with your tutor.

1) Start with a large general topic of interest - something you are naturally interested in, but also which is relevant to your course.
 For example, Marketing, Social media,  employment law, blood, health and safety, mental health.

Image (CC0) by Mohamed Hassan https://pixabay.com/en/light-bulb-inspiration-ideas-2652929/

2) Is there an aspect of that topic more specifically that interests you? Can you break it down further? If you have a few options, note these down and as you start searching consider going for the topic which gives you the most results/ resources which you can use. If you are getting too many results, you probably need to consider breaking it down further.
Following on from the examples above, you might decide to focus on digital marketing, twitter, equal pay legislation, white blood cells, fire safety, depression.

3) Can you break your topic down (or be more specific) by providing a context?
For example, within a particular industry, in a particular setting, in a particular environment, within a particular sport, within a particular type of organisation, within a specific species or within a certain profession.
Continuing with my examples we might choose,

• Digital marketing in the hospitality industry
• Use of twitter by broadcasting companies
• The impact of equal pay legislation on the entertainment industry
• New developments in fire safety in the hospitality industry
• White blood cells in dogs
• How depression is portrayed in TV soaps. 

You may find results then on one context and be interested in seeing if you can apply it to another context or to make a comparison between them.

CC0 image by qimono https://pixabay.com/en/question-mark-pile-question-mark-2492009/ 

4) You then may want to be even more specific. You could define this further by age group or particular sort of restaurant, by country or time period. You could also define by a particular goal or aim. If you have started searching as you go, again, you might have seen certain issues coming up more frequently and there may be particular aspects trending currently. Choose an area where the resources exist and with information you understand. Make sure it is relevant to your course subject.

So again, how about,

• Use of digital marketing to teenagers by fast food chains.
• Comparison of the use of twitter by different Radio stations to encourage customer feedback from their audiences.
• The impact of equal pay legislation on the film industry, particularly in Hollywood.
• What changes are the hospitality industry implementing to reduce fires in kitchens?
• The causes and treatment of low white blood cell count in domestic dogs.
• How the portrayal of depression in TV soaps has changed over the last 5 years.

 If you need any help with finding resources to help you decide what to use as your topic, please ask a member of staff in the LRC. We can also combine this with a classroom session on searching for information (e.g. databases).

Evaluating information - celebrity endorsements and advertising

Evaluating information

In the LRC we are always keen to encourage students (and staff) to be careful when using the internet for finding information. We want everyone to look critically at the information they find before deciding whether it can be used as a source for an assignment.

Advertising and celebrity endorsements

Be aware of websites - especially company websites - which are selling something. If hairdressing and beauty students are looking for information on the human skin, for example, they may find plenty of websites from companies selling skin products which also have pages explaining how the skin works. Much of this information may be correct and they may have consulted with dermatologists but they will probably have paid them to give information that helps sell their product (and perhaps leave out other information), for example. We would recommend using our Primal anatomy online resource, for example, as an alternative.

With the royal engagement this week, some magazines are talking about Meghan Markle the brand and what products she uses. Companies search for high profile people to say they use their products as this can make a lot of difference. Do you look at a celebrity social media account, for example, and decide a product must be good if favourite celebrity uses it?This is called influencer marketing and can be very subtle. Companies can even dress adverts up as news stories. See the South Park video below for a humorous take on this.

 However, Celebrity endorsements do not mean that the products are necessarily the best and the Advertising Standards Authority have ruled that it is now illegal for a celebrity to endorse a product without indicating this in any posts they make on social media.

Listen to a BBC podcast here about why you cannot always trust adverts online.

How do I know if what I read online is an advert?

All celebrity social media accounts (twitter, vlogs, blogs etc) must now by law indicate whether any content is a result of a commercial relationship - i.e. the celebrity is being paid to endorse a product by the company which makes it (i.e. there is a commercial relationship). You will also notice that Google indicates where it's results (usually first in the list) are adverts - so you know they have been paid to put these results first rather than that they are necessarily most relevant to your search. So, think twice where there is #ad  or #adfeature in an online post or website and avoid using the content in an assignment. Smilarly you might also notice the phrases "sponsored content" or "ad or promotion". Avoid this content and instead look for information from recognised organisations (charities, government departments, authorities, associations) or academic institutions. Look for the About link to find out about the organisation/ person behind the website.

