Services and Supports to Ensure College and Career Readiness

Assessment Services, a subdivision of Library and Academic Services, creates and administers entrance and diagnostic academic testing for College programs to help students determine their overall academic readiness for their program and desired career. They also work with students to help them prepare for College by determining and improving their academic readiness.

This department recently developed from offering admissions and diagnostic testing to incorporating language placement testing, external examinations, distance examinations, and accommodated exams.

In this series of posts, we would like to introduce our multi-faceted team to you, beginning with Admissions, Diagnostic and Placement Testing.

The Admissions, Diagnostic and Placement Testing Team

We organize, develop and facilitate admissions testing for a select range of program areas (Health Sciences, Community Services, AME, and international students) and for any application that is missing an academic transcript. We also offer diagnostic testing in collaboration with SIE for Intro to Trades, Compass Skills, and College Transition programs, in addition to offering diagnostic assessments to the Ndinawe organization that supports at-risk youth in Winnipeg. We are also responsible for organizing language placement tests for the Language Training Centre.

Applicants who need to take an admissions assessment as part of their application should visit our resources at our Admissions and Diagnostics website. Here students will find out about helpful resources and preparatory supports that we offer, including pre-program workshops for Community Services led by Yaw, and a tutor-led Degrees of Reading Power workshop.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series, where we’ll introduce you to our Exam Accommodations team.

Written by Piers Smettem, Assessment Specialist

All of the staff at Library and Academic Services are happy to extend a warm welcome to everyone returning to campus. We’re looking forward to providing a safe study space and continuing to offer supports to students and staff, both in-person and online.

Alan Chorney, Manager, Information and Programming Delivery with Library and Academic Services.

Staff and services nearby to help you succeed

For an overview of our free services, stop by in person at ATLAS (Academic Success Centre), the Library Service Desk or visit our website at library.rrc.ca. Library and Academic Services is not just a great place to study, but a supportive team of enthusiastic staff who are here to help you succeed.

Your ideal study space: a virtual tour

Our Notre Dame Campus (NDC) location offers multiple spaces to study. A variety of setups are situated under the skylight, by a window, in a study room, in private carrels, or at tables with whiteboards nearby. Find your ideal study space at the NDC Library!

We look forward to meeting you – online at library.rrc.ca and in person at the Notre Dame or Exchange District Campus Libraries. All the best in your studies at RRC Polytech!

Written by Linda Fox, Library Technician – Program Support and Promotion

Another school year is just around the corner and although it is always an exciting time, it can also be a little stressful! Check out these free resources and supports to help you feel successful and calm throughout your studies.

1. Take advantage of dog therapy

Studies have shown that spending time around furry friends can boost our mood, lower our stress, and give us a stronger sense of belonging.

Learn more in this online article (RRC Polytech login may be required) >> Putting Away Pre-Exam Stress: The Effect of Therapy Dog Sessions on Student Well-Being

Did you know that Red River Polytechnic has provided therapy dog visits in the past? Read more about it in Campus Well-Being’s newsletter.

2. Know you’re not alone

Being a student can stir up a lot of negative emotions and for those who already struggle with mental health, it can feel hopeless. High numbers of students seeking help has led academic institutions to provide easily accessible mental health supports to students.

Check out this online video by CBC to learn more (RRC Polytech login may be required) >> Crisis on Campus: Mental Health Demands Surge

3. Set aside time to be mindful

How can mindfulness activities help you be successful while keeping your stress levels at a minimum? Mindfulness for Students provides tips and tricks to better studying, active listening during lectures, and even how to properly prepare for exams. This book is a great tool for your life in and outside of the learning environment.

Learn more and borrow this print book (RRC Polytech ID card required to borrow) >> Mindfulness for Students

Learn about Campus Well-Being’s tips for promoting mindfulness through stretching >> 7 Stretches To Try at Your Desk

4. Spend time outside

Clinical studies have shown that spending time outside lowers stress and boosts mood. Many colleges are striving to implement programs in which students can spend more time in nature and gain an appreciation of the great outdoors while also lowering the anxiety that can come with the stresses of college.  A great guide for educators wanting to provide opportunities for fresh air in their programs and a great read for students to understand why getting outside is important for your mental well-being.

Read this ebook online (RRC Polytech login may be required) >> Nature Rx: Improving College-Student Mental Health

5. Learn tips for writing success

A step-by-step guide which makes the writing process a breeze! Offering suggestions from how to avoid plagiarism, to how to effectively organize your idea, How to Write Better Essays is sure to help you hand papers in with confidence.

