The value of University libraries and UCP student survey

End of term at UCP

This week, UCP students finish for the academic year and for many it will be time to say "goodbye" for good. The staff in the LRC wish everyone graduating this year all the best for their future. For those students coming back next year, we'd like to remind you that we are open over the summer holidays and we can also make arrangements for you to borrow books over the whole of the summer too.

New University for Peterborough and the value of academic libraries

This year further progress was made towards establishing a new independent University for Peterborough. Currently the LRC supports UCP students by providing printed books for their courses and also showing UCP students how to use the digital resources made available through Anglia Ruskin University. We run some of the UCP Study Excellence sessions and also offer 1:1 sessions on finding resources mainly for dissertation students.

For any University, the library lies at the heart of supporting students to achieve their qualifications by supporting their research and helping them use of a range of different and appropriate resources. SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries) has published a statement on their website about the value of academic libraries.

UCP student sudy area in the LRC
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Learning Resource Centre UCP Survey

This term we asked UCP students for their views of the Learning Resource Centre during this term and here are some of the comments we received.

We asked whether you liked the new LRC environment and most of you did. Comments included:

"Spacious and quiet", "very warm and welcoming", "good selection of books", "nice environment and area to study", "helpful staff", "more inviting", "good layout" "open plan and more welcoming" and "looks good, modern and inviting".

Some of you have concerns about the noise from other students. It is not easy for us to be in all places at the same time, but we do walk around the LRC and check noise levels and behaviour. If you are having trouble working please alert the member of staff at the desk and we will address the issue promptly.

We asked if you had had an LRC induction and introduction to the digital resources at the beginning of your course and whether this had been useful. A large number of those who answered said they had had an induction and that it had been useful. Comments on whether it gave you the information you needed included "how to use e-books", "clear to understand" "allowed me to know where the ARU stuff was", "contains more information than the general internet" and "everything is explained clearly".

We also asked about the workshops we deliver as part of the Study Excellence programme over at UCP and which of these you would find useful and when. E-books were the most popular followed by online resources and visual images. You requested a range of times. These sessions are usually timetabled at lunchtime on Tuesdays and Thursdays and were not well-attended so we are unsure if this is because students were unaware that they ran or if they were at the wrong times. The times you gave were very varied.

Thank you for your feedback.

Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and we are launching our new guide to mental health resources in the LRC. In this, we highlight some of our books on topics such as anxiety, confidence and self-esteem, depression, eating disorders and stress which may be of help. We also recommend a list of moodboosting books and some titles about mindfulness. See a quick preview below.

If you would like a copy of the leaflet, please come in to the LRC and pick one up. We will also make this available on our moodle pages as a pdf.

Mental Health Awareness Week display (with new guide)
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Some organisations with useful resources

BBC3's Things not to say to someone with depression video features young people who suffer with depression talking about responses they don't find helpful.
Rethink.org (Rethink Mental Illness charity) has a student toolkit to help young people look after their mental health.
Student Minds is a mental health charity for University students and has it's own blog.
Mindfulness for Students may be useful for those of you wanting to find out more about this technique to help with stress and building resilience.
Mind is a mental health charity for all ages with lots of online support and advice. You can read stories and experiences here of people who have battled with mental illness and what has helped them.

Finally for those of you studying mental health as part of your course, our e-resource Issues Online (available from our electronic resources page using your network login details) has a range of e-books and articles on issues such as self harm and suicide, body confidence, anxiety and stress and understanding depression.

Exam stress and Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week - Stress: are we coping?

Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week and as part of this the LRC will be hosting a meditation session on Tuesday 15th May. There are limited spaces so it is on a first come first served basis.

Stress and Exams

It's that time of year again and for many students doing exams it can be a difficult and stressful time. While stress can't be avoided, there are things we can all do to help manage our stress. Here are some resources available on the internet from reputable organisations which might be of help.

Teenmentalhealth.org has a useful factsheet on stress generally. It explains that

• stress isn't the same as anxiety, 
• most stress isn't bad for you (whilst avoiding it may well be) and
• the key to managing it is to learn how best to deal with it.

It explains that you can change how your body feels by

• changing how you think about your stressful experience
• focusing on the problem and thinking of solutions
• using proven techniques to reduce your body's stress response

Online Resources

Student Minds - the student mental health charity - has five main themes to help with exam stress. 

The BBC website has plenty of advice here and here.

The Student Room gives some practical tips.

Have a look at this light-hearted page on how NOT to cope with exam stress.
If you are a lecturer you may find this newspaper article from the Guardian 2 years ago useful, but the links at the bottom of the article do not lead anywhere.

