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The Critical Reading course aims to improve students' ability to read critically and evaluate sources, as well as giving helpful tips about productive reading, note taking and providing a checklist of questions to help them with their reading going forward. It is suitable for all students but aimed mostly at undergraduates.

Most people have online profiles and, as a researchers, your online presence offers many rich opportunities. It is helpful to be aware of tools and tips that can help you boost your visibility online, as well as common mistakes to avoid.

In this course, you will:

• begin to develop your online research profile by making yourself visible to others in a way(s) that suits you.
• learn what an ORCID is and how to obtain one.
• learn what your Symplectic Elements account is for and begin to make it work for you
• review your current visibility and consider the next steps

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

Copyright law is a complex field with direct relevance for researchers who need to protect their own intellectual work and use work written by others, and most importantly must avoid accidentally infringing copyright. This course provides you with basic knowledge you can apply to your research practice.

The course covers:

• fundamentals of copyright and why it’s important
• what to do if you want to use someone else’s work
• how to protect and share your own work
• how licenses can be used to make it easier to reuse works

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

The Graduate Self-Assessment tool is intended for those in the Humanities & Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities schools. It is the first step in an online module designed to help you to assess your own skill-set, identify target areas for improvement and make decisions about what to do next. The tool is recommended for all first year postgraduates, but will be available for you to return to check on your progress.

Once you have completed the self-assessment exercise a number of options for developing your skills will become available to you, ranging from reading articles to signing up for relevant face-to-face workshops.

We encourage students to take the survey about once a year, but it is particularly useful for those who are just starting their PhD and for those who are just entering the final year of their PhD.

You will need to click here to gain access to the self-assessment tool.

This online interactive course will give you advice on how to survive your first year at Cambridge. Topics include introductions to note making, referencing, writing essays, and managing your time.

The course is aimed at Part IA students, with a Science focus. However, the course is open to anyone who wishes to use it, and will be useful for any discipline, or as a refresher for those wishing to learn some new tips and tricks.

Do you have what it takes to beat the UL? Assemble a team to take on the challenge!

A self-led Library induction with a difference! Solve a series of puzzles which will lead you all over the UL, while teaching yourself to navigate the building and our physical collections. Have fun, learn how to use the UL and you will receive a small prize on completion!

Teams of up to 6 players can participate - if you want to play with your friends you'll need to make sure you all sign up to the same session. All players must be registered users of the University Library.

Want to make it even more interesting? Let our staff know on the day if you would like to be timed for a chance to top our Beat the UL leaderboard! You can complete the challenge as many times as you like, but only your first attempt will be timed!

This course is based on a typical literature review lifecycle. You start by planning your search. You then carrying out your search. Once you've found some results, you evaluate what you have found to see if it is relevant to your needs. You manage your results by saving them to a suitable place so you can come back to them. If you are interested in tracking changes in your field, you enact approaches to keep up to date with new research. And as your research evolves, you refine your search to reflect new concepts and new terms. And so the cycle continues.

While you may not be as focused on the longer term tracking of new research in your field, being able to plan, search, evaluate and manage effectively are key skills which we will cover in this course. The course will be structured around these first four stages, with optional additional information about the last two stages for those who are interested.

A course to take you through conference poster design, with tips and resources to help with the content and presentation in order to ensure you communicate your research effectively. The course will cover where to source good quality, free graphics, how to include references in your poster, and advice about how best to present it at a conference. The session will NOT involve hands-on creation of a poster.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

This course will help you understand how to critically evaluate medical research articles, with a particular emphasis on evaluating the reliability, trustworthiness, and applicability of an article in informing evidence-based practice and decision-making in a healthcare context.

We will send you the article in advance, and it is a prerequisite that you read it before attending the session, and bring a copy with you to class.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

This session is aimed at NHS and University of Cambridge staff or students who have already had prior training in database searching and want to learn more about the features of Embase and Medline via the Ovid interface. Those who want to attend an introductory session should book onto the Introduction to Literature Searching course, or the Getting the Best Results - Improving Your Database Searching if they are NHS staff.

An introductory session showcasing how to manage your references using EndNote desktop and EndNote online.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

A course specifically for NHS staff. Attendees will learn how to search databases accessed with an Athens login (such as Medline, Embase and Cinahl) effectively and efficiently, to learn how to save searches and references, and to create and maintain a bibliography.

