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Public Health (CLAS)

Welcome to the Public Health (CLAS) Research Guide! This is designed to outline library resources that are available to WSU students, faculty, and community members.

About liaison librarians

All disciplines within Wayne State have a subject liaison librarian assigned to them. This librarian is available for instruction, one-on-one research consultations, and to purchase and maintain materials relevant to those disciplines.

I am the liaison library to Public Health (CLAS), Kinesiology, Health and Sport Studies, and Nutrition and Food Science. For these disciplines, please contact me for instruction/class visit requests, purchase requests for books and databases, or if you have a research question. Here is a bit more information about what I can provide:

  • Instruction
    • I can come to your classes (in person or virtually) and do a one-shot instruction on library resources. Some example topics: library basics, database selection and navigation, developing search strategies using PICO and keyword mapping, and citation resources including citation management software. Between 30 minutes-1.5 hr works best, especially if there is an upcoming assignment and they can practice searching in real time 
  • Research assistance
    • Remember that you can refer any students in your class who need help with their research assignments, even if I don't do an instruction session for your class. Here's my staff page.
    • If you need help locating materials for your personal research, I may be able to assist.
  • Canvas
    • In person instruction is not your only option! I am happy to build asynchronous instruction materials that you can upload into your Canvas site. If you have any requests for me to build specific library related modules - again, let me know.
    • WSU librarians have uploaded some materials to Canvas Commons that you can use in your courses. I've uploaded an introduction to library resources including peer review and database searching, a module on plagiarism and citations, and an intro to PubMed. Canvas users can find them by searching wsumcgowan in Canvas Commons. You can find other WSU library created materials by searching wsuinst (including these!).
      • You have the option to set me as the librarian in your Canvas course. It allows me to see discussions and participate in them, but I can't see grades or anything behind the curtain. It also means that my name appears in the course, so it's easier for students to find me to contact me directly for assistance.
  • Course materials
    • If you'd like the library to purchase something for your course, please email me directly! Ideally ASAP to give us time to find the book/purchase it. It can happen within a day for e-books, but it can be a couple weeks if the book is only available as a physical book.
    • If you want a physical copy of a book held in course reserves for your students, please fill out the form on this page
      • Because of some publisher restrictions, in general, the library cannot provide e-versions of standard textbooks published by commercial textbook publishers available to students - this makes course reserves sometimes the best (and only) option for textbook availability for students.
    • I would love to help you incorporate open educational resources and open access materials into your courses to save your students money! Check out this research guide to learn more or contact me directly. I also recently learned about H5P, which is a cool open access tool that you can use to create open access content for your classes.

Embedding External Tools in Canvas

This video explains how to embed links from library databases into Canvas. You can embed articles and videos directly in your Canvas site without having to upload PDFs etc when you want your students to read specific articles. This is a great way to ensure your librarians are aware of the types of materials you're using, to familiarize students with library resources, and to ensure that students have access to the articles you require.

Streaming Media for Courses

We hope you will be able to use the resources provided through the library system's streaming services or free quality resources available on the internet, to provide the media content needs for your teaching.

We understand that some materials are not available on platforms the library can license for educational use, or may only be available in a fixed medium, such as DVD. In those cases, legislative provisions allow for the following uses:

No matter who owns the physical DVD or VHS recording, there is no fair use argument for breaking the digital copyrights management (DCM) on media conversion from a fixed medium (like a DVD) to digital for streaming. This type of activity is covered under the Digital Copyright Millenium Act (DCMA) which only provides for screen capture of reasonable portions of a film to be used for critique or analysis in a class. The university is legally unable to DVD/VHS to digital conversion, as such activity would violate the WSU Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources policy. 

In accordance with the Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies, A Rule by the Copyright Office, Library of Congress on 10/26/2018 (Final Rule) and in alignment with the provisions of the TEACH Act, you may:

  • Use screen capture software to capture clips (short portions) into new works for criticism or comment. (best practice suggests 20% or less of total film running time)
  • Post this screen capture using a streaming system that would prevent downloading and distribution of the file. 

Please consult our instructions for capture and streaming using ECHO 360 to make these resources available in your Canvas course site.

Before you begin, we recommend you check with the Student Success Librarian or your Subject Specialist Liaison Librarian to determine if there is a streaming version of the media you would like to use on a platform that can be licensed by the library.

Supplemental information related to use of copyrighted media in online classes.