Wednesday, September 2, 2015

ROCC/RODP Start of Semester Problems

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted you to be aware that there have been problems with enrollments and access for students taking ROCC/RODP classes. Here is the latest announcement that students should see when going to login at  http://elearn.rodp.org :


Attention: Faculty & Students

Thank you for your patience as we work through the difficulties with the semester start. We are still experiencing a few issues with enrollments and access. If you cannot access a course you have registered for or if students are missing from your classlist, please contact the ROCC Help Desk at http://help.rodp.org.

Apparently some UNIV 4995 students were not appropriately balanced across all of the offered sections until August 25th.  Some of these students were moved to other sections after already posting their introductory posts. 

Notices were put up on September 1st that many students have not completed their Student Participation Survey which is used as the online equivalent to prove class enrollment and attendance.

My guess is that you will see assignment dates be altered as a result.  Please inform Sharon of any questions by students.  Thanks.

Sharon

Thursday, February 19, 2015

ENGL 1020 "Rhetorical Analysis" Paper -- Spring 2015



I taught two English 1020 classes for Laura Dubek last week. Her students are looking for argumentative essays for a rhetorical analysis project. In case you encounter them at the reference desk, they are looking for ONE argumentative essay that is substantial enough for them to analyze in some depth. They are doing a research poster for Scholars Week that examines how the article's author uses rhetorical strategies to make an argument.  

They do not need scholarly articles, news stories, or short opinion pieces. In class, I showed them two options to get started:

Option 1: Opposing Viewpoints. While most of the "viewpoints" in this database are too short for this assignment, I pointed out the Magazines results for each topic, and showed how you can limit your results by Document Types to get "Critical essays," "Viewpoint Essays," and "Articles." See the left column in the image below. They will still need to look through these and find one that is substantial enough to warrant analysis.


Option 2: Reader's Guide Full Text. Again, this isn't perfect because there are tons of short articles here too, but the advanced search does give you the option to limit to Editorial and Opinion pieces. Hold down the CTRL key as you click these options to apply both limits at once.


These are the two starting points I shared in class. If you have other methods that yield good results, please share them in the comments section below. -- Jason

Thursday, February 12, 2015

National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints

The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints has been moved from its previous location in Reference at 018.1 N21 to the Periodicals Area.  It is located in the second row of shelves on the left.  There is a small sign on a shelf with an arrow pointing back to it near the aisle.  The end panel sign shows the call number.  There is also a sign in the Reference Area on the shelf at the previous location directing patrons to the Periodicals Area.  Please note that the assignment requiring students to use the NUC has begun. 

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Questions about Printing


 
From Michael W. 1/20/15
 
Here are the questions I have received today from our Reference Librarians concerning the Campus Printing System along with the answers I have dug up.


1.      What happens when there is a problem with the print system, i.e., a meltdown, after ITD Help Desk is closed?

a.      LTS has a direct line which they will call as soon as a major outage has been reported and verified.

2.      How much do MTSU Faculty/Staff printouts cost per page?

a.      Faculty/Staff are not directly charged for their printing.  All charges are billed to the department on campus that employs them.

b.      The amount charged to their department is $.017 per page.

3.      What happens when a student puts in their Pipeline Username and Password rather than their MTmail Username and Password?

a.      A student’s email login and pipleline login are the same, but their passwords may not be.

b.      Since the login system is looking for their email login and password, it assumes that someone is keying in the wrong password and may be trying to break into their account, so it locks their login after a number of missed attempts.

c.      To unlock the account, the patron will have to contact the ITD help desk at 898-5345

4.      What is going on when a patron tries to print and the EIC printers are not coming up?

a.      The campus print system has had a hiccup and the print kiosk requires a reboot.  Contact LTS.

5.      Does it hurt for a student to turn off a PC after they finish?

a.      When the first person of the days logs onto a PC it takes a while for the campus printer to be published to the PC.  The next person who logins in will not have that wait.

b.      If the machine is turned off or rebooted, it starts the whole sequence over again.

c.      Patrons should log off using the desktop Logoff Icon.

6.      Why is duplex printing not working consistently throughout the building?

a.      RJ Young and ITD are working together to get this corrected. 

7.      Should a student log off the release station when they finish printing?

a.      For security reasons each student should log off at the print kiosk after they finish printing.

b.      Not logging off also slows down the traffic flow at a kiosk.

8.      How should we explain what a printed page is?

a.      Maybe instead of referring to it as a page, we should refer to it as each side of a page that is printed.

9.      How do Community/Alumni Patrons print?

a.      When they get a password at the Service Desk they are issued a flash drive (supplied by ITD).

b.      They should print all of their work to the Adobe PDF printer and save the output to the flash drive.

c.      They should take the flash drive to the Community/Alumni printer next to the LTS desk to print their work.

9.      How do I check my print quota and how do I add more pages to it?

a.      The answer is:  go to http://blueid.mtsu.edu and login with your pipeline credentials and it will give you the status of all of your RaiderFunds categories, including Print Quota.  Once you run out of PrintQuota, the system starts taking money from your RaiderFunds to cover the cost.  On that same webpage you can add more dollars to your RaiderFunds using a credit/debit card. 
 
 
 
 
From Kristen W. 1/20/15
 
More about community/alumni printing and photocopying from my own observation and per Al Camp:
  • Pay with cash (no coins) or credit card (forget to check which cards it accepts)
  • No change returned if using cash
  • Cash users will use the card kiosk to obtain a free ExpressPay Cash Card, to which they will then add money (minimum $1)
  • Printer/Photocopier accepts credit card (forgot to check which ones) or the ExpressPay Cash Card
  • $0.10 each B/W letter or legal page, plus $0.01 tax each page = $0.11 per page
  •  Unused funds on an ExpressPay card remain on the card for future use.
  •  Documents to print must be on a flash drive. Al says the printer will recognize and print a variety of files including Word, PPT, PDF, JPG and other images, but not an Excel file. User can preview and accept or discard the print before it is made. I watched a user print a Word file tonight. The safest answer, of course, is to have everything saved as a PDF per the instructions below.
 
 

























































 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Raider Funds Deposit

Students can go to https://blueid.mtsu.edu to deposit Raider funds for printing. This information is not yet listed on the Raider funds page at: http://www.mtsu.edu/tuition/raider-funds.php (as of today). The Library no longer has any Raider Funds cash terminals.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Digital Sanborn Maps

The Digital Sanborn Maps database is experiencing technical issues and is not presently available.  After we received a complaint from a student Nan Matson contacted their technical support people and received the following response, 

"Thank you for contacting Technical Support today. We are currently experiencing system difficulties and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and your users.

We have every available resource working on the problem with the goal of restoring access to the system as soon as possible. I do not have specific details to share with you at this time.

Again, we apologize for this inconvenience and we appreciate your patience during this process. "

 
Patrons see a login box when clicking on the browse maps button that does not work with their Pipeline MT username and password.

Sharon


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Finding "Abstract Journals" for English

This question has come up a handful of times in recent weeks, and it's an odd one.

Students in an upper level English class are needing to find an "abstract journal" as a requirement for a bibliography they are compiling.

I did find something in Harner's Literary Research Guide (Ready reference shelf R 820.9 H 22l 2008) that might be useful: Abstracts of English Studies. It is shelved in Peroidicals, and we have 1958-1979 (Volumes 1-23). The title was discontinued in 1994. I am including a scan of the relevant page from Harner's below.



If you have other suggestions for how to find an "abstract journal" for English, please share!

--Jason