Oxford LibGuides: Workshops and Classes: Bodleian iSkills

Bodleian iSkills

iSkills Workshops in July and August 2021

Our regular programme of workshops will resume in Week 2 of Michaelmas Term. In the meantime, you can access pre-recorded videos and live-session video recordings of many of our workshops. The live-sessions recordings require Single Sign On.

Reference management workshops for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH Staff will continue through the summer months.
Click on the links below for further information and to book a place:

Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to Endnote X9 (Dates in July and August 2021)
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Do you need help managing your references? Do you need help citing references in your documents? This session will introduce you to Endnote X9, which can help you to store, organise and retrieve your references and PDFs, as well as cite references in documents and create bibliographies quickly and easily.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers, and university and OUH staff based on the Old Road Campus or in Medical Sciences Division departments elsewhere in Headington.
Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to Mendeley (Thu 22 Jul 10.30-12.00)
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Do you need help managing your references? Do you need help citing references in your documents? This session will introduce you to Mendeley (www.mendeley.com), a free programme which can help you to store, organise and retrieve your references and PDFs, as well as cite references in documents and create bibliographies quickly and easily.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers, and university and OUH staff based on the Old Road Campus or in Medical Sciences Division departments elsewhere in Headington.

Further sources of information you may find helpful:

Presentation slides, worksheets and further information from any of our regular workshops
Links to information for Researchers (including Research Data Management and Open Access Publishing); information and guidance on reference management; subject-specific resources and library contacts in Subjects A- Z and Specialist Materials
For help with specific enquiries relating to reference management packages, email our helpline reference-management@bodleian.ox.ac.uk
For help with specific enquiries relating to Open Access publishing, email our helpline openaccess@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Workshops by Topic

Please click on the links below for further information about each course.

Searching and finding scholarly materials (general)

Bodleian iSkills: Finding stuff - scholarly literature for your research (Next date TBA)
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An online introduction to searching for scholarly materials to support your research, covering a range of tools for finding monographs, journal articles, conference papers, theses and more.
Who is this session for? Postgraduates, researchers and academics.
Bodleian iSkills: Getting started in Oxford Libraries (Next date TBA)
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An online introduction to getting started in Oxford libraries. This workshop will feature live demonstrations and hands on activities on how to use SOLO, the University’s resource discovery tool. We will search for a range of material and show you how to get hold of what you want to read. There will be regular breaks for questions.
Who is this session for? All Oxford Library users
Bodleian iSkills: Google for academic research (Next date TBA)
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Google is often dismissed as being irrelevant to the academic literature search. However, changes to the nature of the dissemination of scholarly research and official information in recent years mean that a wealth of relevant information can be accessed via standard Internet search engines such as Google. Too often however such information is lost amongst thousands of irrelevant, spurious and misleading results.
Based on an understanding of how the Google search engine works this practical workshop will show you the basic techniques to quickly filter your results for high quality academic material.
A couple of other search engines will be considered briefly, including DuckDuckGo which has become a popular alternative to Google in the light of concerns about the privacy costs of a ‘free’ search within search engines such as Google or Bing.
Who is this session for? All DPhils and Research Students in the Social Sciences

Searching and finding scholarly materials (specific subjects)

