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Midlands State University Libraries

Science and Technology

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FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Introduction

Welcome to the Faculty of Science and Technology Library Guide. This guide is here to assist you in accessing a diverse range of information resources, including hard copy and electronic materials, such as books, journals, dissertations, and research papers. The resources provided are custom-tailored to support studies in various fields such as computer science, food science and technology, applied biosciences and biotechnology, chemical sciences, applied mathematics and statistics, and applied physics and telecommunications. This guide allows you to navigate and locate the materials needed to enrich your academic journey in the Faculty of Science and Technology easily.

What are the Library’s Service Standards?

The Library of Midlands State University is committed to providing high-quality services to users in the Faculty of Science and Technology. We highly value customer feedback and use it to improve our performance and ensure responsiveness to the unique needs of our clients in the faculty. To support this commitment, we have established a Service Charter . This Charter is a guiding principle that shapes how we deliver services, conduct ourselves, and maintain accountability. It exemplifies our total commitment to valuing our users within the Faculty of Science and Technology by aiming to create memorable experiences. We ensure that every customer interaction results in a positive and enriching experience.

Client Expectations

Expect from us:

Prompt and courteous service
Helpful, well-trained staff who will treat you with respect
Fair and equitable access to our collections and services
Collections that aim to meet your needs and are well-maintained and accessible

Library Expectation

Help us to help you by:

Treating other people in the library with respect and courtesy, whether these are other clients or library staff
Treating library facilities, equipment, collections, and property with due care
Assisting staff understand your needs clearly
Providing us with feedback on how we may improve our services or we can resolve a specific service problem

Access to Library Resources

The Library, which supports the Faculty of Science and Technology, boasts a comprehensive collection encompassing all academic programs offered by the Faculty. The Library is accessible to bona fide MSU clients, including registered students and current Faculty of Science and Technology employees. Individuals, not MSU students or staff, who wish to use the library may request authorisation and pay the necessary fees to become officially recognised as ‘Approved Readers.’ Borrowing privileges are structured strategically and vary depending on the client’s cohort, ensuring personalised access to resources for each academic program within the Faculty of Science and Technology. We recommend familiarising yourself with the specific borrowing privileges corresponding to your faculty status to optimise your research and study experience.

Teaching staff – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 8 books at a time for one month
Non-Teaching staff – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 6 books at a time for one month
Postgraduate students – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 3 books at a time for seven days
Undergraduate students – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 3 books at a time for seven days
Approved readers – Do not have any borrowing rights. They are only allowed access to library materials within the building.

MSU Library Book Collections

Midlands State University Library has a robust collection of print and electronic books. Patrons may borrow items from the print collection using their valid student or staff identification cards. Electronic books can be accessed by clicking on the ‘ Electronic Resources ‘ tab on the library website .

Categories of the Book Collection

These books are generally located in the Open Shelf area and can be borrowed for a maximum period of seven (7) days for students and 30 days for Staff members.

Core collection Books

The core textbook collection consists of highly recommended books by lecturers across all academic departments at MSU. The books in the core collection are available for borrowing for a maximum of three (3) days for students and seven (7) days for staff.

Reference collection

Discipline specific dictionaries, encyclopedias and other reference works are also available in our libraries. This category of materials can only be used within the library.

To compliment the hard copy collection of books, the Library offers access to a vibrant collection of e-books which can be accessed even if one is off campus.

MSU Interlibrary Loan

This facility is a cooperative arrangement whereby a patron of the MSU library can borrow books or journals that are owned by another university library for a specific period of time. All active MSU staff and registered students may use this service by completing this form. Should you need additional assistance visit any of our libraries and request to see the Client Service Librarian or email matsae(a)staff.msu.ac.zw or WhatsApp +263 78 675 5935

How to access e-Books

Open browser and go to www.msu.ac.zw

Click on the ‘Libraries’ link. You will be redirected to the Library Homepage.

On the library homepage, click on ‘Electronic Resources’ and select ‘E-Books’

E-Books are arranged alphabetically and under each E-Book name there is a short description of the subject coverage.

