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QMed Knowledge Foundation
Literature Searching and Reference Management Courses
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Course Fee
5900*/-
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40+ Hours of Learning
About Quality Medical(QMed) Knowledge Foundation
As a health science student or professional, there is always a need to stay updated with the latest research and research syntheses and apply it to patient care. Your basic medical education provides the fundamental background knowledge but does not teach you to search medical information in a systematic manner.
QMed identified the need to train health science students and professionals to search medical literature from various online databases and cite it correctly. Since our inception in 2007 we have delivered more than 400 lectures and conducted around 240 workshops in health science institutions/events across India reaching out to over 20,000 participants.
Vision of QMed
The long term vision is to help create better professionals out of today's health sciences students.
QMed is happy to present three e-learning courses:
- Mastering PubMed – Basics
- Mastering PubMed-Advanced
- Reference Management with Mendeley
Overview
The world believes that Online Searching is “the” easiest way of getting any information. There is an information overload on the World Wide Web today. Most people are confident about searching online. Alarmingly few actually know how to.
This course is intended to help medical students, academicians, practitioners and other learners to integrate best practices in searching medical literature from PubMed.
It is a matter of concern that students and professionals of health sciences are wasting hours in searching, missing important results and making do with whatever they find. It is also a matter of concern that most are still manually typing ciations and bibliography lists in their publications. QMed’s courses teach the principles of online searching, methods of correct searching, saving search methods and search results. The courses also teach the use of reference management softwares. The courses are delivered in partnership with Mediknit, a leading professional medical education organization.
This course is meant for students and professionals of all health science and life-sciences streams.
In addition to the course modules, by signing up for this course, you will get mentoring support for one year. Click here for more details
Course Faculty
Vasumathi Sriganesh, MLIS
Honorary CEO,
QMed Knowledge Foundation
Course Coordinators
Fatima Shaikh, MLIS
QMed Knowledge Foundation, Mumbai
Dr. Bhaskar Rajakumar
MD(Rd), MBA
Mediknit, Bangalore
Courses
OVERVIEW
In the recent years, the internet has become an important source for medical information. As a health science student or professional, there is always a need to stay updated with the latest research and apply it for patient care. The medical education curriculum does not teach one how to search online in a systematic manner. This course is intended to help medical students, academicians, practitioners and other learners to integrate best practices in searching medical literature from PubMed.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
On completion of the course, learner should be able to:
- Understand the importance of learning to search literature correctly.
- Understand types of information resources and map them to information needs.
- Retrieve relevant results and save time.
- Narrow down search results, when there are too many, and broaden them when there are too few.
- Save search strategies for future use, and search results in different formats for specific uses.
- Efficiently search medical literature from PubMed, minimizing time spent and maximizing relevance of search results.
Curriculum
“Learn to map available resources to your information needs”
This lesson shows you how to classify your information needs and how to map available resources to your needs. You will understand three "levels" of information resources. Journal articles and evidence / synthesis resources are explained in context of information needs. At the end of this lesson, you learn that you need to know your resources and how to map resources to your needs.
"Learn to think like a computer and tag your search terms”
Learn what PubMed exactly is - and importantly what it is not. Understand how computers and humans "think" differently when searching. And that there are different "tags" in databases. Both these facts are very important for doing a good search.
“Create your personalized NCBI Account”
Learn to create an "NCBI" account for yourself, in PubMed. With this, you create "your personal space" in PubMed, to save your search efforts. You can also customize your search efforts, by some features like highlighting your search terms in results.
“4 Principles of Online Searching”
There are four principles of searching that are applicable to searching PubMed and many other databases. For some resources only three or less of these principles may be applicable. The first principle is based on the fact that computers and humans "think" differently. The second and third principle are based on tagging search terms, and how tagging helps do a better search. The fourth principle is about correctly combining two or more search terms.
“Practice to apply the four principles when you search”
Having learned the four principles - you now learn to apply them while searching... from simple searches to slightly complex searches. Learn how to apply tags and operators correctly and about the importance of the correct order of search terms and tags.
“Know more about MESH”
Learn how to use the MeSH database correctly, in order to use descriptive tags while searching PubMed. You will learn all the elements of MeSH Terms, and how to run a search from the MeSH database itself. MeSH being the most important element in PubMed - one that helps us reduce trash in our search results, this lesson is the longest, and most important to learn.
