Distance Learning Portal - Online students’ home page for library resources. This includes places to search for resources, tutorials, helpful links, and librarian contact information.
Librarian - Someone who wants to help you succeed in your coursework. Librarians can help you with anything relating to finding or citing sources. The “go to” librarian for online undergraduate students is Avery Weems, but there are several ways to get in contact with librarians.
OneSearch - The best place to search for sources you can cite in your papers, especially journal articles and ebooks. Searching on OneSearch is better than searching on Google because you have more control over the quality of sources, and you’ll be connected to free access to sources ACU pays for you to have. Learn how to refine and filter your searches in OneSearch. OneSearch is sometimes also referred to as EBSCO.
EBSCO - A company that provides the platform and much of the content you will encounter when you search OneSearch. Some people will refer to your experience with library databases by referencing EBSCO.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Article - Articles written by experts and reviewed by other experts in the field to ensure a high-quality academic publication. They usually describe research studies the authors have conducted (aka, “original research”) and tend to be the best academic sources. However, they can be highly technical, difficult to read, and lack general information (like what you would find in textbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias) helpful for beginners to understand a subject.
CREDO - A collection of good-quality academic dictionaries and encyclopedias. In contrast to peer-reviewed journal articles, these are easy to read and provide general information. We sometimes like to describe CREDO as a “more academic Wikipedia” because the sources are high quality, but it is still useful for beginners to learn basic information about a subject or term. (Note, these sources may be appropriate to cite in low-level courses and discussion posts, but high-level research papers will likely require you to cite peer-reviewed journal articles instead.)
CQ Researcher - A collection of comprehensive and balanced reports on issues in the news. In each report, you can read information and analysis. The “Pro/Con” section of each report highlights short thoughtful arguments on both sides of the issue, and the “Footnotes” section will lead you to the sources used in the report.