If you know the name of the database type it in the ‘Search Box ’ e.g. ‘ProQuest Central’ and click on ‘Search Databases’

Click on ‘ProQuest Central’ link. The system will prompt for your registration number and e-learning password or your MSU username and password.

Click on the login button and you will be redirected to ProQuest Central Database .

You can now search for the information you want in your ‘ProQuest Central Database’

Scholarly journals

A journal or periodical is a scholarly publication containing articles written by researchers, academics, practitioners and other experts. Journals usually focus on a specific discipline or field of study such as biology, chemistry or computer science. Journals are published at regular intervals such as monthly, quarterly or yearly and several authors contribute to each issue. Electronic journals are online versions of the printed journals and they are only accessible over the internet ( NMSU Library , 2020).

How to access access Print Journals

Go to www.msu.ac.zw and point your mouse to “Libraries”
Select “Catalogue”
On the Online catalogue page click on “Advanced Search”
Enter your keywords in the search form provided
Under “Item Type” select “Journal” to limit your results to journals only
Click on the “Search” button to get results
Click on a journal title of your choice to get the Call number
Approach appropriate shelf in the Special Collections section to retrieve the journal.

How to access e-Journals

On the library homepage, click on ‘Electronic Resources’ and select ‘E-Journals’
E-Journals are arranged alphabetically and under each E-Journal name there is a short description of the subject coverage
You may use the A-Z list to browse the collection OR If you know the name of the database, type it in the Search Box e.g. ‘JSTOR’ and click on ‘Search Databases’
Click on the ‘JSTOR’ link. The system will prompt for your registration number and e-learning password or your MSU username and password.
Click on the login button and you will be redirected to ‘JSTOR Database’.
You can now carry out your research in ‘JSTOR’

Research at Midlands State University

The MSU Institutional Repository (MSUIR)

The MSUIR is an online digital collection of the university’s research output. The collection contains documents such as research papers, conference papers, books, book chapters, speeches, public lectures and seminar series presentations.

How to access MSUIR

Open browser and go to www.msu.ac.zw

On the library homepage, click on ‘Electronic Resources’ and select ‘Institutional Repository’. You will be redirected to the Midlands State University Institutional Repository (MSUIR) Homepage.

You can now browse collections arranged by disciplines, referred to as ‘Communities’ . If you scroll down you can view recent additions to the collection.

You may also discover items by Author, Date, Title, Subject (Check on the right side of the page under ‘Browse’

To search the whole MSUIR, enter your search terms inside the search box at the top right corner of the page under ‘Search MSUIR’ and results for your search query will be displayed on the screen.

Click on a result of your choice and scroll down the page to view abstract and other document information.

To open document, click on the ‘View/ Open’ Button.

Depending on your browser settings, the document may open in browser or prompt you to download.

African Digital Repository

The African Digital Repository consists of records harvested from the institutional repositories of a number of South African and African institutions. Links to the full text within the repositories are included.

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) is an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs).

Database of African Theses and Dissertations

Database of citations and abstracts of dissertations from African universities.

Proquest Central

Contains dissertations and theses from many Universities from around the world.

EBSCO Open Dissertations

OpenDissertations.org is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs that brings an innovative approach to increasing traffic and discoverability of ETD research.

Open Access and Dissertations

A collection of dissertations from Universities from around the world.

Open Thesis

OpenThesis is a free repository of theses, dissertations, and other academic documents, coupled with powerful search, organization, and collaboration tools.

PQDT Open provides the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge. You can quickly and easily locate dissertations and theses relevant to your discipline, and view the complete text in PDF format.

Registry of Open Access Repositories

The Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) is a searchable international database indexing the creation, location and growth of open access institutional repositories and their contents

REFERENCING

What is referencing ?

Referencing is giving the acknowledgement to the sources of information you have consulted in your academic work ( Queens University , 3 September 2020). As you write assignments, research papers or any academic work, you must always cite your sources.

Importance of referencing

Patrons using copier or printing services are responsible for any infringements of the Zimbabwe copyright Laws.