“Online Demo Searching of Mesh”
An online demo of searching simple to slightly complex topics, specially to explain how all features in the MeSH database have to be used in varied contexts.
“Display Formats of PubMed”
PubMed has three different sets of display formats for search results - i) Number of results, ii) Order of display of results and iii) Different formats of displaying results. Each format has a specific use. Different permutations and combinations from the three sets are possible, based on your need. Experiment with some, and be ready to use the best when your individual need arises.
“Use Appropriate filters to narrow down search results”
Filters are options to narrow down your search results in a number of ways. Filters are like the options you have in online shopping - brand / price etc. In this lesson, you learn about all filter options available in PubMed and more importantly how they work, and how you can combine filters in several ways.
“Save Strategies and Results”
The steps that you take to do a search - may be simply typing in the search box, or going to the MeSH database and adding terms and searching. You may apply one or more filters. Searching may be one or several steps. You don't want to repeat the entire operation if you wish to search on the topic again. If you have created your My NCBI account and are logged, you can easily save the strategy and re-run it any time. Then when you wish to save all or selected result items, there are several ways in which you can do this too. Some require you to login, some can be done without being logged in. Some methods help you save results offline and some, online. Learn about all these methods and use the best ones in your own context.
“Find the Correct Reference”
Have you noted down a reference at a conference / CME or just when your friend told you about it? And wanted to read the whole paper, but realized that you did not have all details needed to find the article? Introducing the "Single Citation Matcher"- a feature in PubMed by which you can locate any item in PubMed in just around 15 seconds!
Call/WhatsApp us at 96861 99051 or email us at info@mediknit.org
OVERVIEW
The Advanced Module for PubMed covers the advanced use of some of what you learned in the Basics Course and then introduces you to more features in PubMed. You need to have completed the Basics module before you start on this course.
What is specially covered is the step by step, systematic searching that you need to do, if you are going to be on a team of people authoring a systematic review. You also learn how to restrict a search to retrieving items that are useful in finding evidence. Want to know more about journals and where to publish? Learn to find out more about journals.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
On completion of the course, learner should be able to:
- Use the Advanced Search Page comfortably to conduct a search and save the history of steps.
- Understand the process of creating complex search queries, using the Advanced Search Page.
- The different types of Mesh terms and when to use which type.
- Understand what dates mean in Mesh terms, and how to expand a search, in case of need.
- Create regular as well as custom filters for oneself, after logging in to an NCBI Account.
- Search for information about a specific journal or find journals in a specialty.
- Know what all one can do after creating an NCBI account – how to manage saved search strategies, saved collections, filters, and more.
- Use the Clinical Queries features.
- Learn to check the sources in Topic Specific Queries and understand when to check each of them.
Curriculum
In this first video of the course, we recap all that we learned in the Basics Course. And then give a brief introduction to what we will cover in the course
PubMed has an “Advanced Search Page” where one can use a menu driven approach to search.
Learn how to use the fields, indexes and Boolean Operators to create search steps.
Learn how to create complex search queries using both MeSH and textwords (that include synonyms and spelling variations), use the History feature, download the same and save it for documenting the search process
Get an insight into four different types of MeSH words – the MeSH terms themselves, subheadings, publication types and supplementary concepts. Explore the world of subheading searches to retrieve articles on therapy, diagnosis and more, for diseases and drugs, in minutes. Learn how you can search for information about drugs in several ways
Have you ever noticed that some MeSH terms have a mention - “Year introduced”? Some have only single year – Eg: 1963. And some have two years – Eg: 2003(1968). Unearth the mysteries behind these dates and learn what you need to do with such information
In the Basics Course, you learned how to narrow down your search results by using one or more filters. You observed how such filters produced results, using appropriate Boolean operators and fields. Have you wished that you could save some of these filters, may be create some that are unique to your needs and also know how many results you would get by using a Filter, without having to actually click them? This lesson shows you all the steps to create filters unique to your needs and having them readily available for use.
