Course Syllabus

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Course overview

This 5-day online workshop will guide you through resources, activities, and discussion designed to prepare you for your role in research.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Identify resources and Libraries services to help improve your academic skills
  • Engage in discussions and activities with your fellow peers
  • Communicate directly with staff members of the UW Libraries
  • Discover new tools available exclusively through UW and freely available on the web

Topics covered in this workshop:

  • Research as conversation
  • Effective academic research
  • Library services and resources
  • UW Libraries databases
  • Google Scholar
  • Search strategies
  • Productivity tools
  • Citation trails and citation management tools
  • Support resources for graduate research (data management, scholarly publishing, open educational resources)

This course is a safe space for open discussions. We embrace many perspectives and experiences within this course and at the UW Libraries, as long as they are not harmful to one another. We strive to make this a welcoming and supportive environment to allow each of you to thrive creatively as a researcher.

If you require special accommodations to participate in this workshop, please contact libraries-gsri@u.washington.edu.  

Course requirements 

Students are expected to participate in discussion conversations and connect with peers and cohort facilitators through Slack. During the course, students may be asked to share self-reflection pieces. Participants are expected to engage with course content but it is recommended to spend no longer than one hour per day on the course modules.

Code of conduct 

Students are expected to follow the Libraries Code of Conduct.  This includes online interactions in Canvas, Slack, email, etc. If you have questions about this, please feel free to reach out to us anytime at libraries-gsri@uw.edu. or via Slack.

h course content but it is recommended to spend no longer than one hour per day on the course modules.

Commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion

Equity is a core value of the UW Libraries. We believe that libraries have a central role to play in building a more socially just and anti-racist society. We bear the responsibility to investigate and dismantle policies and practices that perpetuate inequities and have devalued, neglected or harmed BIPOC and other minoritized communities. We are committed to engaging in an ongoing process of identifying and confronting ways in which organizational and institutional culture, bias, and discrimination may inhibit the lives and education of groups that have been marginalized in our society, on our campuses, and in our libraries. We actively support the University in advancing equity, sustaining diversity, creating inclusive experiences for all members of our community, and confronting institutional bias and structural racism.

The UW Libraries, as a community, commits to identifying, resourcing, and implementing actionable next steps in pursuit of becoming a more equitable and anti-racist organization.

Land Acknowledgement

University of Washington, its global community, and all of our lives and institutions exist on Indigenous land. We acknowledge the ancestral homelands of those who were here before us and who are still here, especially our local area where area Native peoples identify as the Duwamish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, and Puyallup, as well as the tribes of the Muckleshoot, Tulalip, other Coast Salish peoples, and their descendants. We are grateful to respectfully live and work on these lands and to follow the leadership of our community members (including Affiliated Faculty, Research Assistants, and campus and community partners) who are Native and Indigenous, particularly those who are from these territories.


We ask those who are engaging in this workshop and any class or event at UW to reflect on the lands on which you live and acknowledge all of the ancestral homelands and traditional territories of Indigenous people. If you are unsure on whose ancestral land you reside, you may consult Native Land for more information. Land acknowledgements like this are just one small act in the ongoing process of honoring the land and the people of the land and building relationships with them.

Inspired by the land acknowledgements of UW Libraries Constitution Day and the UW Banks Center of Educational Justice.

Access and accommodations 

Your learning experience is important to us. If you have already established accommodations with Disability Resources for Students (DRS), please communicate your approved accommodations to your facilitators at your earliest convenience so we can discuss your needs throughout the workshop.

If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), you are welcome to contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu or disability.uw.edu. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions. While it is legal policy of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law, we strive to go beyond the necessary means and build an environment that is accessible and safe so that you can thrive and concentrate on learning.

Best method of contact  

Please use the GSRI Slack to interact with members of this workshop. If you have any concerns that need to be addressed outside of the course, contact libraries-gsri@u.washington.edu.   

Who are the creators of GSRI  

The Graduate Student Research Institute was created in 2017 by the UW Libraries' Instructional Design & Outreach Services Team (LibID), with the support of Jaye Sablan and Kelly Edwards in the Graduate School Core Programs, and Carolyn Jackson of the Office of Graduate Student Equity & Excellence (GSEE, formerly Go-MAP). LibID has maintained and continued to revise and offer GSRI to graduate students each summer, with the support of UW Libraries' tri-campus staff that mentor students in the program, facilitate zoom sessions, discussion boards and Slack discussions, and help to revise content. 

The LibID Team focuses on scalable and innovative approaches to library instruction and coordinates Libraries support for fee-based degree programs, with special emphasis on the needs of professional, online, and non-traditional learners. LibID focuses efforts on building programs and services that intentionally support Black, Indigenous and Students of Color and have core Antiracist Commitments that have guided the development and decisions of GSRI.

The core LibID Team is Robin Chin Roemer, Perry Yee and Reed Garber-Pearson. Kenny Yim is the Online Learning & Engagement Specialist. 

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Will I receive a certificate for completing this course?
    • Unfortunately, this course does not provide certification for any of the tools or methods used during the learning experience. However, participants gain exposure to new ideas and frameworks while building practical research skills.
  • How long will it take to complete this workshop?
    • We ask participants to engage with course content and interactive elements of this workshop throughout the entirety of the course. You will be asked to read through our course content, complete short activities, and engage in discussion with peers if you so choose. This process should take no longer than one hour per day.
  • Do I need to view content linearly?
    • It is recommended to progress linearly through this course as is structured in the modules list.
  • What happens when the workshop concludes?
    • Before the workshop concludes, we request that you fill out and submit a feedback form that will allow us to improve this course for future cohorts. This will also be your opportunity to reflect on your learning experience. When the course concludes, content will be available to you in your course enrollments list.

The course is licensed for Public Domain use. Content in the course is freely available even if you are not affiliated with UW. 

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due