EasyBib Guides Update & an Upgrade to Cloud Computing

Posted by Emily G. on Apr 9, 2013 in Featured Slider Post, Updates | 3 comments

Lots of exciting things to discuss today! Have you checked out our citation or research guides yet? We’ve also put together some resources for educators. These guides have always been available for free (and are licensed under Creative Commons), but we’ve recently made an exciting upgrade. They’re now hosted on SkyDrive.

Cloud computing has been the latest “thing” for a while, but it’s not a fad — it’s a revolution. Usage in cloud computing is expected to increase 12-fold by 2015, and with more people using mobile technology as their primary access point for information, it’s not terribly surprising. If you or your students haven’t made the switch to cloud computing yet, now is the time.

SkyDrive works with Office Web Apps to enable you to create and edit real Office documents online in your browser, for free. If you have a group project, or want someone to help you revise a paper, you can even work together with others on your documents at the same time – either in the browser or in Office. It is similar to Google Drive, but I’ve found the functionality of Google Drive’s apps lackluster (has anyone else dealt with formatting problems, too?). When I build presentations for our webinars, I store them in the cloud, but I build them in PowerPoint. (I’ve fiddled with web-based presentation platforms, too, but most webinar providers I’ve used favor PowerPoint files).

Working together online is great for teachers and students, especially for group projects. For those of you working on Common Core implementation, taking advantage of this feature enables students to use the Internet to interact and work with others (one of the Common Core Anchor Standards for Writing).

Another bonus to SkyDrive is that you get 7GB of free storage to start, which is the largest available from the major free services (Google Drive offers 5GB, Dropbox 2GB). Upgrading to more space is significantly cheaper through SkyDrive, too… 10 bucks will get you an extra 20GB. (See how SkyDrive stacks up against competitors on price and other features here.) If you’re already an Office 365 user, the extra 20GB is included with the Office suite. You can also create a document in Office and save it directly to SkyDrive through the software.

All sounds pretty good, right? If you have a .edu email address, you can test out SkyDrive and Office 365 integration for free for three months. Visit www.officeforstudents.com.

Open Access: Making Use of the Creative Commons License

Posted by Caitlyn Selleck on Feb 27, 2013 in Blog Posts, Featured Slider Post | 0 comments

Last week my colleague Emily Gover co-hosted a webinar with Creative Commons’ Director of Global Learning, Dr. Cable Green.  I had the privilege of listening to Cable make his case for Open Educational Resources (OER) as a business model and, of course, for the benefit of education.

If you’d like to receive a recording of this webinar, you can e-mail me here.

Cable also gave a wonderful shout-out to librarians and the work that they do bringing information to users and supporting resource-based learning. But he also asked what can librarians do to promote and use open access, or Open Educational Resources.

Well the answer is… a lot!  Cable mentioned a couple of easy ways you can find open access materials to use in your research, classroom, and with your students.

• Flickr has a section where you can search for images that are shared under Creative Commons licenses.  The cool thing about this page is that it teaches you a little bit about the different kinds of licenses, so you can easily find out how you can use these images.
• Use Google’s advanced search option to search for sources by their usage license. If you like, you can limit your results to free sources that you can modify and share.  This is really an incredible searching option that I didn’t know existed until this webinar!
• Use proudly borrowed content in your classroom (you’ll notice that all of our student guides, lesson plans and popular handouts are listed under a Creative Commons license) and use and adapt it!  Your colleagues may have shared their classroom exercises and put them under a Creative Commons license, as well. Use your networks to find quality material that you can adapt for your students.

But Open Access is a two-way street! If you are a librarian or educator, content you create might be of use to others as well. Put a Creative Commons license on guides, lesson plans, etc. that you’ve created for your students. Other teachers might be interested in using and adapting what you’ve created. We’re all in this together after all!

If you are interested in learning more about using and contributing to open access in education, the Creative Commons School of Open is launching its first set of courses during Open Education Week (March 11-15, 2013). You can sign up for courses for that week, or anytime after.  The School of Open is a community volunteers who run and create online courses teaching you how to use and contribute to “openness” of digital materials as an educator or any other creator and user of information.

To learn more about the School of Open, visit: https://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-open/

Caity Selleck is an in-house librarian and content developer for EasyBib and ResearchReady. This is her very first blog post! You can find her on Twitter, @Caity_EasyBib, or posting news you can use at the EasyBib Librarians Facebook page.

Check out the new EasyBib App in the Chrome Web Store!

Posted by Caitlyn Selleck on May 30, 2012 in Updates | 0 comments

EasyBib is constantly working hard to make the research process run more smoothly. That’s why we’re so excited to tell you EasyBib is now directly accessible through the Google Chrome homepage. We would love to get your feedback on EasyBib, so please help us out by writing a review!

Check it out here!

Check out this Post!

Posted by Caitlyn Selleck on Feb 23, 2012 in Blog Posts | Comments Off

One of our good librarian friends, Margeaux DelGuidice, has authored an entertaining and insightful post over on her blog. Topic? Snooki, finding correct information, and the indispensable nature of the librarian. Here’s a quick snippet:

Click here to check out the whole post. Viva la Librarian!!!