As 2022 comes to a close, our thoughts turn to our library users - staff, students, and the Busitema University community who make our journey possible.
Wishing you peace and happiness in the New Year!
—The Librarians of Busitema University
Signifying Excellence
The general public and Busitema University Community are hereby invited to the second Professorial Inaugural Lecture by Professor Julius W. Wandabwa, the Dean Faculty of Health Sciences, scheduled for Thursday, November 24, 2022, at Busitema University, Faculty of Engineering at 2:00 pm. Professor Wandabwa will discuss severe maternal morbidity in Uganda: the base of the iceberg; and will showcase his research, teaching and innovations carried out in the University.
Busitema University Library has organised a Virtual One-day Library Orientation exercise for all First-Year Graduate Students (Masters and Ph.D.) and any other cohort that might be interested to attend. This serves to invite you all to attend this very important orientation exercise. The event shall take place on Thursday 1, December 2022. The exercise intends to create awareness of the available online scholarly library resources and students will be guided through access and use of the digital resource
Congraturation to one of our staff Nalwanga Rosemary that has attained a Masters of Science in Internet of Things (IoT) Specializing in Embedded Computing Systems from African Center of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT), Rwanda on the 18th November 2022
The ceremony of formally admitting all first-year students of Busitema University will be held as follows:
Busitema University Engineering Library is to hold an orientation for first year students of academic year 2022/2023. The program will run for four days starting from 8 th to 11 th Nov 2022
In this documentary, you will explore Busitema University and its unique nature as a Multi-Campus Public University with six Campuses located in Eastern Uganda. Unlike other traditional universities whose core study activities are at a single location, Busitema University was established as a community university with the sole goal of bringing quality higher education to the locals. As a multi-campus university, its core faculties are located in six districts in Eastern Uganda, including, the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology which houses the main administration, located in Busitema, Busia District; the faculty of Science and Education located in Nagongera Sub County, Tororo District; Faculty of Health Sciences located in Mbale City; Faculty of Agriculture and Animal Sciences in Arapai, Soroti District; Faculty of Management Sciences in Pallisa; and Faculty of Natural Resources Economics and Environmental Sciences located in Namasagali, Kamuli District.
The University was established to accelerate national development which is reinforced by flagship programmes on each campus that align with the country’s development agenda. To facilitate Research and Innovation, there is a library on each campus. Students and staff receive periodic training in information literacy that equips them with the skills and techniques to navigate the information resources.
The library has built a robust digital infrastructure to increase access to these resources both on campus and remotely. The University boasts of the unique programmes which are entirely practical that empower its students. Quality is maintained with a Quality Assurance mechanism ensuring that there is value for money, courses are fit for purpose, and that the University is highly ranked. On the downside, the University faces some challenges such as inadequate infrastructure and low staffing but measures are put in place to address these in the near future.
Busitema University joins Elsevier Foundation to celebrate Dr. Taako Edema George's contribution made to open Science. His scholarly work "An evaluation of the environmental impact assessment practice in Uganda: challenges and opportunities for achieving sustainable development", addresses SDGs 6, 8, 14, & 16 has helped to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges. Between 2019-2021 this article received a total of 7,198 downloads. We thank you for your contribution to Open Science. See the full article here
Title: An evaluation of the environmental impact assessment practice in Uganda: challenges and opportunities for achieving sustainable development
Find article on Busitema Institutional Repository
Dr. Taako Edema George's Google Scholar Profile
The University Library participated in the University Budget Conference for the financial year 2023/24. The Budget estimates are guided by the theme "Digitalisation for Inclusive Education, Research and Innovation". The conference will last 2 days. More details of the University Library Budget, FY 2023/24
With funding from the Engineering Information Foundation, students from the Faculty of Engineering learn to interact and make good use of the library resources integrated with the Learning Management System (LMS). Time is set aside by the respective lecturers to allow the library to meet and guide students on how to access, use and evaluate information resources - in what is termed "The Literate Engineer". Google Photos Album
Busitema University is a multi-campus Public University located in eastern Uganda. Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates to fill vacant positions at the University. Interested persons who meet the minimum requirements should submit 3 sets of applications duly signed together with detailed Curriculum Vitae with names of three referees, Academic Certificates and Transcripts, Copies of Appointment letters and three recent passport photographs in envelopes addressed to the University Secretary, Busitema University, P.O.Box 236 Tororo or P.O.Box 226 Busia. Applications can be submitted to the Office of the University Secretary at Busitema University or at the Liaison Office at Lincolin Flats A2 Makerere University. Deadline for submission of applications is Friday October 28, 2022 at 5:00 pm East African Time.