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Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research:

Automatically generate bibliographies
Collaborate easily with other researchers online
Easily import papers from other research software
Find relevant papers based on what you’re reading
Access your papers from anywhere online

(Elsevier, 2020)

Mendeley Guides

For a comprehensive guide on how to install and use Mendeley click here , and for video tutorials click here . Alternately you can contact your Faculty Librarian

Zotero is a free, open-source referencing and research tool that helps you collect, organize, and analyse research and share it in a variety of ways. Zotero has the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and export that information as formatted references. It supports all the referencing styles such as Harvard, MLA and APA. Zotero interacts seamlessly with online resources: when it senses you are viewing a book, article, or other object on the web, it can automatically extract and save complete bibliographic references. Zotero effortlessly transmits information to and from other web services and applications, and it runs both as a web service and offline on your personal devices.

With Zotero you can:

Save citations from databases, web sites, and library catalogs
Manage, categorize into collections, and organize
Cite sources “in-text” as you write and create reference lists in most styles (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, etc.)
Attach PDF’s, images, web page snapshots, reading notes, and more to citations in your collection

Download Zotero

Zotero User Guide

Turnitin Anti- Plagiarism Software

Turnitin is an originality checking and plagiarism prevention service that checks your writing for citation mistakes or inappropriate copying. When you submit your paper, Turnitin compares it to text in its massive database of student work, websites, books, articles, etc ( APUS, 2020 ).

Turnitin Guides for Students and Staff
How to create a Turnitin student account
How to upload research article into Turnitin
Interpreting Turnitin Similarity Report
Supervisor quick start guide
Video Tutorial on How to use Turnitin Anti-Plagiarism

The MSU Library Research Support Section

The MSU Library Research Support section plays a crucial role in assisting students and academic staff in their research endeavours. The Research Support section facilitates access to information and supports users in navigating the vast print and electronic resources available through the library. Here are some key functions of library research support services:

Reference and Information Services
Assisting users in locating relevant resources, answering reference questions, and navigating library catalogues and databases.
They provide guidance on effective search strategies and help users refine their research topics.
Training sessions and workshops to enhance users’ information literacy skills, teaching them how to critically evaluate information, cite sources, and use library resources effectively.
Helping users with access to a wide range of resources, including books, journals, databases, and multimedia materials.
Research Consultations
One-on-one research consultations to provide personalized assistance, helping users develop research strategies and find relevant sources for their projects.
Reference Management
Assisting students and staff in using and managing their references, including the use of citation management tools such as Zotero and Mendeley.
Library Workshops and Training
Organising workshops and training sessions on various topics related to research, academic writing, and information literacy to help users develop their academic and research skills.
Copyright and Fair Use Guidance
Providing information on copyright regulations, fair use, and plagiarism and helping users understand and adhere to legal and ethical standards in their research.
Assisting Researchers With Finding the Right Publisher
The Research Support section also assists aspiring writers with identifying the right journal and publisher for their work. It does this by using specialised online tools such as Think-Check-and Submit and publishers’ journal finders.
Support is also given for authors to avoid predatory publishers by publishing the Beall’s List of predatory publishers.

For assistance for any of the services listed above, do not hesitate to contact the Library Research Support on [email protected] or use our WhatsApp number – 0786 755 935. You may also approach the Information Desk located at the Main Library and ask for further assistance.

Steps in the research process

Image by Lee Rusty Waller

Step 1: Identifying the Problem

The first step in the process is to identify a problem or develop a research question. You need to identify a topic that is of interest to you to make it easy along the way.

Step 2: Review the Literature

Once the problem has been identified, it is time to gather information related to the problem or topic. Gathering literature about the topic will give you more insights into what has already been published by other researchers, how they researched the problem and the results or conclusions they got. You will need to use the library’s resources to get this information. These include the library catalogue, electronic books, electronic journals and indexes.

Step 3: Research Purpose/Design

This is a practical framework for answering the research questions. This involves making decisions about the type of data that you are going to collect, how you are going to collect it (methods), time scale and the location of your research.

Step 4: Collect Data

This step involves collecting data about your research problem from the participants in your research. Data can be collected in the form of interviews, questionnaires, observation etc.

Step 5: Analyse and Interpret Data

All the activities that were carried out in the above steps now culminate into this step. Here you will analyse data so that the research questions can finally be answered.

Step 6: Report and Evaluate

In this stage, you are now writing about the results that you got from the research. What were the conclusions about the problem you were researching on? What are your recommendations? What can be done to improve things or avoid negative things?

