All sessions take place in the Digital Instruction Resource Center (DIRC), 14N-132.  Pre-registration is required for some, but not all sessions. See below for details.

Managing Your References: Overview of EndNote, RefWorks and Zotero Register

• When: Fri April 8, 12:00-1:15 pm
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Remlee Green, remlee@mit.edu
• Description: Using citation management software to create and maintain a collection of references is becoming more common and important in today’s academic world.  These software packages allow users to search databases, retrieve relevant citations, and build a bibliography to be added to a paper or thesis or stored for future reference. But which software package should you use, and how do you get started?  This session will focus on EndNote, RefWorks, and Zotero, the three major options for bibliographic software at MIT.  We will include a discussion comparing and contrasting the three softwares, and we will introduce some of the basic concepts and functionality of each program.

Advanced Tips & Tricks for Chemists: Structure & Reaction Searching with SciFinder Web Register

• When: Fri April 15, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Erja Kajosalo, kajosalo@mit.edu
• Description: In this hands-on training session taught by Amy Christuk from CAS, participants will learn to:
  -Explore new Markush patent searching
  -How to find similar reactions (broad, medium, narrow) and view their transformation centers
  -Conduct half-reaction searches
  -Smart tools for analyzing and refining similarity and substructure search results
  -Find closely related substances such as different salts
  -Explore tips & tricks with reaction searching
  -Find property data including actual spectra for specific substances
  -Find and export suppliers for multiple substances
  -Set-up preferred and non-preferred suppliers
  -Set-up structure-based alerts
  -Combine different answer sets to examine their intersection and overlap
  -Create structures using SMILES & InChI strings
  -Sort reactions by relevance ranking
  -View reaction experimental procedures directly from journal and patent literature without leaving SciFinder Web
  -Learn what’s new with SciFinder Web

Biotech Business Information for Engineers and Scientists Register

• When: Thu April 21, 12:00-1:00 pm
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Howard Silver, hsilver@mit.edu
• Description: It’s not Brain Surgery…it’s Market Research.  This session will introduce scientists and engineers to information resources that cover biotechnology industries and markets.  We will use realistic examples and hands-on exercises with key resources to demonstrate how to match your ideas and discoveries with the opportunities and realities of the marketplace.

RefWorks Basics

• When: Thu April 21, 5:00-6:00 pm
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Anita Perkins, perkins@mit.edu
• Description: RefWorks is a web-based resource designed to help you organize references and create a bibliography.  RefWorks allows you to search, retrieve relevant citations, easily cite references as you write your paper, and build your bibliography.  It allows users to create individual or group accounts.

Using and Contributing to AcaWiki: The Wiki for Summaries of Academic Articles Register

• When: Fri April 22, 12:00-1:00
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Remlee Green, remlee@mit.edu
• Description: This session will introduce participants to AcaWiki, the wiki for summaries of academic books and articles.  AcaWiki is a great resource for scholars and a wonderful way to contribute to knowledge in a field and to help scholars.  It’s particularly relevant for PhD students around their general exams but useful for scholars at all stages.  We will show you how to get the most out of AcaWiki as a user and will walk users through the process of editing and contributing summaries of your own.  We’ll demonstrate several tricks and show users how to integrate AcaWiki with some popular existing bibliography management tools like BibTeX and Zotero. The course taught will be taught by Benjamin Mako Hill — an AcaWiki contributor and administrator.

Managing Research Data 101

• When: Mon April 25, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Amy Stout astout@mit.edu
• Description: For researchers struggling to manage their data, basic strategies will be provided for:
  -best practices for retention and archiving
  -effective directory structures and naming conventions
  -good file formats for long-term access
  -data security and backup options
  -metadata, tagging, and citation
  -other relevant issues

EndNote Basics Register

• When: Fri April 29, 12:00-1:00 pm
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Peter Cohn, pcohn@mit.edu
• Description: EndNote is a “personal bibliographic software” package which allows you to create and manage a database of bibliographic references.  Attendees will create a personal database of cited literature by importing references from resources such as Barton, Web of Science, & other sources of published literature.  Your database can be used to automatically generate in-text citations and bibliographies in your manuscripts.  It can also help you organize and manage your PDF files.

Introduction to Mendeley Register

• When: Wednesday, May 4, 2:00-3:00 pm
• Where: 14N-132
• Contact: Peter Cohn, pcohn@mit.edu
• Description: Mendeley is a free tool that can help you organize your papers and manage your references.  A representative from Mendeley will give a demo and talk about how it can help you discover the latest research, collaborate with others, and automatically generate bibliographies.