An Ebola like Virus Disease has now reached the door steps of the University, a case Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) has been confirmed and admitted in Soroti District Hospital. The districts of Mubende and Kassanda are currently under lockdown due to Ebola. The other areas where cases of Ebola have been reported include Bunyangabu, Kagadi, Kyegegwa and Kampala Districts. Ebola, CCHF and related viruses are mainly transmitted from person to person through contact with the body fluid of an infected person including clothing and other items that have been used or had contact with an Ebola patient. Ebola may present with sore throat, fever, body pains but key features are bleeding from body openings. Ebola is deadly and kills over 70% (40%for CCHF) of its victims in a short time.
As you are aware, the approved Calendar for 2022/2023 academic year states that the reporting date for first year students is on October 24, 2022
This communication therefore is to remind you about the reporting date and to request you to make necessary preparations to receive the students and engage them during their first week of reporting.
Please, note that orientation starts on 25th October 2022 on Zoom
The Chairperson of the Website Management Committee together with all the Committee members will hold a stakeholder focus group discussion with staff and students at all the Faculties to gather their views on the design and functionality of the new Busitema University Main Website, Faculty Websites, and the webpages for the Researchers. The meeting is scheduled as follows
Website Management Committee led by the Chairperson Dr. Fredrick Kiwuwa Lugya held a focus group discussion with academic, administrative and support staff, and student leaders of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology on the terminology, content, structure and interface design, and functionality of the new Busitema University Website. The meeting took place at the Engineering Hall, on Friday October 7, 2022, between 08:00 - 10:00 am and was well attended
Pictorial
Statement of Work and Requirements gathering
Busitema University Library will be holding a one-day training on Tuesday 6, September 2022 at Busitema Campus (Engineering) Library. This training will be on uploading and populating the Established E-reserves and Subject Guides systems.
Target Group: All Campus Librarians, 1 Institute Librarian and other Library Staff selected by the Campus Librarians
Objectives of the Training:
Training of Trainers (ToT) to;
Learning Outcomes:
This is to inform the General Public that Busitema University has admitted students to various programmes for the 2022/2023 Academic Year. However, a few slots still exist in the following programmes:
Download Full List of Programmes that still have slots
Please, visit Busistema University admissions portal to apply on the link below:
admissions.busitema.ac.ug. The deadline for applications is 10th September 2022.
Busitema University is a multi-campus Public University located in Eastern Uganda, with its main campus at Busitema along Jinja-Malaba High way, Busia District. Busitema University Library is pleased to offer 4 internship positions to Library and Information Science students for a period starting August 29th to September 30th 2022. Internees will participate in the library’s organization, automation and digitization programmes, creating digital collections based on open access content, and developing digital tools to support information discovery at the Faculty of Science and Education, Nagongera Campus.
Interested students can send their Letter of Interest to the University Librarian, Busitema University, including a partial transcript and letter of introduction from the School to library@busitema.ac.ug not later than Sunday 21 st August 2022.
Please note that this is not a paid internship nor will you be required to pay a fee for your participation. While the University will offer free accommodation at the University premises, water and electricity, Internees will be responsible for their meals and transport to and from Busitema University and their current location/residence.
Busitema University Library is pleased to announce that Mr. Mukungu Isaac has joined Busitema University Service as a Librarian I in charge of the Science and Education Library, Nagongera Campus. Prior to joining Busitema University, Isaac was working with Lira University as a Librarian II.