(Blankenship, Diane Applied Research and Evaluation Methods in Recreation, Human Kinetics 2010)

Choosing where to publish

It is important to find the most relevant journal to publish with so that your research output gets the attention that it deserves. You should always be able to check for certain important factors when looking for a journal to publish with. Some factors to look out for include:

Scope of the journal
Peer review process

Journal Metrics

Open Access options
How to spot a predatory Journal

Where is the Journal Indexed?

It is important that you check whether the journal is indexed in major indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science. These indexes assess a journal’s quality before indexing them and it is most likely that your work becomes more discoverable if you publish with journals indexed in them.

Journal Finders

A number of publishers offer some tools that can be used by aspiring authors to assist in choosing the most appropriate and trusted journal title. Below are some links to the most common tools used to choose a journal.

Elsevier Journal Finder
Springer Link Journal Suggester
Wiley Journal Finder
Sage Journal Selector
Emerald Journal Finder
Web of Science Master List
Check. Submit
Scopus Journal Analyzer

RESEARCH IMPACT AND METRICS

Metrics are a measurement of the importance or impact of a journal or author. There are several metrics that can be used to indicate the importance of a journal. Author level metrics can also be used to show impact that an author makes on the scientific community or field of the study.

Journal Impact Factor

The Journal Impact Factor is used to measure the importance of a journal by calculating the number of times articles are cited within a particular year. You can find the impact factors of journals in Clarivate Analytics’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

CiteScore is the average number of citations received by articles recently published in the journal. It is available for journals and book series which are indexed in Scopus.

SJR – Scimago Journal Rank

The SJR aims to capture the effect of subject field, quality, and reputation of a journal on citations. It calculates the prestige of a journal by considering the value of the sources that cite it, rather than counting all citations equally. It is useful for comparing and anlysing journals within the same discipline, and forms the basis of the subject category ranking.

The SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) measures citations weighted by the subject field. It is useful for comparing journals not just within the same field but also across disciplines. SNIP is available from Scopus.

ALTERNATIVE METRICS – ALMETRICS

Article level metrics help researchers to understand how their research is being used in the digital or online environment through factors such as downloads, page views and mentions in social media platforms. Many publishers such as Elsevier, Oxford University Press, PLos and Springer Nature now provide alternative metrics on the search results page by using the Altmetric bookmarklet or Plum Analytics. You can get the attention that your research is getting from fellow researchers through mentions in Twitter, Researchgate, Facebook and Linkedin.

RESEARCHER IDENTIFIERS AND DISAMBIGUATION

An important aspect of research is to keep track of your research output and to uniquely identify your among many other researchers. There are several author identifier tools that you can use to achieve this.

ORCID – Open Researcher and Contributor ID

This provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes an author from other authors with a similar name. It makes it easier for researchers to compile their research output even if they change their affiliation or if their name is spelt differently in other publications. Researchers are able to compile their profile, research interests, educational qualifications contact details etc.

ResearcherID

Similar to ORCID, this tool free is also able to provide you with a unique identifier. You can also link your ResearcherID to ORCID so that you can enjoy the benefits of using both systems.

Scopus allows researchers to create an author profile that includes all their citations that are included in this multi-disciplinary database, even with name and affiliation changes. Researchers are also able to get email alerts when someone cites their articles.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar Profiles provide a simple way for authors to showcase their academic publications. You can check who is citing your articles, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name.

How to Spot a Predatory Journal or Publisher

Predatory publishers make false claims about their peer review process in order to charge unsuspecting researchers article processing fees. Most predatory publishers will spam the mailboxes of prospective authors with offers of rapid publication.

Here are some factors you may need to consider:

Use the Think Check Submit checklist for journals
Lookup titles in Directory of Open Access Journals
Lookup titles in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
Use indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science to check if journal is listed there

You can also follow the links below for more information on identifying predatory publishers.

Criteria for determining predatory publishers

6 Ways to Spot a Predatory Journal

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR RESEARCH VISIBILITY

Activities aimed at increasing the visibility of research output are very important to an academic’s career. Increasing the visibility of research ensures that research results are discovered by a wider spectrum of researchers and in turn the work gets more attention and impact. This also helps in the success of the researcher.

