The Office of Undergraduate Research offers educational events on topics of interest to undergraduate student researchers and their faculty mentors. These events are open to all and are designed specifically with undergraduate students in mind.
Download Summer 2019 URES Schedule
The Summer 2019 Undergraduate Research Education Series includes the following events:
Doing Library Research
Presented by Donna Ziegenfuss in Marriott Library 1150
In this session, you will learn how to navigate the Marriott Library’s online resources and how to efficiently do library research. You will be introduced to many library resources relevant to your individual field of research including field-specific journals and citation management tools. This seminar is useful for students at any point in their project and can be revisited as online resources continue to develop.
Student feedback from this session:
"Good tips for narrowing your search when looking for journal articles. Also helpful to learn how to get access to articles the university does not already have access to."
"Especially for those with little to no research experience, the resources and walk-through would be very useful. Even if you are experienced, there are new nuances of researching and resources to learn about. A must go if you wish to engage with scholarly work."
"Donna was so helpful! I didn't realize how much I didn't know about properly using resources. She showed us a lot of great tips with various resources & showed us the easiest/quickest way to find articles, save them, & properly use them. Her presentation was very organized & nice. I would HIGHLY recommend this URES!"
Responsible Conduct of Research
Presented by James Tabery in Marriott Library 1150
There are ethical implications for all research. In this seminar you will learn about some basic ethical theories and issues for various kinds of research and you will be introduced to how to proceed with your project in the bounds of ethics and legal requirements. This seminar is useful at all points in the research process and presents a topic that should be revisited regularly.
Student feedback from this session:
"I liked how he presented to material in the form of cases because it made the information more relatable. I think the information covered is important and anyone who does research needs to be aware of this content."
"This session was interesting and relevant to my research as I am trying to determine which datasets to include and exclude."
"Many researchers don't fully understand the gray areas of plagiarism, selecting data points and throwing out others, and the power struggle that can occur between a mentor and student. Fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism issues will be much more easily understood and avoided through listening to some interesting case studies presented here."
Institutional Review Board (IRB)
Presented by Gary Henderson in Marriott Library 1150
In this session, you will learn the basic history of the Institutional Review Board (IRB), what counts as Human Subjects research, and how and when you might need to use the IRB while doing research here at the U. This session is good for anyone who is or is interested in doing research with Human Subjects at any stage of their research.
Student feedback from this session:
"I did not have a clear idea about what the IRB did or under what instances I would need to involve them. This presentation was very helpful for future research projects."
"It helped clear information that would be needed to be reviewed by the IRB. As well as the application process."
Data Management
Presented by Daureen Nesdill in Marriott Library 1150
Effective data management is not intuitive. In this seminar, you will learn about basic issues with data management (e.g. naming files, file storage, etc.) and you will be directed to useful data management resources. As everyone who is doing research deals with some kind of data, this seminar is relevant to all researchers.
Student feedback from this session:
"Data management skills can help me organize my school work, profession information, and research data collections. After this class I will be able to find all the papers I've written without having the open every single one. No more "Where did I put that file" panic!"
"[I] learned a lot about ways to stay organized, even when working [with] data from multiple people. [I] also learned about using encrypted servers/storage locations. [I]t was a very helpful session to attend and its very important to doing research."
"The lecture gave explicit examples of how to manage data: file name examples, folder storage, storage systems. The examples make it easier to implement data management."
How to Read a Research Article
Presented by Behrad Noudoost in Marriott Library 1150
In this seminar, you will learn about how to read a research article effectively. You will be given tips and strategies for how to read scholarly journal articles. This seminar is appropriate for any student who needs to read contemporary research in their field.
Student feedback from this session:
"Speaker does a good job of presenting how papers are actually written and how that informs how you should read one. Gives good techniques on how to read a paper in your field vs. not in your field."
"This talk is a good way to learn about how to look at a paper an understand it w/o being overwhelmed. he takes complicated papers and shows us how to simplify what we see and focus on only what's significant/important for us."