All attendees are required to have an NHS Athens login. University of Cambridge staff and students wanting to learn similar material should book onto the Introduction to Literature Searching (for University) course instead.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

A course specifically for University of Cambridge staff and students. Attendees will learn how to search medical/healthcare databases accessed with a Raven login (such as Medline and Embase) effectively and efficiently, to learn how to save searches and references, and to create and maintain a bibliography. This course is delivered at an introductory/refresher level, and assumes you have had no prior training in how to search databases.

All attendees are required to have a Raven login. NHS staff wanting to learn similar material should book onto our 'Getting the Best Results - Improving Your Database Searching' course instead.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

This session is aimed at NHS and University of Cambridge staff or students who have already had prior training in database searching and want to learn more about the features of PubMed. Those who want to attend an introductory session should book onto the Introduction to Literature Searching course, or the Getting the Best Results - Improving Your Database Searching if they are NHS staff.

There is an increasing emphasis in research on the management and sharing of data. Many funding bodies that support research undertaken at Cambridge require not only open access to any publications based on that research, but also to the data underlying it. This course will help you understand funders’ requirements for management and sharing of research data, and will provide opportunities to create your own data management plan and test out resources that will make the data management process easier.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

This course will help you understand how to undertake a risk of bias assessment of a systematic review, assessing its reliability, trustworthiness, and applicability. The session uses the ROBIS tool to assess a preselected published systematic review.

We ask that you read a paper that will be provided before you attend the session, in order for us to make the best use of the time together.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

Before undertaking any piece of primary research it’s important to be aware of as much of the existing literature as possible. A systematic literature review can also be a research end in itself. And it’s not something to be taken lightly. But how can you be sure you’re being as rigorous as necessary? How can you manage the references you find, document the process, and also know when to stop searching?

This session assumes attendees have already had prior introductory training in literature searching. It is a prerequisite that you have attended either Introduction to Literature Searching (if you are a University of Cambridge staff member or student) or Getting the Best Results - Improving Your Database Searching (if you are an NHS staff member). Exceptions will be made if you received similar training from another department or university - please contact us if you have any questions about prerequisites.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

Publishing a protocol -- stating in advance the search strategy, inclusion and exclusion criteria, data analysis and other evaluative techniques -- is a core requirement for conducting a systematic review. The process of writing this protocol will also mean you have written in advance a large chunk of what will need to go into the finished systematic review, saving you a huge amount of time.

This session will cover the contents and types of information you will need to provide in your protocol, and will give attendees the opportunity to write a draft protocol, as well as highlighting helpful resources and further support.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

A course designed to take you step-by-step through academic writing and publication, with tips and resources to make writing up as simple as possible. The course will demystify the peer-review process, and help you to improve the precision and clarity of your academic writing.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

An introductory session showcasing how to manage your references using Zotero.

UPDATE: Please note that this session is taking place remotely, not in the Medical Library as previously advertised. Please do not go to the Medical Library training room. You will be contacted by the training team with information about how to join the session remotely.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

Most people know to avoid deliberate plagiarism but some examples are more subtle and harder to spot. The University takes research integrity and any breeches very seriously so it is important for staff and students at all stages of their career to learn how to avoid problems.

This self-paced, interactive module allows learners to think about what constitutes plagiarism, it's role in academic misconduct, and how it can be avoided.

Data management is an important skill for any researcher to manage but it can be overwhelming to know where to start. This self-paced, interactive module guides learners through the different components of building a data managment strategy for their project including storage, sharing and organisation. The module also includes an activity to build a README file for data to prepare it for wider sharing.

Using and collecting data is part of all academic work from keeping track of sources to producing new knowledge at the end of a project. Whatever type of data you deal with it is important to keep good records so that you can track down what you need quickly and efficiently. Open research has added another element to this by advocating the sharing of the results of research to help further wider knowledge and many research funders now expect to see evidence of a solid strategy in the form of a data management plan.

This self-paced, interactive module allows learners to discover the different elements of a data management plan and guides them through the process of producing one for their own project.

The physical library building and its collections are only the tip of the information iceberg. A wealth of online resources is also available - if you know where to look.

This self-paced, interactive module guides learners through some essential sources of information, how to get the best out of them and how to search like a librarian.

Although not the only aspect of open research, open access to research outputs is perhaps the one most people will be familiar with. This constantly changing landscape can be confusing but It doesn't have to be with our handy introduction to all things OA.

This self-paced, interactive module allows learners to think about the wider issues around open access to information, the benefits it can have for both researchers and the wider world and what researchers need to do to comply with funder mandates.