Mr. Mukungu Isaac is an accomplished Information Scientist with a successful track record in Information services in higher education institutions. Isaac holds a Masters of Science degree in Library and Information Studies from the university of Strathclyde, Glasgow in the United Kingdom. He has vast experience of over 15 years in Librarianship and Information Management as well as teaching at the University. Before joining Lira University, he served as a Librarian for the Islamic University in Uganda from 2008 to 2018.
He has succeeded in supporting and mentoring library and information science students and librarians in information services management, research and innovations. He is fascinated by ICTs and their application in information management and service delivery as well as digital preservation in information institutions. As an instructor and trainer in information literacy, library organization, and information service delivery, he brings expertise, passion and a drive for quality and equitable information services at Busitema University.
The Registry of Research Data Repositories is a technical open science platform that offers researchers, funding organizations, libraries and publishers an overview of existing international repositories for research data. As a global registry of research data repositories, Re3data covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. It includes repositories that enable permanent storage of and access to data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers, and scholarly institutions. It promotes a culture of sharing, increased access and better visibility of research data. It also provides information on repositories for the permanent storage and access of data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions. Re3data provides customizable and extendable core repository descriptions that are persistently identifiable and can be referred to and cited in an appropriate manner. Visit https://www.re3data.org/ to access Re3data.
DataCite is a leading global non-profit organization that provides persistent identifiers (DOIs) for research data and other research outputs. Research outputs become discoverable and associated metadata is made available to the community. It promotes data sharing and citation through community-building efforts and outreach activities. The Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) that DataCite provides are a technical solution to the broken links that can occur when authors cite resources on the Web. Through this platform you can create digital object identifiers (DOIs), a type of persistent identifier for your datasets, software and other types of research outputs such as gray literature and conference proceedings. You can share your data and reuse the data of others to create the highest impact in the research community. Visit datacite.org.
CoreTrustSeal, launched in 2017, defines requirements and offers core level certification for Trustworthy Data Repositories holding data for long-term preservation. CoreTrustSeal is a certification based on requirements established by the World Data Systems (WDS) and the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) .It demonstrates to researchers that data repositories are taking appropriate measures to ensure sustainable and trustworthy data infrastructures. It gives assurance to researchers that their research results will be managed, curated, and archived in such a way to preserve the initial investment in collecting them. It enables researchers to be certain that data held in archives remains useful and meaningful into the future. To explore this, visit https://www.coretrustseal.org/
OpenAIRE is a research information platform that helps researchers, project managers and repository managers to integrate knowledge, people, and services to provide the best scientific information. The OpenAIRE platform offers many resources on Open Science practice. The platform makes research accessible, findable, coherent, and re-usable. It enables easy project reporting by linking a particular dissemination, publication, presentation, or communication to research funding. The platform provides the tools necessary to monitor the trends of Open Access to research data and publications and provides access to numerous Open Access publications and datasets. Visit https://www.openaire.eu/ to access OpenAIRE.
Launched in 2011, FAIRsharing is an informative and educational resource that describes and interlinks community-driven standards, databases, repositories and data policies. It accelerates the discovery, selection and use of these resources. As a web-based searchable portal, it is targeted to researchers and other stakeholders involved in producing, managing, serving, curating, preserving, publishing or regulating data, FAIRsharing supports and enables the implementation of the FAIR principles. Researchers can use FAIRsharing as a lookup resource to identify, use and cite the standards, databases that exist for their data and discipline. Visit https://fairsharing.org/.
Busitema University has been granted a two weeks’ trial access to a digital medical platform called Lecturio. The trail access is effective from 16 th through 31 st July 2022. Lecturio gives you comprehensive access to pre-Medical, Pre-Clinical & Medical curricula in medicine and nursing. Besides health science disciplines, the multidisciplinary platform provides access to Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics amongst others. The content includes: 12000 education videos, 30,000 Recall Questions , 7000 case question bank and over 1,300 textbook articles, 3D Anatomy models, pop up questions and clinical cases. Lecturio provides a customized set-up for both students and lecturers and is accessible through the phone using Android and iOS mobile Apps.
