ArrowDynamics: Besse Library Learning Commons News

Free Elsevier AI Courses

01/08/2025

Sharon Gravius

Expand your knowledge in a range of topics through Elsevier's free, self-paced courses. Each course includes updated learning content, tips and tricks from librarians across the globe, additional open resources and more.

Current Courses offered include:

Foundations of AI

Gain a deeper understanding of generative AI (GenAI) tools by exploring the fundamental concepts, understanding AI literacy, and demystifying the mechanics behind the tools.

Benefits & Risks of AI

Examine the opportunities and challenges presented with GenAI by exploring the academic activities it enhances while pinpointing key pain points and limitations of the technology.

Responsible AI

Enhance your knowledge of responsible practices utilizing and developing GenAI. Using Elsevier's five responsible AI principles as a framework, explore what "responsible" means for different AI stakeholders.

View all course here:

https://www.elsevier.com/librarian/library-connect-academy#1-genai-literacy-program

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10 reasons why AI may be overrated

08/20/2024

Sharon Gravius

Is artificial intelligence overrated? Ever since ChatGPT heralded the explosion of generative AI in late 2022, the technology has seen incredible hype in the industry and media. And countless investors have poured billions and billions of dollars into it and related companies.

But a growing chorus of naysayers is expressing doubts about how game-changing generative AI will actually be for the economy.

Read this NPR story here

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Librarians’ Guide to Answering Students’ Practical Questions about AI

08/20/2024

Sharon Gravius

Give students useful information for their questions on AI

June 3, 2024

Read the rest of this article here

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Recent Posts

ID December 2025 Newsletter

December 2025 ID Newsletter by Ashley Hernandez...

Upcoming Enhancements to Ebsco databases

EBSCO Launches "Citation Discovery" Features in Ebscohost Databases Citation Discovery is a new set of features designed to help users uncover connections between published works:The Citations feature helps researchers understand the impact and relevance of a given work, showing how often it has been referenced by other researchers. Citations are calculated based on title-author matches to forward citations in other articles based on data in the EBSCO Scholarly Graph.The References feature allows researchers to easily identify sources used within a work, which can then be sorted by published date or citation count.The Retractions Indicator feature (expected in November) clearly marks retracted articles in search results, detailed records, and citation lists to help users avoid citing flawed work, boosting their confidence in the quality and integrity of their research.These tools will be rolled out to all EBSCOhost databases. For any questions, contact any of the Besse Librarians....

ID November 2025 Newsletter

Newsletter by Ashley Hernandez...

Library Learning Commons Newsletter October 2025

It’s Fall Break! We are all in need of a break to recharge or tackle those reminders on sticky notes that have been on our monitors since the beginning of the semester. What a great feeling to crumble those once completed. The Library Learning Commons has a few updates to share as we move into the second half of the semester.LibraryThe librarians continue to implement the library’s new library services platform (LSP). URSearch is up and running with its modernized search capabilities. We are continuing to implement features to enhance the user experience and adjust when we see things are not providing the expected results. Training has begun on our new platform that will hold our digital collections, and to ring in the new year we will begin training and implementing a tool that will integrate the library into the D2L. More information will be forthcoming.Over the summer an inventory was conducted on the rare book collection in Haessly Boardroom. Items were identified that can be digitized, and they will be made available once our digital collections platform goes live.Tutoring and Supplemental InstructionTutoring services began using Navigate at the beginning of the Fall semester. Students can now schedule time with a tutor through Navigate by accessing it through MyUrsuline or downloading the app. If a student does not see an opportunity for tutoring that matches their needs they are encouraged to talk with Tiffany Mackie about a solution. Faculty and advisers are now able to log in to Navigate via MyUrsuline to track their students’ participation in these activities and more.Instruction Design & TechnologyInstructional Design and Technology has been working hard on elements to discover ways to integrate with Gannon. Over the summer we evaluated our video streaming platforms, Panopto and Kaltura, to find the best fit for Gannon and Ursuline. After talks with both companies it was found that Kaltura was our best option. We are currently working with both companies to establish a timeline for migrating our content and training users. We also looked at our course evaluation systems Anthology and Watermark to identify a common platform. Applying the same strategy used for video streaming, we landed on Watermark. More information will be coming on our plan for migration. While we were working through these items, we also developed an RFP to identify a common LMS. The RFP was provided to five vendors. Anthology (Blackboard), Desire@Learn, and Canvas expressed interest and will be presenting demos in late October and early November. ITC membership will be participating in the demos and providing their input towards a recommendation. Connect with a member of this group if you have any questions.The Fall semester is flying by. Enjoy the break, and we will see you back on campus soon....