News & Blog

Are you working on planning your mixed mode or online courses for fall and thinking about incorporating library instruction? We have several options available, including both synchronous and asynchronous sessions. We can tailor the sessions to your particular course and research assignments.

If your class is meeting synchronously through Zoom, your librarian can hold a live session for you and your students demonstrating search techniques and highlighting relevant library resources.

If your class is being held asynchronously, we can create recorded sessions or other customized learning objects to include in your Webcourse modules. We also have our Information Literacy Modules, which cover a range of research and citation topics, that can be assigned to your students.

Contact your subject librarian to find out more information about our services and to schedule your library sessions for the coming semester.  

Are you looking for videos about library research to add to your online courses? Do you wish there was a quick way to show students that there’s more to doing research than just searching Google? Well, look no further. Check out UCF Libraries on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/ucflibraries

Our videos cover a range of topics, from short demonstrations of how to navigate our homepage and find ebooks to recorded webinars on plagiarism, basic statistics, and presentation skills. You can also find playlists of videos organized by topic, like business research, citation, and Google Scholar, in the showcases https://vimeo.com/ucflibraries/albums

Not finding what you’re looking for? Let us know. We’d love to hear your ideas about videos you’d like for your classes. Reach out to your subject librarian or to instruct@ucf.edu with your thoughts.

Want to build library instruction into your online course?  The UCF Libraries have you covered! One of the easiest ways to help your students build skills related to citing sources, avoiding plagiarism, or researching topics with library resources is to integrate the library’s Obojobo Info Lit tutorials into your canvas course. 

Each tutorial takes approximately 20-30 minutes to complete and allows instructors to import assessment scores directly into their Canvas gradebook.  There are twelve different modules to choose from that cover everything from the mechanics of integrating secondary sources into academic writing to evaluating sources.  For information on how to integrate the modules into your course check out our Quick Start Guide.   

If you have question or there are topics you would like covered that are not currently available, email Christina Wray at christina.wray@ucf.edu

Streaming videos are a great way to add engaging content to online courses in a broad range of fields beyond film studies. Everyone from Sociology and LGTBQIA+ Studies to Environmental Studies and Mental Health Counseling can benefit. Luckily, UCF Libraries has many options for you. Today we are featuring Swank Digital Campus.

Swank Digital Campus offers many popular films and current releases as well as HBO documentaries and TV series for use in online courses. UCF currently has 143 Swank films licensed for use including recent releases like Bombshell (2019) and The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) to classics such as Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Greed (1924). Links for these films can be sent the same business day as the request.

If none of those great films fits your course, you can search the full Swank catalog for specific films or browse by discipline. New film requests generally have a 24-48 hour turn around time. Please note that some films and TV shows are listed as needing “additional fees & time.” These requests need special permissions for the extra cost and have a turn around time of 4-6 weeks.  

If you see anything you like, submit a request through the form on our guide.

Today is the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day.  For many of us, when we think of Earth Day it involves getting together with a group of like minded individuals and celebrating not only the life giving beauty of our planet, but also the ways in which we can protect and nurture our environment for generations to come.  Don’t let COVID-19 put a damper on your celebrations, instead here are some creative ways you can celebrate Earth and nature today…and every day.

Be Inspired by Great Nature Writers

Nature writing can transport us to new place, inform us of the world around us and open our eyes to the magic and beauty right in front of us.  Here are some ebooks currently available through the UCF Libraries to get you started.

The Essential Naturalist edited by Michael H. Graham, Joan Parker and Paul K. Dayton.

“The Essential Naturalist offers … a wide-ranging, eclectic collection of writings from more than eight centuries of observations of the natural world, from Leeuwenhoek to E. O. Wilson, from von Humboldt to Rachel Carson. Featuring commentaries by practicing scientists that offer personal accounts of the importance of the long tradition of natural history writing to their current research, the volume serves simultaneously as an overview of the field’s long history and as an inspirational starting point for new explorations, for trained scientists and amateur enthusiasts alike.”