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Celebrate International Love Data Week 2026 with Dalhousie Libraries

In honour of ICPSR’s International Love Data Week 2026, themed “Where’s the Data?”, Dalhousie Libraries is hosting a series of free online presentations designed to deepen your understanding of how to find, manage, store, and work with data. These sessions will help you discover tools and approaches that can support your research.

Running February 9 to 13, this year’s lineup includes:

To explore even more Love Data Week programming from institutions across Atlantic Canada and beyond, visit our Love Data Week Research Guide. There you will find registration links, event details, and updates as new sessions are added throughout the week. Check back often!

 New! Sign in to DMP Assistant with your Dal Credentials 

On September 12, DMP Assistant, the national bilingual data management planning tool, enabled institutional and social ID logins. This means you can log in with your Dalhousie credentials – and you have one less password to remember!

To move your existing account to a single sign-on account:

  1. Sign in to your old account.
  2. Navigate to your name in the upper right corner and click “Edit Profile.”
  3. Select “Link your institutional credentials” in the edit profile area.
  4. Follow the sign-in process.

To make a new account with single sign-on:

  1. Click “sign in with institutional or social ID” on the landing page.
  2. Select Dalhousie University or a social sign-on provider (Google, ORCiD) you would like to use.
  3. Follow the on-screen instructions and a new DMP Assistant account will be created for you.

If you need support, contact the DMP Assistant Team or Dalhousie Libraries’ Research Data Management Team.

New! Sign in to ORCID with your Dal Credentials

You can now log in to ORCID using your NetID and password – one less password to remember! 

Why an ORCID? Why a researcher profile? 

ORCID provides a unique, personal identification number (like a DOI, but for you as an author) as well as the option to have a publicly available web profile highlighting your professional activities. An ORCID is useful for many reasons: 

  • Many funding agencies require it. 
  • Journals often require authors to submit their ORCIDs with their manuscripts – in fact, some journals accept ORCID login in as part of their submission process. 
  • ORCID numbers can be useful for ensuring all of your work is attributed to you, and not someone with a similar name. 
  • You can use ORCID to feed and display your research on your faculty website, lab, etc. 
  • Your public profile can be adjusted to reflect publications, grant awards, and other professional contributions that you want to highlight for prospective employers, funders, or collaborators. 

Sign in to ORCID with Your Dalhousie Credentials 

How to Register or Link an Existing Account to Your NetID 

Registration for an ORCID identifier is free and fast: 

1) Go to https://orcid.org/signin and you and select “Access through your institution.”  

2) Identify your institution as Dalhousie University and log in using your NetID and password.

3) If you are brand new to ORCID, select “Register now” and it will walk you through the short steps to create an account.

4) If you are not new to ORCID, enter your ORCID number and password where indicated to link to your existing Dalhousie NetID for easier logging in.

For more information on ORCID, please see the Scholarly Communications LibGuide. 

Please contact the Scholarly Communications team at scholary.communications@dal.ca if you have any questions about ORCID or the sign-on options. 

From UNIWeb to ORCID

As of December 31, 2023, Dalhousie ended its subscription to UNIWeb. UNIWeb was implemented in 2019 as an information repository for researchers’ academic activity, intended to simplify the management of curriculum vitae (CVs including CCV), annual reports, promotion packages, and funding applications. It also allowed researchers to connect with colleagues and collaborators on topics of interest and to share information about their research.

Following a procurement and consultation process in 2022-23, Dalhousie decided to end its subscription to UNIWeb and encourage the use of other tools to maintain researcher profiles, such as ORCID iD, a permanent digital identifier system supported by Dalhousie through our membership of the ORCID Consortium in Canada.

“I am pleased to support Dal Libraries’ recommendation of the full use of ORCID as an alternative platform for our research community,” says Dr. Alice Aiken, Dalhousie’s vice president, research and innovation. “ORCID provides flexibility that allows scholars of all disciplines to choose how they share their activities and achievements, ensuring recognition for their work effectively and consistently over time, and it is recognized and used worldwide, including by Dalhousie scholars.”

