Photo source: frameryacoustics.com

With both quiet and privacy in high demand, the Library welcomes a new kind of study space featuring glass doors (so you can feel safe and included) and a soundproof, sleek interior (so you can feel comfortable and undisturbed).

Also known as the Framery Q, the Library’s new multifunctional, soundproof space fits 1-4 people and is ideal for quiet study, group work, brainstorming sessions, and private conversations.

Features

• Fresh air ventilation
• Stylish finish
• LED lighting
• Two power sockets
• Two sofas and a turntable
• Adaptable set-up (for sitting, standing, and shared conferencing)

You are invited to try the new Soundproof Study Room at the NDC Library today!

Written by Linda Fox – Library Technician, Program Support and Promotion

Did you know that October is also Dyslexia* Awareness Month? Did you know that 1 in 5 people have dyslexia? Do you know what dyslexia is?

Dyslexia is a learning disability that affects the ability to read, write, and comprehension skills. Dyslexia is something that affects more than just how your brain processes words and their sounds. It can affect many other areas of the brain such as phonemic awareness*, motor control, memory, spatial awareness*, and more. People with dyslexia cannot “try harder” to catch up with their peers. It’s a neurobiological disorder*, which means that when you compare the two brains of someone with dyslexia and without you will notice that their brains respond differently when learning new words, spelling, etc.

Dyslexia is something that is a lifelong struggle. Which, in turn, affects adult learners in a variety of ways. They might be hesitant to do assignments with heavy reading, could be stressed out about deadlines, or avoid places like the library altogether.

Library and Academic Services is ready to help all students and we can cater to the unique set of needs that someone with dyslexia may need such as:

• • A collection of audiobooks
  • Auto renewals for physical books
  • Videos with closed captioned options
  • eBooks with dyslexia friendly fonts
  • One on one reference support services
  • And more!

Dyslexia (duh·slek·see·uh): A brain-based learning disorder that affects the ability to read, write, and spell.

Phonemic (fuh·nee·muhk) Awareness: The ability to focus on and manipulate different sounds in spoken words.

Spatial (spay·shl) Awareness: Knowing where your body is in relation to objects or other people.

Neurobiological (nur·ow·bai·aa·law·jee·col) disorder: Disorders of the nervous system caused by genetic, metabolic, or other biological factors.

Written by Justine Hawley – Resource Management Technician

RRC Polytech staff and students can now enjoy hassle-free scheduling with the library’s new online equipment booking system.
Find out everything you need to know about the new booking system so you can plan ahead, and be front of the line for fall bookings!

What’s available?

There are many equipment categories to browse and book online:

• Laptops for Staff and Students
• Equipment for meetings and presentations
• Webcams, headsets and computer accessories
• On campus use items
• Light Therapy Lamps for those long winter months!
• And much, much more!

Where to go on Library.rrc.ca to book equipment?

You can navigate to the equipment booking system from the library homepage, either by selecting Book Equipment from the icon bar on the homepage, or find it under browse and borrow from on the homepage top menu.

OR

Where to pick up a booking?

The RRC Polytech Library has two locations, one at the Notre Dame Campus in CM18, and another at the Exchange District Campus in room P214. Our two libraries have different equipment collections, so make sure you select the location you’ll be picking up from, before browsing and setting up bookings.

Add upcoming bookings to your outlook calendar

When you create a booking, you will receive a “Your booking has been confirmed” email with an .ics calendar file. Open the attachment and add the booking to your calendar.

Make sure to add alerts@mail.libcal.com to your safe senders list so you don’t miss any important updates or reminders about your bookings!

Cancel or Change an upcoming booking

Created a booking you no longer need? Need that equipment for a different time? You can cancel an upcoming booking anytime through the link included in your booking confirmation and reminder emails.

To change a booking, simply reply to your booking confirmation or reminder email and let us know the change, you’ll get an automatic email notification confirming when the changes have been made.

Find out more!

Need some help figuring out how to book equipment? Find out everything you need to know on the book equipment help page.

Curious about the student laptop loan program? Check out the laptop loans terms of use.

Find all the loan periods for equipment on the loan period information page.

Connect with Us!

More information about our services and supports is available on our website. You may also connect with us through Ask Us chat, our Ask a Question form, or visit one of our service desks during regular Library hours.

Written by Artemis Hedrich – Reference Technician

Keeping your research organized and writing your paper just got easier!

The Library is pleased to announce that IT Services will be pushing the RefWorks Citation Manager plug-in out to all RRC Polytech users.