Learn more and borrow this print book (RRC Polytech ID card required to borrow) >> How to Write Better Essays

Did you know the Academic Success Centre offers writing support? Learn more by visiting ASC Supports for Students – Writing Centre

Additional free supports offered at RRC Polytech

If you would like to learn more about the mental health supports offered at the College, please explore the following links:

• RRC Mental Wellness
• RRC Counselling

For the full list of student supports, visit www.rrc.ca/supports.

Guest post written by Hilary Ottenbreit, Library Information and Technology student     

Since we had redesigned the Library and Academic Services website last summer, it was decided that user testing would tell us whether our new site design was effective.

Last fall, we arranged for a small sample of students to review and critique the site. This spring, we decided to do the same using a group of Faculty.

In our site redesign we used principles of user centric design, attempting to create a site for our users, who were defined as two personas: “Average Student User” and “Average Instructor User.”

This particular test targeted instructors, and would evaluate our “Average Instructor User” persona.

Our Academic Support Coordinator, Melissa Coyle, asked for volunteers via Staff News. Not sure how much interest she would generate, she was pleasantly surprised to receive a number of volunteers, all Instructors and EAs, and from different programs and areas of the college. Choosing five candidates that represented an even cross-section of our college, Melissa went ahead and administered a test, one-on-one with each volunteer.

We would like to take a moment to thank the staff who volunteered to take our test. Without you, this entire process would not have been possible. Bravo!

Using a list of twenty-one tasks, consisting of scenarios and questions that could be discovered on the Library and Academic Services website, Melissa monitored the candidates progress in browsing the web pages, taking notes as to the success or failure of the candidate in resolving each task.

It is true that you do not know how easy or hard a designed task might be until you observe an average person attempt to complete it. Melissa did this through a WebEx session with each candidate. It is an ingenious way to conduct a usability test, and Melissa was able to adeptly conduct the testing, all the while taking note of the challenges met by the users.

In case you were not aware, the Library and Academic Services website is quite deep, and contains information on services offered by the Library, Academic Success Centre, and Assessment Services. Some of the tasks were easily resolved by the users, such as:

• Where would you go to find the hours for NDC and EDC campus?  
• You are browsing the LAS website and want to ask a Library staff a question. How would you ask a question or request help? 
• You are an instructor who would like to schedule an in-class Academic Skills workshop for your students. Where would you go to request this workshop?
• You have a student in your class who you would like to refer for tutoring. What instruction would you provide the student to request or connect with a tutor on their own? 
• You are looking for information about Copyright, where would you go to find this?

Other questions posed to be more difficult for the users, indicating adjustments may be necessary on the web site:

• You are an instructor who has assigned a research paper to your students for a specific topic and would like to reserve a selection of books for your class at the Library – how would you do this?
• You have a student who is unfamiliar with LEARN and struggling to access course materials, submit assignments, and participate in online discussions . You would like to connect them with a tutor for help – how would you do this?
• You’d like to share some self-directed resources with your students with a focus on study skills. Where would you find these?

Clearly we have more work to do to improve the Library and Academic Services website. In fact, we recognize that a website must be continuously managed, meaning changes are always necessary, and future testing will always be a smart step.

In addition to areas of improvement, the testing has shown us that our process of user-centric design is working. For the most part, we discovered that our Instructor persona was able to use the website to complete the tasks built into the user-interface.

When we build a web site, we think we can do plenty by considering how users will interact with the site. However, until we have some real users try the site, and we watch how they do it, we cannot know the whole story.

So, take our advice. Arrange for a few users to test your web site!

Mark Nelson
Library Systems Specialist
Red River College Polytechnic

The Nursing faculty invited the RRC Polytech Library to be the sixth stop on their Amazing Race team-building exercise this spring.

Participants arrived at the Library to receive an old-fashioned card catalogue card pointing them to a book on team-building on the Library’s shelves.

A clue hidden within the books pointed the teams to the sunny side of the Library to find another stop in the children’s section (too bad it rained on Tuesday). Surrounded by picture books, the nursing faculty teams found old magazines for their next task.

Fifteen energetic teams participated in the team-building exercise that involved Skills tests, quizzes, random acts of kindness, a College locations scavenger hunt, and a group project to create a creative Representation of Teamwork.

Connect with Us!

Do you have an opportunity to include the Library in your team-building exercises? We make a great stop on any scavenger hunt and are happy to brainstorm activities to fit your team and event.

Connect with us through Ask Us chat, our Ask a Question form, or visit one of our service desks during regular Library hours.

Written by Rosemary Woodby – Reference Technician

RRC Polytech staff and students can now enjoy hassle-free scheduling with the library’s new online equipment booking system.
Find out everything you need to know about the new booking system so you can plan ahead, and be front of the line for fall bookings!

What’s available?

There are many equipment categories to browse and book online:

• Laptops for Staff and Students
• Equipment for meetings and presentations
• Webcams, headsets and computer accessories
• On campus use items
• Light Therapy Lamps for those long winter months!
• And much, much more!