To access Lecturio, please visit https://busitema.lecturio.com/en/login and contact the Campus Librarian, Ms. Glorias Asiimwe for the login credentials (User Name and Password).
Kampala, Uganda - July 1, 2022: Stanbic Bank Uganda is funding 70 scholarships for young people from low-income household in eastern Uganda, to undertake vocational training courses at Busitema University.
The Scholarship fund will benefit at least 70 young people who will undergo a six-month vocational skills training in areas of their Interest, Including robotics, Irrigation technologies, automotive repairs. Post-harvest handling and processing technologies, welding and metal fabrication, brick laying and concrete practice, among others.
"Stanbic Bank is proud to be in partnership with Busiterna University to provide this scholarship programme that will enable young Ugandans to acquire vocational skills. The Bank recognises the importance of vocational training in increasing chances of employability of many young people and gain the much-needed future skills that will contribute the growth of our economy and boost their long-term professional careers. “Cathy Adengo. Head Sustainability, Stanbic Bank Uganda”.
It is graduation - you have worked hard and you deserve it. Follow the poster below for more details. Get the graduation programme
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Many Books: Established in 2004, the database contains over 50,000 fiction and non fiction eBooks. The collection emcompasses several genres ranging from fantasy, horror, romance, mystery, thriller, science fiction, biographies, action, adventure, children’s books, love stories and history education among others. Many Books provides instant updates and filters for quick browsing by author, genre and language. You can download the Many Books app from the playstore to access, download and read free books. Visit https://manybooks.net/ to access Many Books.
Gutenberg: This is an online library of over 60,000 free eBooks in various subjects. You can search and browse for books by author, title, subject, language, type, popularity and more. Gutenberg provides a list of recently added, new and updated and has provision for notifications when new books are made available.The collection is freely offered to readers for education, enjoyment, enlightenment, and entertainment. Books on similar topics are arranged on the bookshelf alphabetically to ease access for readers. Visit https://www.gutenberg.org/ to access Gutenberg.
Listening Books: This database is a digital collection of audio books and other information materials ranging from fiction , nonfiction, newspapers and magazines. It is suitable for children and adults with specific learning difficulties including; dyslexia, mental health conditions, anxiety, visual impairment or physical disabilities. It permits readers to download the audio books. Visit https://www.listening-books.org.uk/ to access Listening Books.
Internet Archive: As a digital library, the internet archive provides free access to collections of digitized materials including websites, software applications, games, cultural artifacts, music, movies/videos and millions of books. As an open library, special attention is given to books. A wide range of books are made electronically available. They are free to read and downloadable. All these resources are available to researchers, historians, scholars and the general public. Visit https://archive.org/ to access Internet Archive
Digital Book Index: The Digital Book Index is an online catalog of electronic books, texts and documents. It provides access to over 165,000 full-text ebooks from different publishers, universities and sites. The database contains reference books, children’s books, Literature and languages, social sciences, philosophy, law, mathematics, health and Medicine. Visit http://www.digitalbookindex.org/ to access Digital Book Index.
World Digital Library: Launched by UNESCO and the Library of Congress, the World Digital Library (WDL) contains a rich source of free manuscripts, rare books, films, musical scores, prints, recordings, architectural drawings and maps. It aims at promoting international and intercultural understanding; expanding the volume and variety of online cultural content; providing resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences, and building capacity in partner institutions so as to narrow the digital divide within and among countries. You can access World Digital Library through https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-digital-library.
Book Boon: This database contains more than 800 free eBooks, audio-visual learning materials and online courses for students and researchers. The collection is available in different languages and content is downloadable in PDF format. Subject areas covered are economics, statistics, IT, engineering and natural sciences. You can visit https://bookboon.com to access Book boon.