Bodleian iSkills: Finding information for your research in Chemistry & Materials (Next date TBA)
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This online session will help you with in-depth searching, particularly when preparing literature reviews for theses, dissertations, and research papers. It will include specialist library collections for Chemistry & Materials, and keeping up-to-date with newly published research in your field.
Who are these sessions for? Undergraduates in their final year, postgraduate students, researchers and academics in Chemistry & Materials.
Bodleian iSkills: Finding information for your research in Engineering & Computer Science (Next date TBA)
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This online session will help you with in-depth searching, particularly when preparing literature reviews for theses, dissertations, and research papers. It will include specialist library collections for Engineering & Computer Science, and keeping up-to-date with newly published research in your field.
Who are these sessions for? Undergraduates in their final year, postgraduate students, researchers and academics in Engineering & Computer Science.
Bodleian iSkills: Finding information for your research in Mathematics & Physics (Next date TBA)
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This online session will help you with in-depth searching, particularly when preparing literature reviews for theses, dissertations, and research papers. It will include specialist library collections for Mathematics & Physics, and keeping up-to-date with newly published research in your field.
Who are these sessions for? Undergraduates in their final year, postgraduate students, researchers and academics in Mathematics & Physics.
Bodleian iSkills: Moving from research question to literature review in Archaeology (Next date TBA)
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This workshop will prepare you for undertaking a literature review as part of your dissertation or thesis. Subjects to be covered include: the literature review process; effective searching; key databases and eResources; using citations and bibliometrics; using alerts. This workshop is intended for Postgraduate Archaeology students.
Bodleian iSkills: Preparing for your literature review in the Social Sciences (Next date TBA)
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Get ready to undertake your literature review using your own research questions to build a successful search and apply it to a range of library resources. This workshop will cover: building a successful search strategy; using a range of bibliographic databases and search tools in the Social Sciences; working effectively with large result sets; sourcing highly cited papers relevant to your research; setting up alerts for newly-published papers on your topic.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students and research staff in the Social Sciences
Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to literature searching for DPhils and researchers in the Medical Sciences (Multiple sessions - click here for full list)
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A practical workshop to explore how to formulate search strategies to address research questions; choose appropriate databases and search engines; store and manage references; keep up to date with new research over the life cycle of your DPhil.
Who is this session for? All staff and students in the Medical Sciences Division
Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to systematic reviews & evidence syntheses - searching for studies (Next date TBA)
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In this online workshop you will be introduced to the principles underpinning the conduct of literature searches for systematic reviews and evidence syntheses
Who is this session for? Students and Researchers in the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff.

Materials in special formats (images, manuscripts, maps etc.)

Bodleian iSkills: Archives and modern papers for Social Sciences and History (Next date TBA)
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The Bodleian's Weston Library has a wealth of resources covering almost all aspects of modern British society and culture. This session will introduce key finding aids and get you started with the research skills needed to make the most of these resources. We will look at identifying relevant material in Oxford and elsewhere; considerations when working with archival material; types of archives and modern papers; and how to find out more.
Who is this session for? Students in History and Social Science subjects; researchers and other Bodleian Libraries readers considering using special collections.
Bodleian iSkills: Discovering archives at the Bodleian Libraries (Next session TBA)
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This online session will introduce participants to the key catalogues and finding aids for post-1500 archives and manuscripts at the Bodleian. In particular the session will focus on Bodleian Archives and Manuscripts, the new online catalogue for post-1500 archives and manuscripts. The session will also briefly introduce some of the major UK online gateways for discovering archives.
Who is this session for? Postgraduates, researchers, academics and anyone interested in the topic
Bodleian iSkills: Introduction to Web Archives for research use (Next date TBA) *NEW*
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The Internet has been available since the early 1990s and has been a repository for almost all human thought. It is, however, a highly ephemeral resource with websites in regular change and frequent deletion. A web archive attempts to capture, preserve, and give access to archived websites at regular intervals. This session will introduce web archives and their potential for academic research at all levels. By the end of the session you will have an introductory overview of the potential of web archives (and the UK Web Archive in particular) for academic research.
Who is this session for? Undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and University staff
Bodleian iSkills: Newspapers and other online news sources from the 17th to 21st centuries (Next date TBA)
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Newspapers are a valuable resource for researching not only news, but also many other aspects of society. In this session we will introduce key historical and contemporary sources of news and how to make best use of them.
Who is the session for? Students, researchers and anyone else who is interested.
Bodleian iSkills: Picture this! Using Creative Commons images in your teaching (Next date TBA)
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Using images in your teaching, whether on slides, handouts or videos, can really enhance the student's experience and making learning easier. However, most images are subject to copyright, and there can be a lot of complications using copyright material in your teaching. This session will focus on how to find and use images not subject to copyright restrictions such as those in the public domain or under creative commons licences. We will cover searching for images with Google image search, Bing image search and a selection of other useful image websites.
Who is this session for? Anyone using images in creating teaching materials, presentations or posters.
Bodleian iSkills: UK parliamentary and government materials - an introduction (One-to-one sessions - next dates TBA)
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One-to-one sessions for: Finding and accessing historical pre-1800 and post-1800 to present day UK parliamentary and government material. Print and digital sources will be covered. We will also cover archival material if relevant. This will be of vital help to history, politics and social sciences students using this material, to include: parliamentary papers; parliamentary proceedings and parliamentary debates; legislation; government and departmental papers.