Where to go on Library.rrc.ca to book equipment?

You can navigate to the equipment booking system from the library homepage, either by selecting Book Equipment from the icon bar on the homepage, or find it under browse and borrow from on the homepage top menu.

OR

Where to pick up a booking?

The RRC Polytech Library has two locations, one at the Notre Dame Campus in CM18, and another at the Exchange District Campus in room P214. Our two libraries have different equipment collections, so make sure you select the location you’ll be picking up from, before browsing and setting up bookings.

Add upcoming bookings to your outlook calendar

When you create a booking, you will receive a “Your booking has been confirmed” email with an .ics calendar file. Open the attachment and add the booking to your calendar.

Make sure to add alerts@mail.libcal.com to your safe senders list so you don’t miss any important updates or reminders about your bookings!

Cancel or Change an upcoming booking

Created a booking you no longer need? Need that equipment for a different time? You can cancel an upcoming booking anytime through the link included in your booking confirmation and reminder emails.

To change a booking, simply reply to your booking confirmation or reminder email and let us know the change, you’ll get an automatic email notification confirming when the changes have been made.

Find out more!

Need some help figuring out how to book equipment? Find out everything you need to know on the book equipment help page.

Curious about the student laptop loan program? Check out the laptop loans terms of use.

Find all the loan periods for equipment on the loan period information page.

Connect with Us!

More information about our services and supports is available on our website. You may also connect with us through Ask Us chat, our Ask a Question form, or visit one of our service desks during regular Library hours.

Written by Artemis Hedrich – Reference Technician

Keeping your research organized and writing your paper just got easier!

The Library is pleased to announce that IT Services will be pushing the RefWorks Citation Manager plug-in out to all RRC Polytech users.

Offered by the Library, RefWorks is a free, web-based reference management service that simplifies the process of research, collaboration, data organization, and writing by providing an easy-to-use tool. RefWorks lets you build a collection of customized references (and accompanying PDFs), share, annotate, comment, and import directly into your writing.

The RefWorks Citation Manager plug-in integrates your RefWorks account into Office 365, allowing you to insert in-text citations easily and automatically generate your reference lists as you write with a click of your mouse.

LEARN MORE…

• Visit the RefWorks guide for text-based and video tutorials on using RefWorks.
• Watch the RefWorks training session on the various tools you can use when writing a research paper, including RefWorks Citation Manager for Office 365, Write-N-Cite (older Word), ProQuest RefWorks for Google Docs, and Quick Cite.
• Contact us, click Ask Us on our homepage, or visit one of our service desks for one-on-one assistance.

Written by Rosemary Woodby, Reference Technician

Increase Adoption of OER and Electronic Resources: A Key Action for High-Quality Learning

As indicated as a key action of high-quality learning at Red Forum 2022, the Library Team is here to help support instructors in finding high-quality electronic educational resources. The pandemic has blurred the lines between” in-person” learning and “remote” digital classrooms. The RRC Polytech Library is here to support instructors in locating resources that can withstand the need to shift learning environments nimbly.

We invite instructors who may have struggled with format shifts using their current teaching materials, or those who are seeking alternatives to current textbooks, to consider the shift to Open Educational Resources (OER). These are educational materials such as textbooks, problem sets, slide decks, lesson plans, handouts, infographics, and other educational content that can be used for free and without permission.

Advantages of OER

OERs are published under an open license, such as Creative Commons. This allows several key advantages:

1. Instructors can switch the format of materials with ease and without concern for the violation of copyright, these resources can be printed or remain in digital versions for students.
2. Instructors can Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute the materials freely without violating copyright.
3. OER use allows for cost savings for students when suitable OER can be located to replace course materials students pay for out of pocket.

More Information

Learn more about OER as well as past faculty education sessions held over the past two years: visit the Faculty Support OER Page.

See the impact of our current OER use at RRC Polytech in this 2-minute video: OER Impact Video.

Find support at the RRC Polytech Library to get started with OER: contact the Copyright Officer.

Written by Ebony Novakowski – Copyright Officer

Planning for Fall? It’s a Great Time to Incorporate Our Supports

Spring is often the time to update course content and plan for fall, and it’s also a great time to incorporate supports offered by Library and Academic Services. In this article, we highlight popular ways we can help you and your students succeed at RRC Polytech. For future reference, we encourage you to bookmark our Faculty Support page which contains links to the complete range of services and supports we offer. 

In-Class Workshops

The Academic Success Centre and Library offer online in-class workshops for student cohorts at the request of faculty. Our suite of workshops includes Academic Skills, Writing Skills, Technology Literacy Skills, Library Instruction, and Copyright.