How do I find out about journals in Endocrinology, in PubMed? How many of these are “Indexed for Medline”? I have come across journals that have name changes. How do I know more about these? Go through this video to figure out answers to all these questions
You learned how to save your search strategies (search steps) and your search results, by logging into My NCBI. Now learn how you can purge old strategies and collections, edit some of them, share them with friends and in fact share the settings that you have created, with others. Yes, the more you explore, the more you can do in PubMed!
Yes – PubMed has more and more – as you explore. Sometimes you feel that you do not want to go through all types of research literature, and only want items that are suitable for clinical practice. Check out the Clinical Queries section to learn how to do this. And then finally there are specialized collections ready for us in the section “Topic Specific Queries. Some of them are search strategies and/or filters built in. Some are a mix of available search strategies as well as options to search more resources”. Get an insight into the number of extra resources of the NLM
Call/WhatsApp us at 96861 99051 or email us at info@mediknit.org
OVERVIEW
In the pre-computer days, researchers were taught how to carefully note down important details about resources (books, journals and more), in order to cite them correctly in their publications. The common method was to use “index cards” – one for every book / journal article / other resource that one read and thought that one would use for citing. These cards had to be stored alphabetically, (most often by author name), for easy retrieval. Today it is interesting that far too many people store pdfs, and results from PubMed and other databases in the most haphazard ways (copy pasting results, bookmarking search result pages and even taking screenshots of result pages!). It is no wonder that they are unable to find items they know they have with them. Reference Management softwares solve these problems. We can use them to store details of all kinds of items, and also full text pdfs. We can organize these collections in several ways. We can browse and search them in many ways. Most importantly, these tools allow us to install a plugin, in our word processors, so that we can insert citations and a full bibliography list in one click. No more laborious typing and scary editing nightmares, if we need to change our citation styles or move / add / delete references once we finish a first round of referencing. Reference Managers, allow us to save hours of time in these jobs and concentrate on the actual documentation of your research / article!
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
On completion of the course, learner should be able to:
- Understand what any reference manager can do, and the need to learn how to use one, in order to save time and also ensure accuracy of references.
- Install a Reference Manager – “Mendeley” and understand the Desktop and Web versions.
- Populate Mendeley to create a collection of various item types – Books, Journal Articles, Website pages, Search results and more.
- Organize the collection in Mendeley, using the features of Folders, Tags and Groups.
- Browse the collection with Filters and Search the collection for specific item/s.
- Get rid of duplicate items that get created, especially when one imports results.
- Use the collection to create Citations and a Reference List in any publication and also change the Style if needed.
- Exporting the publication in a format suitable for scrutiny by an editor or peer reviewer.
Curriculum
The introductory lesson talks about what a Reference Manager can do, and lists a number of Reference Managers – both free and paid. It tells you how you can get started with any one free Reference Manager and then suggests exploring each one for its features and make your choice. What you create as your library, can be exported and imported into any Reference Manager
In this lesson you will learn how to install the Reference Manager and make a couple of settings, so that you can import articles and meta-data from websites that permit these tasks, and also to have the necessary settings to add citations and reference lists in your Word Processor, from your Mendeley library.
Mendeley has a web version and desktop version for you. Learn how you can use each of these. Understand the layout of your library collection and the importance of syncing both versions. Also learn that it is important to login to the desktop version (even though it has been installed), if you are going to any place where there is no Internet access.
A vital lesson that teaches you how to get all items that you may be interested in storing carefully for future reading and use some of them in various publications where you are an author. This lesson teaches you how to type in bibliographic details manually, how to add pdfs of articles and observe and check the meta-data that gets extracted and importantly how to import small or large numbers of results that you get when you search PubMed, Google Scholar or similar resources
Any collection has to be organized, especially if it is large. Your Mendeley library can be organized into folders that you can create for your convenience. You can even import large search results directly into Folders. Learn how to create folders, organize them and import directly into them
When a library collection is large, Folders alone are not enough to locate one or more items. Learn how to browse your collection by Author, Author keywords, Tags or Publication names. And then how you can search, using the search box, using fields and Boolean operators
Many items in your library can have duplicate or triplicate instances. Some turn out to be real duplicates. Some however are not really duplicates, but could be comments or responses to an article, or articles with minor variations in meta-data. It is important to identify and remove from our library, genuine replicated items. If we do not, there are implications, which are explained in a later lesson. Learning the process of eliminating duplicates is a vital step in maintaining our Mendeley library collection
When you write an article (or any similar publication), you wish to give credit to another author, in case you are citing their work. You need to do this by adding a “citation” at the appropriate part of your article and at the end, add the full reference. If you are doing this by typing these details, it is cumbersome and prone to errors. Learn how to do this easily, using Mendeley’s Word Plugin – “Mendeley Cite-O-Matic)
There are two major categories of Citing and Referencing – one – numerical and the other – alphabetical (by author). Within each, there are innumerable styles of referencing. You will need to choose a style that the publisher (of the journal you plan to send your article to) asks for. Learn how to choose a Style, or find a style that does not immediately appear on the list, and ensure that you use the style asked for.
