Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Accessing UIC E-Journals On and Off Campus

Did you know that the UIC library subscribes to many online versions of academic journals such as Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Organic Chemistry, Organic Letters, Angewandte Chemie International, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and Journal of Chemical Education, just to name a few? To search for online subscriptions, direct your web browser to the UIC library website; click on the E-Journals tab; then search for the journal title. 


After you've found the publication you're interested in, simply follow the links to the website for the time range of interest. (Note that many online subscriptions are limited to a range of years and there are often different sources for different time ranges.) If you're on campus, you typically will not have to log in with your NetID. You can then bookmark the website for direct access next time. Once you are within the journal's website you can usually search for an article by year, volume, author and keyword. Most subscriptions also allow you to view and download a pdf version of the article.


As a UIC student or faculty member, you can also access online subscriptions from off-campus. The easiest way to do this is to follow the same instructions above. After clicking on the link to the journal from within the UIC library website, you will be asked to enter your UIC NetID and password. This process will connect you to UIC's proxy server so that the journal's website will "see" you as connecting from the UIC campus. Voila! The key here is you must go through the UIC library website each time.  If you do a lot of online research, this becomes tedious. An alternative is to add ".proxy.cc.uic.edu" to the end of any restricted website's URL. For example, the URL for The Journal of Organic Chemistry (JOC) is:


http://pubs.acs.org/journal/joceah


Since I already know that UIC has a subscription to JOC, I just enter the following into my browser's URL bar:


http://pubs.acs.org.proxy.cc.uic.edu/journal/joceah


Notice the ".proxy.cc.uic.edu" is entered right after the domain name (e.g., .org or .com), not at the end of the URL. An advantage of this method is that you can bookmark the proxy URL on your off-campus devices so that you don't have to go through the library website or enter the ".proxy.cc.uic.edu" each time. This method will only work, however, if UIC has a valid subscription for the site you're trying to access. 


Happy researching!

Friday, March 11, 2011

CHEM 233 Midterm Grades Posted

Your midterm score and lab report average score have been posted to Blackboard.  You will receive your midterm back during your next lab session.  For midterm exam and course grading stats, visit the Grades Spring 2011 page on the CHEM 233 course website.


After you receive your midterm exam, carefully check for mistakes or addition errors.  If you believe there is a grading error, first consult your TA and if they agree then submit your exam for review according to the instructions in the handout (exam_corrections.pdfposted on the File Sharing Page of the orgo labs website.  You must submit your exam by Monday, March 28 for it to be considered for corrections.  No exam will be accepted or corrections made after that date.

Finally, if you would like more information on your standing in the course or are concerned about your performance, please stop by during office hours (M,W; 3-5 p.m.) as soon as possible so that we can discuss strategies for improving your grade.  Little can be done at the end of the semester.  With over 300 points remaining in the course, however, you can still make significant improvements if you are not meeting your current goals.