To request an in-class workshop, please click the links below:

• Academic Skills Workshops
• Writing Workshops
• Technology Literacy Workshops
• Library Instruction Workshops
• Copyright Workshops
• Hybrid LEARNing Modules – Facilitated Sessions

Hybrid LEARNing Modules

The Academic Success Centre and Library have developed a suite of Hybrid LEARNing Modules. The purpose of these modules is to offer learning strategies and resources that faculty can share with their students to further develop foundational skills for success in their studies. The modules feature self-directed tutorials in LEARN and facilitated live sessions via Webex (or MS Teams).

To request a Hybrid LEARNing Module or book a facilitated live session, please fill out this Request Form.

Academic Success Centre

While the ASC is primarily a student service unit, our staff have found that partnerships with faculty are the best way to support students. Partnerships can take many forms, including customized and embedded academic supports in programs, in-class workshops, diagnostic assessments, and the sharing of our learning resources.

To learn more, visit the Academic Success Centre’s Supports for Faculty and Staff page.

Library Collections and Related Services

Suggest a Purchase

The primary purpose of the Library’s collections is to support learning, instruction and research at RRC Polytech. If you have suggestions for a new title or resource to add to our collection, you may fill out the Suggest a Purchase form. Our subject specialists are available to discuss subject area gaps in the collection as well as Open Educational Resources (OER) options with you.  

Guides

The Library’s Guides are curated lists of resources on specialized topics. We can help you find which guides are most relevant for your students or work with you to develop a new Guide to meet your needs. The benefits of Guides are far-reaching for both students and instructors. Below are a few success stories resulting from instructors utilizing Guides.

Guide Success Stories

• Library staff member works with instructors to create a “robust resource” for Engineering Technology students
• Oncology Nursing Guide: A Collaboration
• Nursing Instructors Discuss Benefits of Library Guides

Research and Reference Services

Also, you may be looking for information, either for your own research needs, course development, or course readings. Library staff are skilled at locating and referencing information, and it would be a pleasure to assist with that. To connect with a Library staff member, visit us in person or through our Ask Us chat during regular Library hours.

Copyright

Copyright plays an important role when instructors are building content and creating course materials. Our P7 Policy provides guidance around copying but there is also a suite of library-directed copyright services to support and assist faculty in navigating copyright.

The Library’s Copyright Officer supports faculty with the following services:

You can:

• Check your copying decisions against our policy using our self-serve Fair Dealing Tool.
• Learn more about Copyright by Visiting our Copyright Resource Page.
• Find Images that you can use for teaching and instruction in our Open Image Collections & Image Use Guide.
• Book Copyright instruction for your department or students
• Contact the Copyright Officer with questions, or to request services and support.

Connect with Us!

More information about our services and supports is available on our website. You may also connect with us through Ask Us chat, our Ask a Question form, or visit one of our service desks during regular Library hours.

Written by Ebony Novakowski, Linda Fox, and Melissa Coyle – Library and Academic Services

We find and interact with materials online everyday and most of that online content we interact with is protected by Copyright. “So much of our normal everyday behavior puts us at risk of infringing copyright, especially since so much of our life is digital.”[i] “The copyright regime cannot be considered fit for the digital age when millions of citizens are in daily breach of copyright, simply for shifting a piece of music or video from one device to another. People are confused about what is allowed and what is not with the risk that the law falls into disrepute.”[ii]

February 21 – 25th marks Fair Dealing week a time to highlight user rights, and promote the opportunities presented by the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright act. During this week we aim to explain Fair Dealing and how it applies to our daily uses of copyright materials.

As part of Fair Dealing week the video guide to Fair Dealing posted above has been created. The the RRC Polytech Copyright officer. The video touches on the basics of exercising user rights in relation to Education, Private Study, and Research in the video.

How we engage with copyright materials matters. As students and educators are not only individuals who use content, but are also creators of content. Fair Dealing is the doctrine that balances the right of users and creators and allows the navigation of user and creator rights for innovation that benefits society at large.

The RRC Polytech Library is dedicated to helping students, faculty and staff, navigate our institutional copyright policy. We offer a Fair Dealing tool to help streamline policy navigation and help ensure copying is in accordance with our policy guidelines. If you need to make a copy check out this quiz based tool!

The library also hosts a suite of copyright support services to help inform staff and students toempower those within our college community to make copyright decisions that exercise their user rights and respect the rights of creators in accordance with our policy.

To learn more about copyright be sure to check out our copyright resource pages on the RRC Polytech library website. For copyright support or assistance at any point get in touch with the RRC Copyright Officer.

Happy Fair Dealing Week.

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[i] Muller, Stan. Crash Course Intellectual Property #3: Copyright, Exceptions and Fair Use.

[ii] Hargreaves, Ian. Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth. UK Intellectual Property Office. P 5