The Advertising Standards Authority have more information on this on their website.
Have a look at their advice on identifying when something is an advert.
If you are a marketing student, you may like to read about the Oreo lick race case which led to this standard being introduced or even better read the article through our Infotrac resource.

Dissertation Research

Dissertations

FE students are on catch up week (half term) this week but UCP students still have lectures and the LRC stays open for all students and staff who want to use us.

Over the past few weeks, LRC librarians have been in to a number of tutorials at UCP to talk to students about finding information for their dissertations. Here are a few tips from the LRC team for getting started:

Getting started on your literature review/ dissertation research

Choose a topic that you are interested in - you will be living with it for a long time.

If you know a broad area you are interested in, you might find it useful to look in a journal dedicated to the subject (if there is one) and have a look through recent contents lists for issues that are currently topical.

You need to find a subject with enough literature, but not so much that you get too many results and your research becomes unmanageable. Even if you are doing primary research, you will need to find enough literature to show the context in which your research fits.

You can refine your subject by focusing on a particular age range (e.g. teenagers, the elderly), country or area (e.g UK) or a particular time period (since 2000), for example.

Before you start searching

Plan your search terms - list synonyms (words that mean the same), acronyms (and what they stand for), wider concepts (things that affect/ are affected by your topic), narrower subjects (specifics), different forms of a word (woman, women).

Set up a system to record everything you find which is useful -why not decide to write a Harvard reference for each source you find as you go along so that it isn't a massive task at the end. Note key page numbers too so you can find sources again.

Laptop image from www.pixabay.com (Stocksnap) CC0

Searching for information

Combine the different terms you listed in your planning in different combinations and search the ARU Digital library and the PRC LRC catalogue on Moodle.  (You can also use Google Scholar if you prefer but you won't find links to the PRC catalogue on there and you need to log in to the ARU Digital Library first to view anything, anyway. Note down other keywords and phrases that you find authors have used as you discover them and integrate them in to your searches. There is always likely to be some trial and error involved and different search terms will yield different results.

Books are a good starting point to familiarise yourself with a topic. Use the bibliographies in these to find other authors and sources which might be useful (note them down as you find them).

For success in your dissertation, you want to be using a range of different, yet appropriate, resources. Have you tried searching for theses or conference proceedings, for example? How about open access databases or  websites of accredited organisations?

Get a quick idea of whether a resource is relevant by reading the abstract.

Be disciplined - it is easy to go off on a tangent - keep to your topic. Only reassess what you are searching for if you are getting too few or too many results.

Asking for help

Remember that the librarians in the LRC at PRC are here to help you if you are having problems finding what you need or indeed if you are justlooking for some other places to explore. We can also suggest ways to put searches together to retrieve the most relevant results. We can help you quickly there and then or set up a 1:1 appointment for a more in depth session.

National Map Reading Week and Digimap

National Map Reading Week

This week is National Map Reading Week and organisations like the Ordnance Survey are using this to publicise and highlight the importance of having skills like being able to use a compass, plotting a map reference and using the right type of map for different activities.

• The latest research suggests the average British person ends up going the wrong way, or getting lost, 24 times a year.
• Mountain Rescue England and Wales call outs were up 170 in 2016 on the previous year and of the 1812 call outs, 360 were serious or fatal.

Given that we live in the age of the Sat Nav and smartphone, is it still necessary to know how to use a map? The statistics above suggest it is.

Being able to read a map and plan a route is still an invaluable life skill and maps can give us a lot of information. For example, a map will help you visually plan your route and see where you are in relation to other places. It can give you an idea of distance or how a hill is as well as what features are found in different areas.You do not need a battery, a mobile/ satellite signal or the ability to hear.

Sometimes a map or diagram is the best way to present information so directions can be understood easily.

Imagine explaining to someone new how to get from the Learning Resource Centre to Parcs Restaurant. Perhaps the best solution would be to take them there yourself. 

However, the alternative would be to explain to them that they need to turn left out of the LRC, past the Apprenticeship Centre, then turn left, follow the corridor round past the Enterprise lounge until they get to Alexandra Foyer when they need to go past the entrance gate and take the corridor to the left of the Pantry and follow this down to Parcs!

