University Libraries faculty will offer a series of workshops this fall designed to support research, with topics ranging from academic literature searches and data management to open-source large language models.
The Research Partnerships, Teaching Partnerships, and Collections Strategy and Open Scholarship faculty have organized the workshops. Descriptions and registration information are available through the Research Partnerships event calendar.
The series begins with “What’s in a Database? Developing Skills for Searching the Academic Literature,” which will be offered twice:
- 10 to 11:30 a.m. Sept. 1, Love Library, Peterson Room, Love Library South 221
- 10 to 11:30 a.m. Sept. 3, Dinsdale Family Learning Commons, Room 235
The workshop will cover essential and advanced techniques for developing thorough research search strategies and will include time for students to practice.
“Students may want to bring ideas for research papers that they will need to do for other classes,” said Scout Calvert, chair of Research Partnerships.
At noon Sept. 16, UNL Libraries’ Research Data Services will introduce participants to research data management and curation services offered by the libraries, including SANDY (Stewarding Nebraska Data), UNL’s data repository. The session will be offered online. A Zoom link will be provided after registration.
From noon to 1:15 p.m. Sept. 23, “Beyond ChatGPT: Hands-On Interaction with Open-Source Large Language Models in Google Colab” will provide participants with hands-on experience using open-source LLMs available through Hugging Face and Google Colab.
The session will introduce fundamental LLM concepts through practical exercises designed to help participants better understand the strengths and limitations of the technology. It will be offered in Love Library Room 221 (Peterson Room) and online.
No prior coding experience is required, but participants will need a Google account to access Google Collab. Those without an account should create one before the workshop.
Additional workshops include:
- Oct. 1: “Comprehensive Searching 101”
- Oct. 9: “Writing Your Data Management Plan”
Visit the Research Partnerships event calendar for registration information and details about these and future workshops.