Here are some methods that can help in increasing the visibility of research:

Register to get unique author identifiers and create your profiles :
Share Outputs of Your Research Through Open Access

Evidence of your research output include research articles, conference, posters, presentations and papers, preprints and research data. By making these publicly accessible, you are increasing the chances of your work getting discovered and cited. Moreover, many funding institutions and universities now require that both publications and their accompanying research data be made available through Open Access.

To make your work Open Access, you can use the following:

MSU Institutional Repository
AgEcon (Agriculture and Applied Economics)
ArXiv – (pre-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics)
CiteSeer – (Computer and Information Science)
PubMedCentral – is a repository for US federally funded research outputs in Medicine.
Research Papers in Economics (Repec) is a collaborative effort of volunteers in 86 countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics and related sciences. It is a bibliographic database of working papers, journal articles, books, books chapters and software components.
Social Science Research Network (SSRN) – aims at early dissemination of social science, business, law and economics research. It allows for deposit of both abstract of working papers and upcoming publications as well as full text of published outputs.
Share Your Research Data

Apart from publications, you can also share your research data through various platforms listed below.

F1000Research – Useful to researchers in Life sciences
Mendeley Data
JSTOR Data For Research
Keep an Updated Online Profile or Web CV

There are a number of platforms that can be used to create profiles where you can capture your research interests, make a list of your publications and highlight your professional accomplishments.

Google Scholar Citation Profile
ImpactStory

ImpactStory is a free online platform that permits you to showcase your research outputs (publications, presentations, data, code, posters, etc.) together with measures of their impact. Impact story uses ORCID profiles to find and import scholarly works. To make sure that your Impact story has all your outputs, make sure that you import them to ORCID and synchronise your ORCID profile with Impactstory.

This is a relatively new tool that helps researchers promote their research outputs. It is free to use and allows you to showcase your publications by creating links to full text. Kudos will always monitor:

Number of times the publication is downloaded from the publisher’s site
Number of times the publication’s abstract is clicked on or viewed on the publisher’s site
Number of tweets posted by author to promote the publication
Number of Facebook posts by author to promote the publication
Number of visits to the publication page on Kudos that is generated by sharing activities via email or social media
Number of times author has sent email to colleagues/friends with link the publication page on Kudos or with the link to the article page on the publisher’s site
Total number of visits to publication page on Kudos
A score generated by Altmetric.com (which includes tweets, Mendeley and CiteULike readership)
Engage and Participate in Social Networking Communities

Another great way to disseminate your research and gain reputation is through active engagement in research networking communities. Research networking will allow you to create online profiles, showcase your research outputs, discover communities of interest and take part in discussions by posting and answering questions in your network. All of them will also let you know about impact of your activates in these networks, for instance downloads of your publications, views of your profile and levels of your activity as compared to others in the network.

Researchgate
Academi.edu

Frequently Asked Questions

Question : Can you return a book borrowed from the Main Library to any Branch Library?

Answer : You can only return a book to the library where you borrowed it. This is done in order for the home library to be accountability for each and every material in its collection. In the OPAC, all library materials are identified by location and returning a book to the library where it was borrowed helps other users quickly locate the book.

Question : Can a student borrow a book during vacation?

Answer : During vacation, the library will be open and serving clients. Students will only be allowed access to the library and not allowed to borrow books for outside the library use. Students are allowed to borrow books during semester break and are encouraged to observe the due date stamped on the library books.

Question : Is the library open during Public Holidays?

Answer : The Library is closed during Public Holidays. To view the Library opening and Closing times click here

Question : How do I access e-resources?

Answer : For steps on how to access e-journals, e-books, Institutional Repository, OPAC, Past Examination papers click here

Question : What happens if I have a an overdue book?

Answer : An overdue book attracts a fine which is automatically recorded in the KOHA System. The fine that accrues in a client’s account is determined by the type of material borrowed. For more information on fines click here

Question:What documents do one need to be allowed to gain entry into the library?

Answer : A client is required to produce a valid student/staff ID at the Library entrance. For students, one needs to be registered for that semester.

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