Or… you could draw a map!

Resources for learning map reading skills

For the beginner, Ordnance Survey provides a range of guides and videos to show you how to read maps. For example, understanding contours so you know whether you will be walking up a steep hill or not.

See below for Steve Backshall's short video guide to taking a 4 digit map reference.

Ordnance Survey have also devised a short quiz for you to test your map reading skills. Have a go!

Digimap

The Learning Resource Centre subscribes to Digimap which is an online service giving access to Ordnance Survey mapping of Great Britain. Students and staff can access it from the Electronic Resources Page under the Learning Resource Centre tab on Moodle. It is only accessible in College. Students and staff can save and/or print out their A4 maps.

The great thing about it is that you can search by postcode or place and then once you have centred your map, you can annotate it with shapes, labels, photos as well as measure distances. You might want to add starting points, places to camp, places to stop for lunch based on how long a walk is. Will you have to cross a river? Will you walk through woodland? Will there be steep hills? Will you pass through any villages? 

Public Services students have used this when planning for their week away walking the Pennine Way in the past.

How to keep up to date with new developments in your area of work

Impress at job interviews and keep up to date

Lots of students are now leaving college and applying for jobs. Many will be working in a particular sector such as hairdressing, construction, fire service, nursing or child care.

New developments are being made and affect the workplace all the time e.g.

• ·         new legislation or guidelines passed (e.g. health and safety)
• ·         new initiatives being piloted,
• ·         new problems being tackled
• ·         new people with new ideas.

 Hairstyles change, new research comes out in helping children’s development, new fashions in cooking and hospitality, and new materials and techniques in building homes and structures, for example.

Keeping up to date with professional Periodicals/ Journals

In the library (due to the refit they are currently in Room 121 and then sent out to departments) we have a range of professional periodicals which are one way of keeping up to date in your field. If you want to have the edge in a job interview, why not read up on what the latest issues are so you can mention these and show that you take an interest in the work you will be doing.

Some titles we currently hold are:

Building
Caterer
FE Week
Fire (I expect a lot will be written about the Grenfell Tower fire in forthcoming issues)
Hairdressers Journal
Highways (previously Surveyor)
Leisure Management & Health Club Management
Make Up Artist Magazine
Marketing Week
Navy News
Nursery World (with archive online)
Nursing Times
Professional Beauty
RAF News
TES
THE
Travel Weekly

Library Periodicals. Photograph by Peterborough Regional College

Some other ways to keep up to date and keep learning in your chosen profession/ job

Websites of professional bodies (organisations which represent a profession) – e.g Hair Council, ABTA, Institution of Civil Engineers. It is probably best to concentrate on those based in the UK as legislation and practice may be different in other countries such as the US.

Websites of professional journals (see above) – these will give a summary even if you don’t subscribe. Building magazine is already discussing the construction materials used in Grenfell Tower as is Fire magazine.

Social media accounts – e.g, the nursing and midwifery council has a twitter account@nmcnews, the Royal Navy has a Facebook account. You need to make sure you have the official accounts (look for the tick) and that new content is being regularly added. Well known professionals in your field may also write a blog eg Sarah Jagger (Make up artist).

Email lists and RSS feeds. You can subscribe to news feeds so new information about subjects in which you have an interest are sent to your email account. You can often choose to get a weekly digest so that you don't get too many emails.

Fake Social Media and How will you vote in the General Election?

Fake social media

In this blog, we have covered the topic of being aware of fake news and fake social media several times and this week this has never been more relevant. As the events of Monday night in Manchester unfolded, the internet was flooded with false reports of missing children and photos of the scene. This only added confusion to the whole situation and was not helpful to anyone.

This should prove a warning to us all not to trust everything we read and to think twice about sharing something we cannot be sure is true.

For more information read http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/05/23/manchester-attack-social-media-trolls-spread-fake-posts-missing/

General Election and how will you vote?

Polling Station at Glinton Village Hall by Paul Bryan reproduced under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 2.0
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5377045

Whilst the political parties have taken a break over the last few days out of respect for the victims of the Manchester attack, canvassing is slowly starting again ready for the election on the 8th June 2017. If you are 18 you can vote - but only if you have registered to do so. The deadline for doing so is now past but for future reference you can register on the Peterborough City Council website.

