Courses and support sessions by EduLab

In this course we will look at the services included in Office 365, such as Word, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Forms. You will e.g. learn how to upload files to the cloud (OneDrive), how to edit them in Office for the web (Office Online) and how to share your files and write collaboratively. You will also learn to make a survey or a quiz with Microsoft Forms and make notes with OneNote.

Do you frequently use mathematical symbols and formulas in your text? Or are you a humanist or a qualitative researcher wishing to have more control over your references and their layout? Or do you simply want to get rid of RefWorks? Do you need a writing tool which enables you to control all settings? Overleaf is an online LaTeX writing tool which separates contents and layout. You make your settings and write on the left side of the screen, and the finished PDF version will be updated in real time on the right. You can access and write your text through the browser using a computer, a tablet or a smartphone with the same result, and you can easily share your text with colleagues and supervisors.

If you are a researcher in the University of Vaasa, note also that the university has a template in Overleaf for texts aiming at the University of Vaasa series!

On the course we will look into the versatile possibilities of using videos in teaching. We will discuss available video resources and the process of making educational videos by yourself. 

This course is an introduction to survey tool Webropol. We will go through its basics features, different types of questions and multilingual questionnaires with focus on using it in teaching and research.

Webropol is in use at the University of Vaasa.

Do you need help in your research process? Are you challenged with the overwhelming volume of published scientific research? Join the workshop and get started with Iris.ai - your science assistant.

The Iris.ai team will guide you how to semi-automate the discovery and literature review parts of your research process. In this workshop you'll learn to create your first exploration maps, refine the results, and compile a reading list with the help of the artificial intelligence assistant.

During the 2-hour workshop you will see a demo of how to get started with your Iris.ai Premium account and put the tools to the test. This is also a great opportunity to ask questions and receive support from the Iris.ai team.

Please observe:

The University of Vaasa has access to the premium version of the tool. If you do not have access to the premium version, you can still join by using the free version. Please create an account on https://the.iris.ai before taking the course. Staff members at the University of Vaasa get access to the premium version by creating an account with their university email ending with @univaasa.fi, @uva.fi or @uwasa.fi. 

Do you need help in your research process? Are you challenged with the overwhelming volume of published scientific research? Join the workshop and get started with Iris.ai - your science assistant.

The Iris.ai team will guide you how to semi-automate the discovery and literature review parts of your research process. In this workshop you'll learn to create your first exploration maps, refine the results, and compile a reading list with the help of the artificial intelligence assistant.

During the 2-hour workshop you will see a demo of how to get started with your Iris.ai Premium account and put the tools to the test. This is also a great opportunity to ask questions and receive support from the Iris.ai team.

Please observe:

The University of Vaasa has access to the premium version of the tool. If you do not have access to the premium version, you can still join by using the free version. Please create an account on https://the.iris.ai before taking the course. Staff members at the University of Vaasa get access to the premium version by creating an account with their university email ending with @univaasa.fi, @uva.fi or @uwasa.fi. 

Learn how to make videos by recording your computer’s screen. Bring your own laptop. We will be using Screencast-O-Matic.

Are you interested in learning the basics of image editing? Join us!

We will use GIMP, a free software with huge variety of tools. You can work on your own photos but we will cover how to find visual material online that you can use for your work. We will further discuss how to optimise your images for different purposes; such online use or poster presentations.

Bring your own computer with GIMP installed. On your own computer you can install GIMP from the web. Staff at university of Vaasa can install GIMP from Software Center.

Learn how to make and use short animations in a pedagogical purpose. Animations can be used to convey information in a simplified way: in a clip, you can choose to only include what is essential to illustrate your point. We will have a look at the tools PowToon, Adobe Spark and Explain Everything (for iPad) among others. 

A staggering amount of online data is generated, produced and shared online on a daily basis and we take the global connectivity almost for granted. However, can we take our online safety for granted to the same extent? The objectives of the course Cyber Security - Absolute Basics and How You Are Supposed to Deal with Threats are to: 1) increase critical awareness of the current state of internet with regard to cyber security and internet privacy and 2) give overview of the most essential methods of keeping your data safe from external threats.

We will discuss the content of the current accessibility requirements and have a look at how to make Office-documents accessible. 

Scientific writing starts with doing research. A word processor may not be enough since you need somewhere to store your sources and data. Scientific writing also needs tools for outlining and restructuring text.

Bring your own device!

This course is part of ”Researcher’s Toolbox”.

Are statistical testing and analyses that are supposed to be a part of your research a struggle for you? In this course, some common statistical tests will be presented. What are they for and what is the difference between them? How do you carry them out with the help of SPSS and how do you interpret the results? Or do you simply need to read and understand papers where statistics is used? What does it mean i.e. when p = 0,05? In this course, you will get the answer.

This course will discuss some of your alternatives. However, it will naturally not replace the contact with a statistician in more difficult cases.

SPSS is a license-based software. Consequently, you need to be in touch with the ICT-service before you can download and authorize the application to your computer!

In the course we will use the free software ShotCut https://www.shotcut.org. 

Staff members from University of Vaasa are able to download the software from Software Center. Instructions.

Please watch Introduction and Overview and/or ShotCut Tutorial 2018 - All Beginners Need to Know to Get Started With the ShotCut Video Editor and install the software on your computer beforehand.

Videos used in teaching need to be accessible, meaning that the information conveyed in them should not rely upon the viewer’s ability to only see or hear. The videos can be made accessible by conveying the information in more than one medium: by ensuring that spoken content is represented visually using e.g. subtitles. On this course, we will discuss how to take accessibility in consideration in videos, from the planning stage to finished clip. 

Information resources licensed for Finnish universities and relevant open access resources are available via universities' Finna portals. In the Finna search service, you can search multiple sources simultaneously. Your search results can include books, e-books, fulltext scolarly articles, and article references.

Reference management softwares are designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies. With a reference management tool you can organize and keep track of your sources and make bibliographies in different styles (APA, Harvard etc). In this course you get a sneek peek to RefWorks, which is available for students and researchers at Vaasa University and Åbo Akademi University. We also take a look at the freely available reference management tools, like Mendeley and Zotero.