Who is this session for? History, politics and social science students, and anyone just starting their Postgraduate studies or new to using these materials.

Mapping and spatial analysis

Bodleian iSkills: An Introduction to mapping and spatial analysis using GIS (Next date TBA)
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An overview of GIS and introduction to the basic concepts of using GIS software, followed by a practical session which puts into practice these concepts by going step-by-step through how to create a map.
The last part of the session will discuss possible applications of GIS in more detail and then a final practical will go through how to perform some simple spatial analysis on the data created in the first half of the session. The software used throughout the practical will be ArcMap which is available for free home use from IT.
Who is this session for? Useful to researchers across a range of disciplines in analysing and presenting spatial data and for digital mapmaking.

Reference management (RefWorks, Endnote, Zotero, Mendeley)

Referencing: Choosing and using software (Next date TBA)
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Formatting your in text citations/footnotes and bibliography correctly for your thesis or publication is a chore. Reference management software makes it easier and saves you time. This introductory session gives an overview of how reference management works, explores the pros and cons of a wide range of reference management packages and gives you the opportunity to try out four different packages so that you can work out which one is best for you. The packages included are RefWorks, EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers and university staff.
Referencing: Endnote (Introduction to) (Next date TBA)
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EndNote 20 is a desktop based reference management tool for Windows and Macs which helps you to build libraries of references and insert them into your Word document as in text citations or footnotes and automatically generate bibliographies. Who is this session for?
This online introduction to EndNote is open to all University of Oxford students and staff.
Referencing: Mendeley (Next session TBA)
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Mendeley is a reference management package that helps you build libraries of references and then add citations and bibliographies to word processed documents. This session will be run in two parts with a break in between. If you are an advanced user of Mendeley you need only attend the second part, starting at 15.25.

Key topics:
- An overview of reference management with Mendeley
- Creating a Mendeley account and installing Mendeley Desktop
- Adding, editing and organising references
- Creating bibliographies
- Managing PDF documents with Mendeley
- Using the Mendeley 'Papers' database
- Collaboration and social networking with Mendeley

Who is this session for? Postgraduates, researchers, academics and undergraduates wishing to use reference management software.
Referencing: RefWorks (Next date TBA)
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RefWorks is a web based reference management tool for Windows and Macs which helps you to collect and manage references and insert them into your Word document as in-text citations or footnotes and generate bibliographies. This online introduction to RefWorks is open to all University of Oxford students and staff.
Who is this session for? Oxford Students, researchers and other staff.
Referencing: Zotero (Next date TBA)
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Zotero is a reference management tool that enables you to build libraries of references and add citations and bibliographies to word processed documents. This introduction covers the main features of Zotero.
Who is this session for? Students, researchers and staff needing to manage references and create bibliographies.
Referencing: Reference management software workshop for MPLS researchers (Next date TBA)
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An opportunity to test-drive up to four different popular reference management packages - Endnote, Refworks, Mendeley, Zotero - with staff available to provide support and help troubleshoot reference management problems.

Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers and academics in the MPLS Division.
Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to Endnote X9 (Dates in July and August 2021)
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Do you need help managing your references? Do you need help citing references in your documents? This session will introduce you to Endnote X9, which can help you to store, organise and retrieve your references and PDFs, as well as cite references in documents and create bibliographies quickly and easily.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers, and university and OUH staff based on the Old Road Campus or in Medical Sciences Division departments elsewhere in Headington.
Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to Mendeley (Thu 22 Jul 10.30-12.00)
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Do you need help managing your references? Do you need help citing references in your documents? This session will introduce you to Mendeley (www.mendeley.com), a free programme which can help you to store, organise and retrieve your references and PDFs, as well as cite references in documents and create bibliographies quickly and easily.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers, and university and OUH staff based on the Old Road Campus or in Medical Sciences Division departments elsewhere in Headington.

Research data management

Bodleian iSkills: Managing research data and Data Management Planning (Next date TBA)
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Good research data management is a vital component of academic practice. Part of this is the principle that the data used to develop the arguments and outcomes of your research should be effectively stored and managed during a project, preserved for the future and - where possible - shared with other academics. This session introduces the University’s research data policy and outlines the practical impact this will have on your work. The services available at Oxford to assist you will be outlined. This session is not only essential during your current studies but will be invaluable if you plan to continue in research as a career.
Who is this session for? All DPhil students and research staff.
Bodleian iSkills: Data sources for research - discovery, access & use (Next date TBA)
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This workshop will provide a grounding in the different ways quantitative and qualitative data is being made available to benefit researchers. By the end of the session you will also have some insight into how your own future work could add to the process and become part of the research discourse.
The course aims to provide an overview of macro and micro data sources available at the University of Oxford, including national data archives, subscription services, business data, and offers some pointers for further searching.
Who is this session for? DPhil students and research staff (particularly in Social Sciences). This workshop will be most beneficial to those researchers planning to use secondary data sources (quantitative, qualitative and mixed) as part of their research or who wish to learn more about the potential of open data platforms and data archives.
Bodleian iSkills: Working with sensitive research data in the Social Sciences and Humanities (Next date TBA)
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A workshop outlining some of the key principles to bear in mind when working with sensitive or restricted research; whether collected yourself or obtained from a third party source such as a data archive. Issues of confidentiality, informed consent, cybersecurity and data management will be covered. Examples of scenarios or concerns drawn from the research of participants are particularly welcome. The role of support services at Oxford will also be outlined and in particular the role of the Bodleian Data Librarian who will lead the session. Follow up consultations with the Data librarian or other subject consultants are also offered.
Who is this session for? All DPhil students and research staff in the Social Sciences.
Bodleian iSkills: Working with sensitive research data in the Sciences and Medical Sciences (Next date TBA)
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A workshop outlining some of the key principles to bear in mind when working with sensitive or restricted research; whether collected yourself or obtained from a third party source such as an NHS trust or Biobank data. Issues of confidentiality, informed consent, cybersecurity and data management will be covered. Examples of scenarios or concerns drawn from the research of participants are particularly welcome. The role of support services at Oxford will also be outlined and in particular the role of the Bodleian Data Librarian who will lead the session. Follow up consultations with the Data librarian or other subject consultants are also offered.
Who is this session for? All Dphils and research staff in the Sciences and Medical Sciences.
Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to Research Data Management (Next date TBA)
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Good research data management is a vital component of academic practice. Part of this is the principle that the data used to develop the arguments and outcomes of your research should be effectively stored and managed during a project, preserved for the future and - where possible - shared with other academics. This session introduces the University’s research data policy and outlines the practical impact this will have on your work. The services available at Oxford to assist you will be outlined. This session is not only essential during your current studies but will be invaluable if you plan to continue in research as a career.

Keeping up to date with the latest research

Bodleian iSkills: Keeping up to date with research (Next date TBA)
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An online introduction to using alerts to keep up to date with new research and save you time. A combination of presenter-led instruction and the opportunity for participants to set up email alerts to receive notifications for publications in their field of research.
Who is this session for? Postgraduates, researchers, academics and anyone interested in the topic.