So, how will you vote? The Times Educational Supplement (we subscribe to this in Library+) ran an article last week about how important it is for young people to vote. They write that at the Brexit decision, if 16 and 17 year olds had been able to vote, there would have been a different result. Many of those young people are now old enough to vote and can make a difference.

So, how do you decide what to vote? The Complete University Guide has information aimed at students. 

Also you may like to try an online quiz which takes you through the main issues asking you to choose your viewpoint and then at the end it tells you which party you match with most. Take the quiz here.

Focus on Electronic Resources for Early Years and Child Care

Childlink and Nursery World

Library+ subscribes to a couple of databases which hold lots of useful information for Early Years and Child Care students particularly but may also be useful for Health and Social Care students.
These resources are accessible from our Electronic Resources page under the Library+ section of Moodle.  Both can be used inside and outside College. If prompted, enter your network login name and password.

Childlink

This focuses on legislation, policies and practices regarding children and young people. There are links to new government legislation (e.g. Children and Social Work Bill), research, papers ( e.g. Bounce back from bullying), news (e.g "Schools must do more on mental health") and statistics (e.g. youth custody data). There are also links to trustworthy videos (e.g. How to put your child to sleep properly or What can we do about child abuse?  - see below for the NSPCC video).

There is also a range of practice guides on issues such as Nursery Food and Common Childhood Illnesses. Have a look and see what you can find!

You can access Childlink on your tablet if you have one and there is a Childlink app for your mobile if this is how you wish to access it.

Nursery World

We pay a lot of money to give you online access to back issues of Nursery World so do please use it. Nursery World is very practical and relevant to people working with young children (I've just found an article on dressing up, for example) with ideas that you can use in your work placement as well as use in your assignments. There is health advice, information about special needs, equality and diversity and ideas for play, to name a few.

You can search for what you are interested in using the search box in the top right hand corner or browse through past issues one by one.

Nursery World - available to view in College

If you want any help using these, please come and ask in Library+. We can also come to your lesson and give you a quick demo or training session - tutors just need to arrange this with us.

National No Smoking Day - and how do I know which websites to trust?

National No Smoking Day

Yesterday was National No Smoking Day. Several courses include looking at smoking as a topic in their courses and many use websites. I am often asked by students how to tell which websites can be trusted so I thought I’d use this topic as an example.

Smoking and tobacco websites

So…. if you were doing a project on smoking and tobacco, which of the following websites would you trust and use as a good source of information for your assignment? Not all of these are ideal.

www.ash.org.uk  (Action on Smoking and Health – charity)

www.gov.uk/government/policies/smoking   (UK Government website)

www.bmj.com/specialities/smoking  (British Medical Journal)

www.nicorette.co.uk  (company selling products to help give up smoking)

www.niquitin.co.uk  (company selling products to help give up smoking)

www.bhf.org.uk/smoking   (British Heart Foundation)

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2015  (Office of National Statistics)

www.blf.org.uk  (British Lung Foundation)

http://www.givingupsmoking.co.uk/  (E-cigarette company)

https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree   (NHS site)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoking  (Online wiki)

How to decide which smoking websites to trust and which can I use in my assignments?

I often ask students if they had a choice between using the NHS site or the Nicorette site, for example, which would they use? 

Most would reply the NHS site and when asked why, would say that Nicorette site want to sell their own products. Therefore they won't give an unbiased or objective view of how to give up smoking. Therefore, I would probably not use this site, even though some of the information may be correct.

www.givingupsmoking.co.uk  is another example where author of the website (which is not very obvious) is promoting e-cigarettes rather than giving a balanced view on smoking and giving up. 

Public domain photo
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=126056&picture=cigarette-butts

Web extensions

Did you know that .co and .com sites can be set up by anyone. That doesn't mean they can't be trusted but there are no checks. You know you can trust .nhs sites. They are British and must be from an NHS institution. Other trustworthy website extensions are .gov (as in Office Of National Statistics), .org (as in British Heart Foundation) and .ac (a school, college or University like PRC) as these extensions can only be registered to genuine government departments, charities and organisations or academic institutions.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is never a good option for your college work, because anyone can write Wikipedia articles and therefore you cannot tell if the information is trustworthy.