Offered by the Library, RefWorks is a free, web-based reference management service that simplifies the process of research, collaboration, data organization, and writing by providing an easy-to-use tool. RefWorks lets you build a collection of customized references (and accompanying PDFs), share, annotate, comment, and import directly into your writing.

The RefWorks Citation Manager plug-in integrates your RefWorks account into Office 365, allowing you to insert in-text citations easily and automatically generate your reference lists as you write with a click of your mouse.

LEARN MORE…

• Visit the RefWorks guide for text-based and video tutorials on using RefWorks.
• Watch the RefWorks training session on the various tools you can use when writing a research paper, including RefWorks Citation Manager for Office 365, Write-N-Cite (older Word), ProQuest RefWorks for Google Docs, and Quick Cite.
• Contact us, click Ask Us on our homepage, or visit one of our service desks for one-on-one assistance.

Written by Rosemary Woodby, Reference Technician

All of the staff at Library and Academic Services are happy to extend a warm welcome to everyone returning to campus. We’re looking forward to providing a safe study space and continuing to offer supports to students and staff, both in-person and online.

In-person service now available

Beginning on August 30, the Library at the Notre Dame Campus is re-opening for in-person service (note that our EDC location will remain closed at this time). While we look forward to seeing you, we encourage you to continue to take advantage of our online service desk, which is available during regular Library hours by clicking the Ask Us button at library.rrc.ca.

Services and spaces within the Library

The following spaces and services are currently available at the NDC Library:

• Individual study spaces
• One printer/photocopier
• Three computer stations
• Limited physically-distanced group study space
• Borrowing of Library materials
• Reference services
• A welcoming and safe environment

What to expect when you arrive

Virtual services from Academic Success Centre

As we enter a new academic year, we wish the College community of students and staff an insightful year of learning and discovery.

In the context of March 21 – International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, and City of Winnipeg’s Anti-Racism Week from March 21-27, Academic Success Centre is proud to share that is finalizing the development of a new Anti-Racism Training for Students. Once finalized, this training will join our Diversity Training suite of workshops that already includes Intercultural Competence Training and Gender and Sexual Diversity Awareness Training. (More information about our Diversity Training is available here.)

When we think and talk about racism, most people reference examples of interactions between people. However, racism is also maintained by institutions and society through the implementation of policies, practices, and programs. This training is an introduction on how racism functions as an interconnected system. The training will go over historical instances of racism and it will also focus on current examples of racism.

It is our goal that the Anti-Racism Training will support our students and contribute to the College’s educational efforts in enhancing our knowledge and understanding about racism, acknowledging how racism has shaped our thinking and actions, and speaking out against racism and systemic barriers.

The Anti-Racism Training for Students includes key concepts and frameworks, as well as activities for reflection and discussion. The training also presents a curated suite of relevant videos to amplify the voices and lived experiences of racialized people and Indigenous people. At the end of each training module, students will receive a set of key strategies and resources to map out a personal Action Plan and foster an ongoing student learning and action experience.

After piloting this training in the Spring/Summer time, we expect to offer this training for students from the Fall academic term on. The training modules will be delivered as live workshops via Webex, and will also be recorded for later screening as needed. Workshops are facilitated by Academic Success Centre’s diversity facilitators, and faculty is encouraged to take advantage of this new resource to support their students and book workshops to be delivered during class time, as time allows.

As an additional resource, students and faculty can also access a new Anti-Racism Learning Toolkit developed together with Library staff. This guide is available here and features curated videos, readings and other resources from the College and the community at large.

For more information about the Anti-Racism Training for Students, please connect with Nora Sobel, Diversity Initiatives Coordinator (Academic Success Centre) at nsobel@rrc.ca.

Image: Rafabollas / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

Open Access (OA) week 2020 will be hosted internationally October 19 – 25. Open access is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of cost or other access barriers. With open access strictly defined, barriers to copying or reuse are also reduced or removed by applying an open license for copyright. We see the principles of OA in Open Education. [i]

Event:

If you want to learn more about Open Access and the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) be sure to register for the Red River College Open Access Week Event here: Open Educational Resources (OER) adoption and adaptation Session  – Oct. 20, Noon – 1PM  hosted by the Red River College Copyright Officer in partnership with Campus Manitoba.

In the Spirit of OA week let’s ask ourselves some complicated questions:

Why should Open Access Matter to Educators?

