The Citation and Review Management Resources page of this guide has been broken down into two subpages, Zotero and Covidence.

Our library instructional session calendar has been updated for the fall semester, including courses in Zotero, Python, R, and much more. 

Welcome to the UVA School of Nursing library resources homepage at the Health Sciences Library. Please follow the tabs on the left side of the page to navigate information resources by topic or program. You can also review the Library Orientation for Nursing Students page on this guide. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me via e-mail, book some time with me, or fill out a consultation ("Ask Us") request form here.

New to Zotero? 

Looking to learn more about how this free, easy-to-use citation manager can help collect, store, and organize your references? Join us for an upcoming Intro to Zotero online workshop. 

In this 45-minute virtual class, UVA's School of Nursing Liaison Librarian Amanda Datesman will cover the basics of Zotero - from setting up preferences to citing while your write and creating a bibliography. There'll be plenty of time for questions as well. 

Spring 2025 dates:

January 28^th at 9:30 AM

February 5^th at 3:00 PM

February 19^th at 9:00 AM

Register here to let us know to expect you!

I offer in-person and virtual library consultations by appointment for School of Nursing students, faculty, staff, and researchers.

Schedule directly via my Bookings link below or reach out to me via email with a few dates and times that work for you and let me know if you'd like to meet in person at the Health Sciences Library or over Zoom. 

Overton Index: discover policy documents, including those that cite your research
Thu Jan 30  9 AM – 10 AM Register
Overton Index is the world's largest, searchable policy database, indexing over 17+ million policy documents from around the world and making them full-text searchable. Through processing policy documents, Overton allows users to see where their research has been cited in policy as well as where policy has been cited by other policy documents. Additionally, Overton is useful as a grey literature database to discover policy documents to use in research and teaching.

R Workshops – Registration Links

Introduction to R   Tue Jan 14  1 PM – 3 PM
This workshop is directed towards participants who have little or no experience with statistical computing or programming. R is an open source language that can be used for a variety of computational purposes. This class will introduce R and RStudio in the context of its data analysis capabilities. Via interactive code-alongs, students will learn the basics of creating variables, using functions, accessing documentation, loading packages, importing data, and investigating a dataset.

Data Preparation in R   Wed Jan 15  1 PM – 3 PM
Data analysis involves a large amount of preparing, cleaning, and "munging" data to facilitate downstream data analysis. This workshop is designed for those with a basic familiarity with R who want to learn modern tools and techniques for data manipulation. Upon completing this lesson, participants will be able to use the dplyr package in R to effectively manipulate and conditionally compute summary statistics over subsets of a "big" dataset containing many observations.

Data Visualization in R   Tue Jan 21  1 PM – 3 PM
This workshop will cover fundamental concepts for creating effective data visualization using the popular R plotting package, ggplot2. We will review fundamental concepts for visually displaying quantitative information, such as using series of small multiples, avoiding "chart-junk," and maximizing the data-ink ratio. We will cover the grammar of graphics in the ggplot2 package (geoms, aesthetics, stats, and faceting) to create beautiful plots layer-by-layer. Upon completing this lesson, learners will be able to use ggplot2 to explore high-dimensional datasets.

Data Wrangling in R   Wed Jan 22  1 PM – 3 PM
One of the most difficult tasks when conducting data analysis is combining disparate datasets into a single usable dataset. This workshop will provide participants with data cleaning and joining skills using functions from tidyverse packages. Specifically, participants will be able to reorganize and reshape datasets, clean messy datasets, and correctly merge datasets together.

Python Workshops - Registration Links        

Introduction to Python – Part 1  Tue Jan 28 1 PM – 3 PM
This workshop serves as an introduction to the Python programming language and is intended for beginners to programming. Python is a general-purpose programming language that can be used for many different tasks including automation and data analysis. Via interactive code-alongs, we will cover basic programming concepts like variables and their data types, basic programming logic such as loops and conditional statements, and functions. We will also download and set up your coding environment (IDE) together, so you can begin programming on your own. No prior experience required.

Introduction to Python – Part 2  Wed Jan 29  1 PM – 3 PM
This workshop builds on the Introduction to Python - Part 1 workshop and continues to focus on basic programming concepts. We will review concepts from part 1 and continue to learn more about how to manipulate variables in Python and how to utilize functions. By the end of this workshop, you should feel comfortable working in an IDE and have a good understanding of basic programming concepts. Prerequisites: attendance at Introduction to Python - Part 1

Data Analysis in Python  Thu Jan 30 1 PM – 3 PM
This workshop serves as an introduction to data analysis with Python and is intended for those with some basic familiarity with Python. To do this, we will use the Python packages Pandas and Matplotlib which are used for data analysis and visualization. We will focus on loading and summarizing tabular data and other common data exploration tasks. Then we will create some simple visualizations. Prerequisites: working knowledge of Python.

Generative AI – Registration Links

Intro to GenAI and Prompting  Tue Feb 18 1 PM – 2 PM

Discover how you can utilize UVA licensed generative AI (GenAI) tools in your work. In this workshop, we'll dive into the basics of GenAI and some best practices. Then we’ll explore the art of prompt engineering. This session is designed to provide you with a solid understanding of GenAI concepts and practical guidance on crafting effective prompts. We will be using Copilot Chat to demonstrate real-world applications and best practices. 

Intro to GenAI and Coding  Tue Feb 25 1 PM – 2 PM

Discover how generative AI (GenAI) can assist in your data analysis tasks. In the first half of this workshop, we'll start with tips on effectively using GenAI in coding. Then in the second half, watch a live demo on how Copilot Chat can help debug R scripts, making data analysis smoother and more efficient. Attendees will receive prompts to follow along and practice during the session. Whether you're new to GenAI or R programming, you'll leave with practical skills and insights applicable to your data analysis. No prior experience needed—just bring your curiosity!

Intro to GenAI and Literature Searching  Tue Mar 4 1 PM – 2 PM

Discover how generative AI (GenAI) can assist with searching for scholarly literature. We will discuss the strengths and limitations of common GenAI tools as well as those designed to find citations. Importantly, we will review what tasks GenAI tools are - and are not - appropriate for in your literature search process. We will also discuss how other AI approaches, such as machine learning, are incorporated into tools like Covidence for systematic reviews and can assist with literature review.