Journal sites

British Medical Journal is a professional journal with articles written for and by GPs, consultants and other medically trained staff.  The content is checked and only qualified people contribute. This site can be trusted – but you might have problems understanding it!

Quitting smoking projects - use the About section

There are lots of different sites for projects promoting giving up smoking and you will notice that a lot of them have a NHS logo on them. This would suggest that the site is approved by the NHS or that they have been working in partnership with them. They can probably be trusted. Read the About section of any website to see who the author of the website is.

With so many good quality sites available, why would you bother with those which may not be so trustworthy or objective? For College work I would concentrate on organisations like charities, the NHS and government websites. PRC Library+also have an e-book on Issues Online about smoking and tobacco - accessible from our Moodle pages.

Whatever you use, remember to put the details of the website in your reference list at the end of your work.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Google and Did the Holocaust really happen?

Tomorrow (27th January) is Holocaust Memorial Day and Google have been in the news recently for returning high ranking results on its search engine which promote the view that the Holocaust didn’t happen when searching for whether the Holocaust really happened.

This should be a concern, not only to the majority who accept that the Holocaust did exist (and that genocides still continue today), but also to everyone who relies heavily on using Google to search for information (and yes, librarians use Google too!).

If you think that there is an office of people at Google sitting behind their search engine, trawling the internet to find the best information they can on what you are searching for, I am going to shatter that illusion for you now. Google returns results for you using algorithms – numerous mathematical instructions that tell computers how to go and find the best information for you based largely on what keywords you’ve used before.

Google also relies on advertising income to exist and so will prioritise websites which have paid to be ranked higher. For those of you studying marketing, you will know that there is a whole art behind designing and labeling your website so it gets mentioned higher up in the Google rankings.

Google has responded to the criticism (and the results to this query now seem to have been changed), and you may argue that it isn’t Google’s job to censor information. As a student if you have to argue the case for whether the Holocaust happened or not you will need to be able to read both arguments whatever your view and make a case. However what this highlights is that internet search engines are not infallible. You need to use your critical thinking skills to assess which results are best for you and which you can trust (more on this in a future blogpost). Of course, you could always ask a librarian!

Auschwitz concentration camp. Public domain photo from www.pixabay.com

Holocaust information on the Internet

For some useful resources on the Holocaust, try some of these below!

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has all sorts of information on their website including a list of resources if you want to find out more about the Holocaust and other genocides (Rwanda, Cambodia), some of which are happening today (e.g Dafur). This year the theme is “How can life go on?” which has its own microsite. If you like poetry, you might like to read their featured poem Birdsong.

You can read real life stories from survivors as well as an “easy read” story from Berge Kanikanian who has learning disabilities and how he wanted to find out more about what the Nazis did to people with disabilities. Read this here.

For some images of the Holocaust, visit the Wiener Library website

http://www.het.org.uk/ is the website of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

The BBC has a number of useful resources too (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11108059 )

"Fake news": Can you believe the news you read on social media?

"Fake news"

There has been a lot of talk about “fake news” especially around the whole issue of the US election. False stories were spread mainly through social media and some people even believe that this could have helped influence the election result!

I newspaper (which we take daily in Library+) highlights the problem of fake news in their article below from 17th November 2016:-
Don’t believe what you read: the worrying rise in fake news

Many news stories break on twitter, for example, as an immediate way of spreading details of something that has happened in the world and this can be invaluable. However, like anything, it is essential to check who initially tweeted the news. Can you find it mentioned on a trustworthy news website like the BBC news website or one of the main broad sheet newspaper websites? Do they all back up the story? If these sites don’t mention it, perhaps that means they haven’t been able to validate the story from their sources.

Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Of course newspapers (mainly tabloids) are often criticised themselves for being biased, reporting rumours and even making news up. If you are studying media, these “stories” may be of interest in themselves for your research as a way of demonstrating how the press influence society or what society is “thinking” for example. Similarly, if you are researching social media itself, the tweets/ Facebook news items may be key examples in themselves and worth quoting too, but qualify why you are using them and look at/ use them critically.

And finally to end this week…. perhaps you’d like to have a go at spotting some fake news using I newspaper's quiz....
Quiz -can you spot the fake news stories quiz?