Sun Yang associate professor of China University of Political Science and Law stated “It is naturally accepted that teachers should have the authority to determine the specific use of their course materials by third parties, including their students. Without their permission, no one should copy, distribute, delete or modify the copyrighted course content. In an offline environment, copyright is controlled through physical copies which are purchased. This becomes a challenge in online classrooms.”[ii]

While the original goal of the Open Educational Resource (OER) initiatives was to make higher education more accessible by reducing students costs through the use of openly licensed textbooks these resources now serve educators in the wake of a pandemic as valuable and adaptable tools for the online classroom. OER supports Open Access principles by freely allowing modifications, adaptations, and format transitions without the need to seek costly or time consuming copyright permissions for modification to fit online institutional environments, platforms and classrooms.

The restrictive licensing agreements and terms of copyright applied to many digital textbooks and supplementary materials from publishers make it difficult to adapt materials in new ways to engage students in online learning environments. Materials can further have restrictive licensing agreements that make it confusing to establish when the material can be used in conjunction with a Learning Management System (LMS/LEARN). OER’s have become powerful tools in aiding educators in the adaptability they need to function in continually changing teaching environments that can move from the classroom in person, to digital online learning with little notice and their access to the physical resources of their institutional libraries continues to be limited or completely cut off.

Why Should Open Access Matter to Students?

UNESCO stated that, “…as of 17 May 2020, almost 1.21 billion learners were affected (by the global pandemic), accounting for 69.3% of the world’s student population. The global education community continues to face the major challenge of providing interactive and motivating educational experience during school and university closure. In this special situation, Open Educational Resources (OER) have never been so urgently and broadly needed like today.”[iii]

OER’s can involve students directly in the adaption and building of the learning materials they engage with. They allow students to contribute to online education which can be built upon by others around the globe and allow classes and instructors to source global perspectives to incorporate into College programs. These skills as well as the experience of involvement in the creation of resources for teaching and instruction ensure the student experience is intellectually rigorous, experiential and robust. Student involvement in OER development and adaptation can upon graduation stand as a real world example of experience and skills gained by the student in their education. This can be helpful in providing prospective employers meaningful examples of not only the skills they have acquired but “what” they have accomplished during their studies, in contributing to educational resources that can be used by other educational institutions around the globe.

OER’s and Open Access resources also reduce the cost textbooks and supplementary materials to students as these resources are free and openly available alternatives to traditional textbooks and supplementary material.

What is the Role of Open Access in a post pandemic society?

UNESCO (2020) has recently launched a call stating that “the Covid-19 crisis has resulted in a paradigm shift on how learners of all ages, worldwide, can access learning. It is therefore more than ever essential that the global community comes together now to foster universal access to information and knowledge through OER.” [iv] Open Access to information is the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need. Open Access  has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole.

For more on the importance of OA check out this video from PHD Comics.

Sources:

[i] ‘International Open Access week, about page’ Accessed September 30, 2020 http://www.openaccessweek.org/page/about

[ii] Yang, S. (2020). ‘As teaching shifts online during the epidemic, it faces copyright issues.’ Accessed September 30, 2020 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-02-20/Copyright-concerns-as-teaching-shifts-online-during-epidemic-OejyJkh3xu/index.html

[iii] & [iv]  UNESCO (2020) ‘Guidance on Open Educational Practices during School Closures: Utilizing OER under COVID-19 Pandemic in line with UNESCO OER Recommendation’ Accessed September 30, 2020 https://iite.unesco.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Guidance-on-Open-Educational-Practices-during-School-Closures-English-Version-V1_0.pdf

Following Red River College’s Flexible Online Delivery Model, the Academic Success Centre (ASC) and Library have developed a suite of Hybrid LEARNing Modules featuring self-directed tutorials in LEARN and facilitated live sessions via WebEx.

Visit the Hybrid LEARNing Modules website for more information.

Complete this form to request LEARN tutorials and book live sessions.

Suite of Modules

The modules focus on standalone topics that faculty can use to provide their students with foundational skills for success in their studies. Click on each module link for learning outcomes and content.

 Online Learning

  Virtual Classroom Strategies

  Time Management Skills

  Reading

 Our Learning Mind

 Test Taking

  Working in Teams

 Intercultural Competence

 Academic Integrity

 Research Papers

 Professional Communication

 Library Basics

 Technology Literacy

Asynchronous Delivery: Self-Directed Tutorials

The modules feature 2-3 hour self-directed tutorials housed in LEARN that faculty can import into their own LEARN courses. The tutorials feature content from LinkedIn Learning, Learning Scientists study strategies, short pre-recorded MDR video lectures, and other resources, as well as learning activities.

Instructors can use the modules in a number of ways. They can use the complete module as an asynchronous independent learning activity, where students progress through all sections at their own pace, or select one or more sections, according to the needs of the students.

