Learn about Academic Journals and how to use them.

What are Academic Journals?

Journals or periodicals are academic publications which are made up of articles which experts write to record new research and to discuss new developments in their field. For subjects like science and technology these can be particularly useful as new research is being produced all the time.

Many journals are published electronically and readers subscribe online. The library in a College or University usually subscribes to collections of these so students can use them in their study. Journals and journal articles are usually bundled together into databases with a search engine facility to help find the articles you need.

Click on the link below to see a video about journals that Nottingham University has created.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nmp/sonet/rlos/ebp/journals/what_are_journals/page_one.html

You can also find links to articles on Google Scholar, but you cannot guarantee that this will give you access to the full text of the article. You may need to search again for the full text article within the library databases.
ARU students can link Google Scholar to the ARU Digital Library and can access full text articles as long as they have logged in to the ARU library site first.

Print journals available in the LRC.
You can search for past articles in Gale FE News and Reference

LRC Academic Journals

The LRC at Peterborough Regional College provides access to Academic OneFile and General OneFile which include a range of journal articles on different topics. These are available from the LRC's Electronic Resources page on Moodle as part of the Gale FE News and Reference resource. UCP students also have access to a wide range of journal articles through ARU's Digital Library. 

New online learning package on Moodle

The LRC has just created a new e-learning activity which explains what academic journals are and how to use them with quizzes and activities along the way. So if you've wondered what abstracts or open access journals are or how to referencing journal articles then this could be for you. To find this go to the How Do I? section on our LRC 24/7 Moodle page.

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.