Tag: training materials

From the Deck of . . . The ALA Midwinter 2017 Lunch & Learn

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Individual Subscribers, For Librarians, For Students

Welcome to “From the Deck of . . .” an irregular series in which we highlight search demos and other information from the slide decks we create for our live training sessions. You can view and download these materials from our SlideShare account.

We recently presented our Lunch & Learn training session at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting & Exhibition. During the session, we reviewed PsycTESTS®, an extensive collection of psychological tests, measures, scales, surveys, and other instruments. Over 42,000 tests are represented in the database, and a full or partial version of the measure is available for about 50% of them.

PsycTESTS is a wonderful resource for students learning to conduct measures, or researchers developing their own tests. In addition, many of the tests included can be used for non-commercial research and educational purposes, which includes general clinical use. (For more information, see our post How Permissions Work in PsycTESTS.)

During our session at ALA Midwinter, we reviewed the record structure of PsycTESTS, which is very different from a database like PsycINFO®. In PsycINFO, one article is represented by one record, which contains information about the article, taken from the article itself. In PsycTESTS, a test can be represented by multiple records, which contain information about the test, taken from a source document. A source document is typically a journal article, book chapter, technical report, or dissertation.

Visual representation of PsycTESTS record structure at http://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/psyctests

A visual representation of the record structure for PsycTESTS.

 

Every test in PsycTESTS is represented by a Test Master Record, which displays basic information about the test. You’ll also see either a Test Development Record or a Test Primary Data Record, which provide additional information about the test.

  • The Test Master Record provides basic information about the instrument and links to other records, which contain information from source documents, such as a journal article or book chapter:
    • Test Development Record: provides information describing the development of the measure
    • A Primary Data Record is provided for commercial tests, or tests with no source document (for example, a historical test)

A small number of tests will have an additional record or records:

    • Test Use Record: provides information describing a new use of the measure (for example, an article that reports on using a test developed for adults with children)
    • Test Review Record: provides information about an evaluation of the measure

The way these records are connected, and how they interact with one another, varies widely depending on how you access PsycTESTS: via APA PsycNET®, EBSCOhost, Ovid, or ProQuest. To see what a PsycTESTS record looks like on your platform, take a look at the slides from our Lunch & Learn. You’ll also find some sample search scenarios for PsycTESTS.

The presentation also included an overview of incorporating APA Style CENTRAL® into your teaching, and a look at some new and forthcoming publications.

Related Resources:

A “Getting Started with PsycTESTS” guide is available for each of the major vendor platforms. This handout demonstrates the various fields and features in PsycTESTS. To download or link to this resource, visit our Search Guides page.

Tutorial Thursday: Writing With APA Style CENTRAL

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Librarians, For Students

It’s Tutorial Thursday! In this series, we explore APA’s extensive library of video tutorials. In addition to our APA Databases and Training Videos available on YouTube, we now have an emerging library of training videos on our new APA Style CENTRAL® YouTube Channel. Recordings of webinars, like the one linked below, and other training videos are added as they become available.

For today’s edition of Tutorial Thursday, we’d like to share a recording of one of our APA Style CENTRAL webinars: Writing With APA Style CENTRAL.
Screenshot from the recording of the Writing With APA Style CENTRAL webinar

Covering the unique features and tools that make APA Style CENTRAL a powerful resource for writing in APA Style®, this webinar is designed for undergrad students who are new to APA Style, as well as graduate students and faculty members looking for a refresher. This session provides a brief overview of how to:

  • Seamlessly include all of the required elements of APA Style when writing your paper;
  • Create and manage your APA Style references with ease and accuracy, including RIS-import from your current reference manager;
  • Easily create a properly formatted reference list and in-text citations; and
  • Use the collaboration functionality for simple annotated review or multiple authorship.

Please feel free to link this video or any of our APA Style CENTRAL playlists in your library websites, LibGuides, course management systems, or other locations where students, faculty, and researchers will find them.

With the winter holidays behind us, we will resume our live sessions of this webinar again in late January. When the schedule is ready, we’ll announce it here on the blog and post it on our APA Style CENTRAL training web page.

APA Style CENTRAL – Create a User Account

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Librarians, For Students

Today we’d like to share an excerpt from one of our APA Style CENTRAL handouts, “Creating APA Style CENTRAL® Accounts” (PDF). Please feel free to link to this handout where students, faculty, and researchers will find it.

When using APA Style CENTRAL, you will need an account in order to write or collaborate on a paper, create a reference list, or use the research planning and tracking tools.

We all have more accounts than we know what to do with (or can remember!), but here’s the good news:  Any existing APA account can also be used as your APA Style CENTRAL account — including a MyAPA, APA membership, APA PsycNET®, or MyPsycNET account.

Not sure if you have an existing APA account to use for APA Style CENTRAL?  Do a quick check by visiting your institution’s APA Style CENTRAL home page. At the top right corner of the screen, select Welcome and Log In; then on the next screen, select the No account? link:

Screenshot of Log In prompts

Enter your email address into the Email field and click anywhere outside the textbox to run the system check. If it matches, you will see a login prompt; if not, you can try entering a different email address or complete the rest of the form to create a new account:

Want to learn more? You’ll find this handout on our APA Style CENTRAL® Handouts and Guides page, where we will continue to add handouts and documentation for users and administrators as they become available.

Tutorial Thursday: Teaching With APA Style CENTRAL

Posted on by Patti Avellanet in For Faculty, For Librarians

It’s Tutorial Thursday! In this series, we explore APA’s extensive library of video tutorials, available on YouTube. Please feel free to link or embed videos or playlists in library websites or LibGuides, course management systems, or other locations where students, faculty, and researchers will find them.

For today’s edition of Tutorial Thursday, we’d like to share a recording of one of our APA Style CENTRAL® webinars: Teaching With APA Style CENTRAL. You’ll find this recording on our new APA Style CENTRAL YouTube Channel, where we plan to add recordings of our other webinars, and other materials as they become available.

Still from the recording of the Teaching with APA Style CENTRAL webinar.

This session is geared at faculty members, librarians, instructors, and others who are responsible for teaching APA Style, and covers the content, features, and tools of APA Style CENTRAL that can be incorporated into course and bibliographic instruction. This includes a brief discussion of integrating APA Style CENTRAL into a learning management system, as well as an overview of how to use the Research Lab Book tools with a class or advisee.

We will be offering additional, live sessions of this webinar again early in 2017. When the schedule is ready, we will post the details here and on our website.

APA Style CENTRAL – Accessing the Publication Manual

Posted on by Marta Soto in For Faculty, For Librarians, For Students

APA Style CENTRAL® incorporates all of the references and content from the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, currently in its sixth edition. When future editions of the Publication Manual are released, APA Style CENTRAL will also be updated with the new rules and features.

Within APA Style CENTRAL’s Learning Center, each of the quick guides, or short training videos, is linked to one or more sections from the Publication Manual that cover the same topic.

You can find the link to the Publication Manual in the Learn More feature for each quick guide.

 

 

The Publication Manual section with related content opens in a new window or tab (depending on your browser settings):

 

 

 

For more information, see our Handout about APA Style CENTRAL and the Publication Manual.