Measuring impact

Bodleian iSkills: Research metrics and citation analysis tools (Next date TBA)
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During this introduction to citation tracking and bibliometrics we will examine a range of tools for finding journal metrics, article metrics and author metrics, in the context of moves towards responsible metrics in measuring the impact of publications and researchers. We will cover Journal Citation Reports, CiteScore Journal Metrics, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Essential Science Indicators, ORCID and more and explain how to use each tool and its strengths and weaknesses.
Who is this session for? Researchers, Academics, Research Support Staff and Research Postgraduates in Sciences and Social Sciences.
Bodleian iSkills: Getting to grips with Research Impact for MPLS researchers (Next date TBA)
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There are many ways currently being used to measure research impact. In this session you will explore some of the traditional metrics used to assess impact and also newer measures such as altmetrics.
Bodleian iSkills for the Medical Sciences Division and OUH staff: Introduction to research impact (Next date TBA)
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During this introduction to citation tracking and bibliometrics we will use a range of 'impact factor' tools to find top journals and conferences, count citations and measure the impact of publications and researchers. We will cover Journal Citation Reports, CiteScore Journal Metrics, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, Essential Science Indicators, ORCID and more and explain how to use each tool and its strengths and weaknesses.
Who is this session for? Researchers, Academics, Research Support Staff and Research Postgraduates in Medical Sciences.

Open Access

Open Access: Authors, copyright and open access - making it work for you (Next date TBA)
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Researchers are often unsure about open access copyright permissions for their journal article, preprint or thesis. What open access rights do you retain when signing the publisher agreement for a journal article? Are you permitted to self-archive in your institutional repository? Which Creative Commons licence should you select for your preprint? Your choices affect what you and others can do with your work. This introduction deciphers the jargon and explains the pitfalls so you can understand your options and make informed decisions.
Who is this session for? Current Oxford postgraduate research students, researchers and academics, research support staff and librarians.
Open Access: How to make CC licences work for you (Next date TBA) *NEW*
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Create content for your teaching or research with greater confidence by attending our session on Creative Commons (CC) licences. Learn how they work, how they interact with copyright and how to use them to best effect. The session will make special reference to images but is applicable to all media.

Who is this session for? Everyone!
Open Access: New Wellcome Trust Policy (Please contact usered@bodleian.ox.ac.uk to request further sessions of this workshop)
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Wellcome funded and need to know how to comply from 1 January 2021? In this focussed online briefing we will: step you through the changes and new requirements; give you an update on which publishers are compliant; provide links to further Wellcome information and guidance; let you know where to find help at Oxford; and answer as many questions as we can.
Who is this session for? Current Oxford researchers and academics, research support staff and librarians.
Open Access: Your thesis, copyright and ORA (Next date TBA)
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Oxford DPhil students are required to deposit a copy of their thesis in ORA (Oxford University Research Archive). This online session will focus on copyright and other issues that DPhil students need to take into account when preparing their thesis for upload to ORA.
Who is this session for? Doctoral research students
Open Access Oxford: what's happening? (Next date TBA)
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A briefing on open access publishing and Oxford's position: Green vs. Gold; funder mandates and publisher policies; Oxford Research Archive (ORA) and Symplectic; Act on Acceptance and OA policy for REF 2021; Open Access block grants including RCUK/UKRI and Wellcome Trust; OA website/ helpline; what's new.
Who is this session for? Current Oxford researchers and academics, research support staff and librarians.

Searching and finding scholarly materials (specific subjects) - Trinity Term only

