The SCIE101 students have their first assignment due on Sunday so there may be questions at the info desk or on AskLIVE. We’ve had some students coming in to EPS  today especially.

They have to write a 500 word critical reflection referenced in APA 7th Edition style and they need to find at least two sources (articles or books) through the library as well as cite their lecture material.

Their question is:

Discuss how your prior experiences influence how you might approach science.

Many of them are asking about “knowledge systems” which is referred to in the lecture material and the marking criteria. Searching “knowledge systems” and either science or their specific science discipline will usually bring up some relevant results. They can also search matauranga maori (mātauranga Māori) to get the Māori world view (knowledge system) perspective.

Another angle to take is trying to find sources to cite that talk about how their discipline conducts science as apposed to how it is down in other sciences. Eg. field experiments vs lab experiments etc. This is something the assignment also asks them to do. If they are doing more than one science discipline they can choose one or discuss more than one.

Students can be referred to their science discipline Subject Librarian –  Nick, Damian, John, Margaret or Brian. I’m mostly blocked out this week to cover drop-in questions so making an online appointment with me isn’t a good idea right now.

Cheers,

Nick

There have been some questions coming through on AskLive from students about there BIOL270 Ecology report and CSE referencing style.

Damian and I are the Biological Sciences Subject Librarians so please direct students to get in touch with us if they need help.

We have a guide for CSE style on our website: https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/library/support/citations-and-referencing/cse-citation-style/

Also the students may be using EndNote. I’ve had a lot of trouble getting the CSE Style included with the download for EndNote by IT but the lecturer has provided the CSE EndNote style on the Learn page.

CSE requires abbreviated journal titles, but the lecturer has said he’s happy to accept references with non-abbreviated journal titles which is good. Abbreviating journal titles is confusing for students, even more so if they want to do it in EndNote though technically possible. There are instructions for abbreviations on our EndNote guide if a student is really keen to give it a go.

Cheers,

Nick

I read this over the weekend. Worth reading if you are using Zoom a lot, especially for any public chats!

The Guardian: Trolls exploit Zoom privacy settings as app gains popularity.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/27/trolls-zoom-privacy-settings-covid-19-lockdown

Matthew Turnbull, Head of the School of Biological Sciences, recently shared this with the whole College of Science.

Kia ora koutou,

A viewpoint article, “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency”, was recently published in BioScience.

https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz088

The short article includes key indicators of climate change and key steps for humanity to take to lessen the effects. More than 11,000 scientists are signatories on the paper.

Last week the Library ran 29 tutorials for SCIE101 with total attendance of around 600 students.

The have a small assignment due on Sunday 4th August so there might be quite a few questions for weekend staff about this assignment.

They have to write 500 words, excluding references, for their learning portfolio. The assignment is about their own identity as a scientist within the context of NZ. They are asked to link it to the discipline or one of their disciplines if they are doing a variety of Science courses.

Student’s I have seen are often looking at a particular aspect of their identity such as if they are male or female, ethnic background etc. This can be quite hard to search on.

They should refer to their course/lecture materials and ‘external sources’. They haven’t been told a number of sources but I would think finding at least a couple of academic sources outside their course would be a good idea.

They need to use APA for their references.

Tech Week is coming up 20 – 26th May.

See what’s on in Christchurch. Some events are hosted by UC in the evenings.

International Workers’ Day