"The presenter was very knowledgeable and it is a good thing to know how to do. Also gives us tips on how to write a good paper, knowing how to read a paper and what makes a good paper."
Writing an Abstract
Presented by Christie Toth in Marriott Library 1150
In this session, you will learn about how to write an effective research abstract. You will work on framing your research project concisely and accurately. You will leave ready to write your research abstract. This seminar is most useful for students currently needing to write an abstract. It is also useful for students developing how to think about their project.
Student feedback from this session:
"This session really helped in breaking down the pieces of an abstract in a way that develops easy-to-follow system to apply to one's own work."
"It was helpful analyzing or hearing others analyze abstracts from another field. In this way, the components of an effective abstract become clearer and the differing structures and why you might use them more apparent."
"I like that we had hands-on practice analyzing abstracts to understand their components. Observing abstracts across many fields gave a broad understanding of their use."
Citation Management
Presented by Lorelei Rutledge in Marriott Library 1150
Typing out each character of each citation is a thing of the past! In this workshop, you will learn how to use two great citation management tools – Endnote and Mendeley. These tools will save you time and energy when constructing your references for any paper or research project. This session will be extremely useful for any student.
Student feedback from this session:
"Every student needs to cite for all sorts of papers and projects so it is important to know about resources that can help us. It makes work more efficient and simpler."
"Very helpful for ALL college students. They provided in depth detail about each citation manager and how to use them. [I] wish I would have known this information when I first started college!"
"Although I already had Zotero downloaded, I wasn't using it effectively and didn't realize I needed a chrome plugin. Using a citation manager effectively can save hours of time and watching this while following along on my computer has left me feeling confident in using Zotero."
Literature Reviews
Presented by Jenny Andrus in Marriott Library 1150
In this session, you will learn how to conduct and construct a literature review. This will focus on finding, analyzing, and citing relevant sources, but will also address organizing and writing the review. As all students and researchers will have to sift through relevant literature at some point, this will be useful to all researchers.
Student feedback from this session:
"Jenny was very engaging. She kept my attention and had a lot of great insight into writing literature reviews. She had great metaphors & examples. She made a very complex/difficult topic seem relatively simple. Changed my perspective on Scientific writing as a whole. Thank you!"
"Even though I've written lit reviews multiple times this was very helpful! I think these ideas will help me write more efficiently and effectively for my theses (Honors + Senior Project)."
"Even if you aren't planning on writing a literature review, this session gives you the skills + mindset for synthesizing + organizing many sources on the same topic."
Images in Scientific Writing
Presented by David Belnap in Marriott Library 1150
In this session, you will learn about the effective incorporation of images into scientific writing. The information in this session will help you with your own use of images in papers, publications, and presentations. This session is useful for any student in the sciences, but also any student who will need to use images in their writing.
Student feedback from this session:
"[I]t goes over several concepts that may be overlooked when putting together scientific writings & presentations to make it look more professional & easier to understand."
"[F]or students who haven't worked with different images this is very informative. But more than that this helped show the importance of images. ...[T]his workshop shows you how to make sure those images say what you want them to say."
"This is an important topic when considering how to present results - appreciated how he walked through each type & what it was good at showing. He presented so many great tips that I will definitely use!"
Creating Effective Research Posters & Webdigitizer Workshop
Presented by Taylor Sparks in Marriott Library 1150
In this workshop, you will learn about the characteristics of effective research poster design, how to use some tools to use to prepare a research poster, and how to use the Webdigitizer/QT Grace software for data capture and re-plotting. This session covers the content and aesthetics of research posters. This seminar is most useful for students currently needing to create a research poster but is also helpful for students thinking about how to talk about their project. This session will also be useful for students who are ready to start creating images for their posters.
Resources for this session will be shared in a designated Box folder. Please check this folder before attending this session! View Resources »
Reflection as Part of the Research Process
Presented by Robyn Moreno in Marriott Library 1150
Reflection, though a necessary part of the research process, is not often explicitly discussed or taught. This session will help you intentionally incorporate reflection into to your daily research and at the end of an experience. This session is useful for any student at any point in their research experience.