More about ORCID and other tools that provide similar features:

1) ORCID iD – A unique identifier that ensures your research is correctly attributed to you, ORCID also provides a space to collect your research outputs, grant awards, different professional activities and links to social media and web profiles.    

ORCID makes it easy to add works to your profile and determine their level of visibility. ORCID’s auto-update feature allows you to link your ORCID profile to trusted third-party sources to have it updated automatically with information from those sources to save you time.   

If you don’t have an ORCID iD, registration is simple, and free.  Find out more about the benefits of ORCID, and how to register or link an existing ORCID account to your Dalhousie NetID in our LibGuide. 

We will also be holding an Introduction to ORCID webinar in January 2024, so stay tuned and watch our events calendar.   

2) Google Scholar – If you have published in an electronic journal, information about that article, including your name as author, is probably available in Google Scholar. Google Scholar groups works by the same author together, but these profiles may be inaccurate or incomplete as Google doesn’t read the bibliographic metadata the way databases do. Because this information is already available to searchers, authors are advised to claim their Google Scholar profiles to ensure their information is accurate.  

3) Scopus – Like Google Scholar, if you have published articles they are indexed in Scopus. The database creates a profile and list of your articles which may not be fully accurate. These profiles are not publicly available but they are widely consulted within academia. If you are thinking about your publicly available web profiles and haven’t already claimed and cleaned your Scopus profile, now is an ideal time. Information on how to update your Scopus profile so it is accurate and complete is available on the Author Profiles/IDs LibGuide. 

As always, the Scholarly Communications team is happy to assist with any questions at scholarly.communications@dal.ca. 

New! Sign in to Borealis Data Repository with your Dal Credentials

On September 20, Dalhousie’s data repository (Dalhousie Dataverse @ Borealis) enabled institutional logins. This exciting development means you can log in with your Dalhousie credentials – so you have one less password to remember!

To make the switch, follow these steps:

  1. Select Dalhousie University from the Your Institution drop-down menu.
  2. Follow the instructions to log in via Dalhousie’s authentication page (single-sign-in).
  3. Enter your standard account details when prompted.
  4. Review the terms of use.
  5. Click the Convert Account button.

The Borealis help menu provides additional step-by-step guidance on switching from a standard to an institutional account.

Please contact the Research Data Management Team at data.management@dal.ca if you have any questions.

Research Paper Workshops

“The paper is due when!?” The Sir James Dunn Law Library will be offering several Research Paper Workshops for those wanting a refresher. Topics to be covered include:

  • From Topic to Question
  • Creating an Outline
  • The Literature Review
  • Footnotes & Bibliographies

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 1:30-2:30pm or Friday, Oct. 8, 1:30-2:30pm. Law Library 4th Floor Rare Book Room. Sign-up lawref@dal.ca.

Summer Research Refreshers

We welcome our Summer Legal Research Assistants at the Sir James Dunn Law Library. Each May we offer a series of workshops to help RAs refresher their legal research skills. These sessions are for students with some prior legal research training. No registration is required and we will bring the muffins. If you have any questions please contact us at lawref@dal.ca or 902-494-8856.

Monday, May 2, 2016 1-4pm (Law Library Room L408)

*   Introductions, Go-to People, and Library Research Services 1:00-1:30pm
*   Finding Secondary Literature: Books, Journals, Theses, Reports 1:30-2:30pm
*   Coffee Break (Muffins Provided) 2:30-3:00
*   Using Secondary Literature: Citation, Plagiarism, Copyright, Reference Management 3:00-4:00

Tuesday, May 3, 2016 1-4pm (Law Library Room L408)

