History and Culture of Islam Program Hosts Reference Manager Training
History and Culture of Islam Program Hosts Reference Manager Training
On Thursday, October 7, 2021, the History and Culture of Islam Study Program invited Dr. Hasse Jubba, M.A., to conduct a reference manager training session. The training was primarily attended by students from the History and Culture of Islam Study Program, class of 2018. The session, attended by 136 participants, was held online via Zoom. However, the virtual format did not diminish the essence of the training. The use of the Mendeley application, the main tool for the training, was demonstrated live by the speaker and his assistant, allowing participants to practice directly on their devices. Beyond the application itself, Dr. Hasse also covered topics regarding citation issues, plagiarism, author ethics, and other matters related to scientific paper writing.
This reference manager training was organized primarily to help students search for and organize reference sources for their research. The process of searching for research references can be done manually by looking for physical materials or online. Today, the internet has become a vast big-data hub that provides all the information and reference materials needed and desired. Of course, proficiency is required for someone to obtain high-quality information sources of their choice. Aside from skills, the presence of software applications plays a vital role in finding the desired information sources. Some of the easiest and most frequently used software programs are Mendeley and Zotero. Both software programs can be relied upon not only for searching information sources but also for managing them. This software is capable of detecting various types of information sources, whether in the form of articles, books, journals, newspapers, or others, in PDF format quickly and easily. Not only that, but this software can also manage downloaded information sources by storing them and formatting citations in APA, Turabian, and many other styles. With this software, all reference materials are saved in the library feature for future use.
During his presentation, Dr. Hasse also suggested that this kind of training would be better provided to students at an early stage. This is because such skills will be used by students throughout their college years, particularly when they receive paper-writing assignments in various courses.