UM-Flint students can relax about citations

FLINT, Michigan--University of Michigan-Flint students will not need to worry about citations in their papers anymore. UM-Flint’s Frances Willson Thompson Library has acquired access to RefWorks, an online bibliographical database that allows students and faculty to store references used for academic papers and articles. In addition to storage, RefWorks will also create bibliographies and works cited pages in many different formats such as the American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA) and Chicago styles.
Vera Anderson, a librarian at UM-Flint, feels that this is an “absolutely terrific tool for both students and faculty.” The initiative to obtain a utility such as RefWorks came from faculty requests, according to Anderson, and one faculty member even requested RefWorks by name. There are similar programs available, but the fact that RefWorks is a Web-based application was a significant factor in UM-Flint’s decision to purchase it. Anderson also said that this particular application is very easy to setup and learn, which is an aspect that also contributed to the decision.
RefWorks was founded in 2001 by a group of experts experienced with bibliographic databases, according to its Web site. There are over 900 organizations around the world that currently use this service including many libraries and universities in the United States such as Harvard University, The University of Notre Dame and the Library of Congress.
Notre Dame launched RefWorks in January 2007 and has more than 3,000 registered users, according to Tatiana Prokrym of the Electronic Resources Department of Notre Dame. “Judging from usage patterns, it seems to be working well,” Prokrym said. Seventy percent of the users are undergraduate students, according to Prokrym, and as training of the system increases, so do the number of users.
Another aspect of RefWorks is that it allows for sharing of reference materials with others to help facilitate group work. However, this feature brings concern for copyright infringement. Students and faculty have access to article databases, which requires a subscription purchase by the university. If a member of the university shares a source from one of these databases with someone from outside the university, this could result in a case of copyright infringement if the individual does not have access to the material through a subscription of his or her own.
RefWorks can also provide automatic in-text citations via the “write and cite” feature. Once the source has been put into the system, the user can select the source for a particular reference within the body of the text and RefWorks will enter the citation in the desired format automatically. Ashley Smith, a sophomore majoring in Spanish and international relations at UM-Flint, is looking forward to becoming familiar with the service. “It sounds like a pretty sweet program to me,” Smith said.
Vickie Larsen, instructor of English at UM-Flint, has used RefWorks and thinks that it is a necessary tool for anyone who is doing any kind of extensive research. “I can search all relevant indexes and retrieve essential materials in a matter of hours,” said Larsen. In response to any concern that this software prevents students from learning how to properly cite sources and create reference papers, Larsen said, “knowing when and how to use a tool like Refworks is a different, and to my mind, more powerful kind of knowledge than knowing where to put the periods and the commas in a bibliography.”
Not every professor at UM-Flint feels the same as Larsen about Refworks. “It sounds more complicated than I do things,” said Albert Price, professor of political science. Price also said that he would look into the program further, but it is probably something that he will not use.
RefWorks is free to all current students, faculty and employees at UM-Flint and can be accessed via the library Web site after creating an individual account.