Alternatively, the instructor can choose to share the videos of each sub-module in a synchronous classroom setting and lead discussions about the topics introduced. Additionally, instructors can use section activities as assignments in order to assess students’ understanding of the content.

Synchronous Delivery: Facilitated Live Sessions

In addition, a 1-hour live session delivered by Webex (or MS Teams) is available for each topic. The live sessions will be led by a member of the Academic Success Centre or Library and will complement the online tutorials. These sessions will be active learning experiences, with facilitated discussion and activities that can help them further understand the content from the self-directed tutorials.

The workshops include review of key concepts, discussion with guiding questions, sharing of additional resources, and application to a case study. The live sessions are recorded for later screening and recordings will be available online for a week after the date of the actual sessions.

With the COVID-19 pandemic driving college courses into online learning environments, open educational resources (OER) are essential tools for educators because they allow instructors to reuse, remix, revise, redistribute, retain, resources without expense, and without seeking copyright clearances for use, and adaptation of the material. Through collaboration with educators who contribute their subject matter expertise, Open Educational Resources provide a sustainable and customizable option for delivering online teaching methodology.

OER Development at RRC

You may have seen past information from Red River College on its work to drive OER development. The Teacher Education department at Red River College is in the midst of creating an Open Education Resource that will supplement Teacher Education courses and Faculty Development on post-secondary campus’ across Manitoba and Canada.

In partnership with Campus Manitoba and the Manitoba Flexible Learning HUB, a framework for the resource was developed.

For more information on the project visit the OER Project page or view the following video:

How do I use Open Educational Resources?

Most OER resources are digital and can be embedded into the campus’s learning management systems (LEARN). Like using any teaching and instructional material the first step is finding Open Educational Resources that support your subject area. The Library can be a key ally in assisting you with sourcing OER content for your subject area and you can also explore resources on your own.

The library has an OER landing page to get your started finding OER’s to meet your instructional needs. Once you find a resource you would like to use you can download it, adapt it to your needs, and upload it in LEARN or you can link to a completed OER’s online.

How Open Educational Resources Support Students.

Use of OER’s helps to reduce the cost of educational resources for students. As textbook costs continue to rise OER’s can provide free or low cost alternatives to textbooks. The use, creation, and adaption of OERs in teaching and instruction can also provide enhanced opportunities for self-learning at home.

OER’s can act as engaging tools to develop digital literacy skills for: searching, reusing, recreating, disseminating, branding, and networking as you can involve students directly in the adaptation of the resource as part of their learning.

an illustrated version of OER benefits

Jtneill – Own work – Ways in which open education can facilitate flexible learning. CC BY-SA 3.0

OER’s supporting strategic goals on campus.

Use of OER’s can also tie your teaching into the strategic goals on campus. These resources can be Indigenized, to advance Indigenous achievement. Indigenization is a process of incorporating Indigenous perspectives, processes and knowledge systems.  It must be noted that Indigenization does not mean replacing Western knowledge or changing it, rather the goal is to  braid together Western and Indigenous knowledge so teachers and learners can appreciate both. OER’s can be freely adapted for valuable inclusion of Indigenous knowledge systems and perspectives. For more guidance on Indigenizing resources view this post from Campus MB which has some OER content to get you started.  Further to the strategic goals OER’s can incorporate digital tools to help evaluate student success. They foster sustainable growth by encouraging digital learning materials, and curb the increasing cost of instructional materials. They can be used to cultivate strategic partnerships as you can invite alumni and industry partners to contribute to adapting OER’s. Get started investigating OER’s today with the RRC Library and Campus MB, and look for more OER sessions in Fall 2020.

Everyone who has written an academic paper knows that citing research is easier said than done. It’s a complicated process of not only finding all the required information but formatting it correctly.

Books, print periodicals, articles from databases, web resources, videos, photographs, you name it. All have their own citation requirements, and all are formatted slightly differently from one another. Thus, making citations all the harder to do. 

So, I get it; it’s complicated, not intuitive, and seems to change every year-to-year; what if I could tell you that there’s an easier way? 

Let me introduce you to RefWorks.

RefWorks is online software that simplifies the process of research, collaboration, data organization, and writing by providing an
easy-to-use tool for citations, bibliographies, and overall reference management.

Luckily for us, RefWorks is provided to students through the Red River College Library.

If you’re interested, the Red River College Library has created a RefWorks Guide that provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to set-up and use RefWorks. If at any point you have a question not answered on the guide, there are library staff ready to help either in person or online.

I, for one, am taking this opportunity to jump on this fantastic tool. If you’re one of the many who also find themselves struggling with citations, I hope you will as well!

By a fellow student,
Matthew