*   Comments and Questions 1:00-1:15pm
*   Canadian Primary Sources – Legislation 1:15-2:00pm
*   Canadian Primary Sources – Cases 2:00-2:30pm
*   Coffee Break 2:30-3:00pm
*   Foreign and International Primary Sources 3:00-4:00pm

Thursday, May 5, 2016 1-2:30pm ADT – Online Session for Distance Researchers (BBLearn)

*   Introductions and Library Research Services
*   Finding and Using Secondary Sources
*   Canadian Primary Sources

Friday, May 6, 2016 1:00-2:45 (Law Library Computer Lab)

*   WestlawNext Canada Refresher and Research Specific Questions 1:00-1:45pm
*   LexisNexisQuicklaw Refresher and Research Specific Questions 2:00-2:45pm

Mini-Workshops for Law

Join us for a series of mini-workshops on research paper writing. No pre-registration required. The sessions will be held in the Law Library Reserve Collection.

Friday, March 4, 2016

9:00 am Finding Stuff: This is a short workshop of finding books and articles using our library’s collections and online subscriptions. Explore the many research tools we have and find the best tools for your research.

9:30 am Now what? This is a short workshop on choosing and narrowing your research topic to develop a manageable research question. We will look at how to create a research plan and paper outline.

10:30 am Answer Man Can: This is a short drop-in session to ask questions and get tips on using Westlaw and Lexis Quicklaw more effectively for your research. Discover which tool is best for your research.

11:00 am Anywhere! We don’t have it? In this short workshop discover how to search and request materials from any library in the world for free through the Interlibrary loan service.

Public presentations by the Research & Instruction Librarian candidates at the MacRae Library

Candidates for the position of Research & Instruction Librarian at the MacRae Library have been invited to make a presentation to the Dalhousie community on the following topic:

The TriCouncil funding agencies (NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR) have recently released their guidelines for research data management and planning. The Faculty Council of the Faculty of Agriculture has invited you to give a 20 minutes presentation to the Council to introduce them to research data management & research data planning, and the related resources for them to meet these guidelines.

Thursday, August 20, 9:00am-9:35am – Erin MacPherson
In Truro: Librarian’s Corner, MacRae Library
In Halifax: Room 2902, Killam Library (video-conference)

Friday, August 21, 9:00am-9:35am – Maggie Nielson
In Truro: Librarian’s Corner, MacRae Library
In Halifax: Room 2902, Killam Library (video-conference)

Monday, August 24, 11:15-11:50am – Alison Ambi
In Truro: Librarian’s Corner, MacRae Library
In Halifax: Room 2902, Killam Library (video-conference)

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Presentation – Measuring Impact: Quantitative Methods by Melissa Rothfus, MLIS, PhD.

FINAL_Melissaspictureforblogpost
When: Wednesday, July 8th at 10 a.m.
Where: Tupper Link – 2L3. *
Seating is limited to 24.

In many parts of the world, the past two decades have witnessed the development of a direct and explicit link between research funding and research impact. How that impact might be defined and measured is open to interpretation by funding organizations and varies according to context. In general, impact refers to the demonstration that one’s research has in some way made a contribution to his or her field. A variety of factors and issues are involved in demonstrating research impact and both quantitative and qualitative methods have been developed or are developing. The goal of each of these is to create objective means by which the importance and value of research can be judged.

While North American institutions have largely been less receptive to an impact based funding model, international collaboration coupled with a competitive funding environment suggests that North American researchers would be wise nonetheless to consider how their own research impact can be tracked and demonstrated. In their role as supporters and facilitators of research, as well as researchers themselves, librarians are well positioned to provide valuable assistance in demonstrating research impact. This presentation will offer a summary of some of the most critical tools available.

Video conferencing will be available for those in Truro interested in the presentation.

* The Tupper link is the windowed hallway between the Kellogg and Tim Horton’s. Take the staircase nearest the bathroom and make a left at the top of the stairs (so you don’t end up in the student lounge) and go through 2 sets of doors and the room is on the right.

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