Almost always the Editor (or Peer Reviewer) of your paper, will wish to add several comments in your submission. You have added Citations and Reference Lists, using the Mendeley plugin (and not by typing them in). Click any citation / reference and it gets highlighted (as it is “coded”). This is a nuisance for an Editor or Peer Reviewer, for commenting. Also if these have to be modified, it can create added problems. The best thing to do is to submit a version of your paper, without these codes. And this is simple. Learn why and how to do this, in this lesson
“There is more to (something) than meets the eye”. As far as Mendeley goes, there are lots more useful features that we can use in Mendeley. This last lesson covers a number of such features. We will not list them here; dig into this lesson and discover them all!
Call/WhatsApp us at 96861 99051 or email us at info@mediknit.org
Certificate
Eligibility Criteria
All healthcare practitioners, academicians, students from medical, para-medical, life-sciences discipline, librarians and information specialists are eligible for this course.
*Applicant should enclose a valid UG/PG/Other speciality degree certificate during online submission of application
*Kindly note that all the applications shall be screened and selected by the course director(s)
*Applicant should enclose a valid address proof (Aadhar card/Passport/Driving license)
FAQs
No. This course is not recognised by Medical Council of India. Course participation and/or completion certificate will be provided QMed Knowledge Foundation and Mediknit.
Once you complete the enrolment process, you will be provided with a unique enrolment number and login details to Mediknit.org. If in case, you haven’t received the same within 3 working days from enrolment, please feel free to call us on +91 78929 39817 or write to us on info@mediknit.org
Our team is always ready to assist or queries, feel free to call us on +91 78929 39817 (Mon-Fri, 9AM – 5PM), email us on info@mediknit.org. We promise to resolve the query at the earliest.
All assessments are online and MCQ based. Successful completion of which will make you eligible for certification.
The final online test will be unlocked as soon as you complete all the lectures. It will only be available for total of 12 weeks from your date of joining the course.
Three attempts, third attempt will be released on email request only.
If you are not able to clear the test in the provided number of attempts, You may have to pay re-exam fee, for details contact +9 7892939817 or write to us at info@mediknit.org
If you feel that something is wrong with respect to the content or assessment, you can write at info@mediknit.org, directing it to the course coordinator, Dr Bhaskar Rajakumar.
Once you successfully pass your exam, you can download the E-certificate from Mediknit.org. If you need assistance, please feel free to call on +91 78929 39817
Yes. The course and the content is relevant across the globe. International students before enrolling can contact the learner management team by writing to info@mediknit.org or call +91 78929 39817.
Yes, you may ask questions on the platform, which will be answered by the faculty asap. However, if you have specific queries you wish to get it clarified from the mentor personally or need support on your research, please to visit https://www.qmed.ngo/friends/.
No, workshops are not part of this course. However, QMed Knowledge Foundation conducts multiple hands-on workshops all through the workshops for institutions. As an individual participant for the eLearning course, you are automatically a Friend of QMed and ask for specific short sessions via Skype or Hangout. Please write to support@qmed.ngo for,request for a session.
COURSE FEE
- Inclusive of 18% GST
- Conversion and bank charges for international payments will be additional.
Special Allowance for Student, Rs 5,900*/- 2,950*/-
Please call on +91-9686199051 or Write to us on info@mediknit.org
Documents required
General category
* UG certificate/PG certificate/Others
* Address proof(Aadhar card/ Passport/ Driving license/ Passbook)
Proof for Students:
* ID card/ Letter from HOD