If you want to try some different ways to revise to make it more enjoyable, have a look at our blog entry 4 weeks ago or click on the revision label on the right hand side of the screen.

Stress: are we coping? book display in the LRC
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Buying essays online and plagiarism

Buying essays online 

This week there has been discussion about the use of online essay-writing services which offer to write essays for payment "plagiarism free". By this they mean that the essays are written to order and are less likely to be recognised as plagiarism when checked by educational software. It does not mean that what they do is ethical or that students using them are not cheating. Universities and Colleges have strict policies on this and if you are caught you can be disciplined or even expelled from an institution.

Photograph CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/writing-write-person-paperwork-828911/

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is passing off something someone else has created as your own work whether intentionally or not or if you have their permission or not. ARU's Academic Honesty Policy identifies "the situation where someone has deliberately and knowingly allowed or paid another person to do their work" as fraud. It also states that "handing in something for assessment which has been produced by another student or person" is plagiarism.

How do I avoid plagiarism?

For the majority of students who do write their own assignments, there is still the need to avoid plagiarism. To do this, you need to reference everything you use whether published or not, whether written, drawn, composed, created etc. It could be a television programme, it could be an image, it could be a paragraph in a book or a section from a website. It is always best to put ideas in your own words but whether you quote directly, paraphrase or summarise, you must write a reference. It is best to do this as you use each source (so you aren't trying to remember everything at the end) and then collect them together in to one author alphabetical sequence at the end of your assignment.

The LRC at PRC have created a plagiarism and referencing learning package together with a plagiarism quiz and a referencing quiz with exercises to help you create references. These are on our 24/7 Moodle page. ARU also has one of the best guides to Harvard referencing on their website and this is what UCP students should be using. Qualified librarians can also come in to a class and deliver a session with practical activities if this is preferred. 

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).

Loyalty Card Event

Loyalty Card Event

On Wednesday, the LRC hosted it's annual Loyalty Card event. 

Throughout the year, students and staff have been borrowing and reading fiction and collecting a stamp each time they have finished a book. Participants were entered in to a draw for a chance to win £50 of Waterstones vouchers or a copy of Darren O'Sullivan's new book.

We were thrilled to have local author Darren O'Sullivan with us for the event. Darren used to be a Performing Arts student at Peterborough Regional College and he has just had his first book Our Little Secret published in print. It is a thriller set in Peterborough.

Author and ex-student Darren O-Sullivan with LRC Manager Louise Auckland

Darren held a question and answer session with the students who attended and presented certificates and prizes to the 3 students whose names he pulled out of the draw. Congratulations go to Leon particularly who won the Waterstones vouchers!

Student feedback after the event included:

 "I loved the feedback and advice from a real author on how to write stories".

"I really enjoyed taking part in the reading challenge and encouraging the students"

"I really enjoyed the event".

Finding different ways to revise

Finding different ways to revise for exams

It's that time of year again with lots of students both at PRC and UCP doing exams in the near future.

Over Easter one expert reported that students should have been revising for 7 hours a day during the holidays. If this is something you didn't do (and not everyone agrees that this is wise), don't despair, concentrate on what you can achieve from now on and work hard. However, it doesn't have to be boring.

Here are 3 tips from the websites mentioned later in the blog.

• Break your revision up in to manageable chunks and plan a timetable.
• Find different ways to revise - use flash cards or mind maps, watch a video or make up useful mnemonics etc
• It is important to revise actively - this means concentrating and focusing. Creating your own resources like flash cards or mind maps, for example, will involve your brain and force you to think about what you are revising and therefore be more effective than staring at words on a page.

The student room website has lots of advice and tools which you can use to help you revise. Just creating them may be a different way to revise initially. You can also access resources already created by other students (but you may want to be sure they are correct first).

For example, create your own revision timetable.
Create your own flashcards.
Create mindmaps.
Create your own crosswords and quizzes.

The site also provides revision tips and tools for university students including a Uni revision app.

You will need to sign up to use the resources but the tools are free to use otherwise.

Have a look at the following TEDx talk about  how using drawing can help you remember more - even if you don't think you can draw.

The BBC website also has lots of  revision  advice and resources (e.g. how to remain motivated). These are aimed at GCSE and A level but the principles remain the same. They also have a revision app.

Electronic resources provide revision activities.

If you are a Health and Social Care student or Hair and Beauty student, there are quizzes and videos as part of the online resources available from our Electronic Resources page. Primal also has quizzes and case studies if you need to remember human anatomy for your exams.