Bodleian iSkills: Information sources for African Studies (Next session TBA)
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This session will introduce key information sources for African Studies. You will be shown useful finding tools to locate relevant material via SOLO and Databases A-Z, as well as important portals and gateways to libraries and archives of online primary texts. There will be time for a brief hands-on.
Who is this session for? Students, researchers and anyone interested in the topic.
Bodleian iSkills: Information resources for Modern Global History (Next date TBA)
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In this 1.5hr session participants will be introduced to key archival, printed and electronic resources, such as finding aids, bibliographic resources and primary sources for post-1800 global history. The focus will be on non-European history (but exclude African history) and will draw predominantly on English language resources.
Who is this session for? Students, researchers and anyone interested in the topic
Bodleian iSkills: Online resources for Historians (Next date TBA)
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A general introduction to the vast range of electronic resources which are available for all historical periods of British and W European history: bibliographical databases, biographical / reference research aids, ebooks and ejournals, web portals, and collections of online primary source materials.
Who is this session for? Students, researchers and anyone interested in this topic.
Bodleian iSkills: Sources for Medievalists (Next date TBA)
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A general overview of a range of e-resources relevant for British and Western European medieval studies including bibliographical databases, biographical/reference tools, web portals and collections of online primary source materials of Anglo-Saxon sources, Greek/Latin texts, chronicles, charters, literary works and manuscript sources.
Who is this session for? Researchers, students, academics, staff e.g. Classicists, English students, Historians, Philosophers, Theologians etc.
Bodleian iSkills: Sources for US History (Next session TBA)
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Introduction to key information sources for the study of colonial America and US history. The session will provide an overview of the primary sources available in Oxford and online (such as early printed books, US newspapers and US government papers), as well as guidance on locating material for your research.
Who is this session for? Students, researchers and anyone interested in this topic.

Handouts are uploaded to the Bodleian iSkills Handouts Page

About iSkills

Bodleian iSkills is a series of free information skills workshops designed to help postgraduates and researchers find and make effective use of scholarly publications and other materials. We cover:

Information discovery and searching for scholarly materials
Sourcing and using archival materials
Endnote, RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley for managing references and formatting footnotes and bibliographies
Keeping up to date with new research
Measuring research impact
Understanding copyright and looking after your intellectual property
Open Access publishing and complying with funder mandates for open access
Managing your research data
Mapping with GIS

Workshops by topic - select this tab above to see the full list of workshops we run, grouped under topic headings.

Workshops by date - select this tab above to view our timetable of upcoming sessions.

Who may attend? - All members of the University and Bodleian Library Readers. Some individual workshops are designed for particular groups (e.g. postgraduates). Our iSkills for the Medical Sciences and OUH staff are designed for those two groups of people.

For more information on each workshop and who may attend, click on the links in the Workshops by Date or Workshops by Subject tabs above.

Cost - all iSkills sessions are free.

Booking a place - Booking is essential. Use the online booking links for each session in the Workshops by Date or Workshops by Subject tabs above. When you make your booking, you will be prompted to sign in with your Oxford single sign on (SSO) username. All current members of Oxford University should have an SSO, but Bodleian Libraries readers who are not current members of Oxford University will not have an SSO. OUH staff might also not have an SSO. If you do not have a SSO but would like to attend a course please contact User Education and we will book a place on your behalf.

Handouts - are available from the handouts page after each session.

Video recordings

Pre-recorded videos

Discovering archives at the Bodleian Libraries

Getting started in Oxford Libraries
- containing guidance on using SOLO, the University's resource discovery tool.

Google for academic research

Keeping up to date with research

Preparing for your literature review in the Social Sciences

Referencing: Choosing and using software

Scholarly literature for your research

Sources for U.S. history

Live recordings

Live recordings of further Bodleian iSkills workshops (including Referencing and Open Access workshops)
Single Sign On is required to view the live recordings.

Medical Sciences

Introduction to systematic reviews and evidence syntheses - searching for studies

Search Skills: How to turn your research topic into a searchable question (presentation slides only - no audio)

Contact us

Find out about iSkills (what it is, who may attend, timetables & booking)

Contact us:

Email: usered@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Telephone: (01865) (2)72841

Follow us on Twitter @bodleianskills

Join our mailing list: Go to My Details in CoSy - Edit - Marketing Preferences. Choose ‘Yes’ to Receive emails about Bodleian Libraries courses, workshops and talks.

Workshops and Classes: Bodleian iSkills

Purpose of this guide