Free Computer Books: Free Computer Books is a directory of free eBooks, tutorials and lecture notes. The disciplines include; computer science, networking, programming languages, systems programming, linux books and mathematics. To access Free computer books, visit https://freecomputerbooks.com/
Open Access Publishing in European Networks: This is a comprehensive database that contains freely accessible peer reviewed academic books in the fields of humanities and social sciences. The collections are filtered according to subjects, publishers, language and date. The database serves as an open infrastructure and aims at increasing the discoverability of open access books. Visit https://oapen.org/home to access OAPEN to review, share and download books at no cost.
Public Bookshelf: The database provides access to different kinds of romance books ranging from contemporary, suspense, historical, regency, Inspirational, vampire, fantasy, paranormal and Western romance. It provides a platform for readers to read stories online and authors to publish their books at no cost. To access Public Bookshelf collection, visit https://www.publicbookshelf.com/index.html.
ReadCentral: The database comprises of a vast collection of free nonfiction books, novels, dramas, poems, short stories and essays in different languages. ReadCentral can be used by people of all ages and backgrounds including; reading enthusiasts, students, researchers and on-the-go readers. The database provides a mobile version to enable the users to use mobile devices to access content. To access ReadCentral, visit https://www.readcentral.com/
PDF Drive: PDF Drive contains over 79,357,440 free ebooks to search, preview and download. The database contains powerful features such as previews, advanced filtering and synchronized searching using computer and mobile devices. Besides, PDF is continuously updated with new contents. Visit, https://www.pdfdrive.com/ to access PDF Drive.
Indian Academy of Sciences: Founded in 1934 with the sole goal of promoting and upholding the cause of science, the Indian Academy of Sciences currently publishes 10 science journals in different disciplines. The published journals undergo a rigorous peer view process and information is made available online through open access. To access the Indian Academic of Sciences database, visit: https://www.ias.ac.in/
Open Textbooks: The database contains over 1024 academic textbooks that are peer reviewed, free, adaptable and openly licensed. Students, faculty and other users are free to download, edit and distribute the textbooks. Supported by the Open Education Network, the Open Textbooks database covers subjects like; business, computer science, engineering, education, humanities, medicine, natural sciences and student success. The site is time-saving since tables of contents and summaries for textbooks are provided. Visit, https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/ to access Open Textbooks.
Free Books Centre: The database provides links to thousands of free online technical books. It comprises over 25 subject categories in the disciplines of physics, computer sciences, business, mathematics, medicine, engineering and law amongst others. To access the Free Books Centre, visit: http://www.freebookcentre.net/
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB): Established by the Open Access Publishing in European Network in 2012, DOAB provides access to over 51,914 free scholarly and peer-reviewed open access books. With the sole aim to increase discoverability of open access books, the database is open to all publishers who publish peer reviewed books in open access. To explore this vast collection, visit https://www.doabooks.org/
OBOOKO: The database contains over 3000 free ebook titles to download and read at no cost. Users can download content in pdf, epub and kindle formats across devices such as desktop computers, laptops, tablets, e-readers and mobile phones. Obooko is a totally free database currently being used by over 800,000 people across the globe. Visit https://www.obooko.com/ to access the great reads.
The Universal Digital Library: Launched by Carnegie-Mellon University, the Universal Digital Library (UDL) contains over 1,000,000 ebooks in different subject areas. To access UDL books, one needs to use either the DjVu plugin and/or Tiff plugin on Windows, Linux and MAC. To access this collection, visit http://ulib.isri.cmu.edu/
Please take note of the change in library open hours during the One-Week holiday, 30th April to 8th May 2022 as follows:
Library Management
For more information; Download full notice here
Please take note that Level - Two of the Engineering Library is reserved for the Information Literacy Workshop on Wednesday, April 27, 2022, from 08:00 am to 05:00 pm. The E-Learning Center will also be closed to all students to allow this workshop to take place. You're advised to use other computer labs on campus as well as our WiFi that is accessible in and outside the library building. Please seek assistance from the library staff at the Reference Desk for any questions. We regret the inconveniences caused!
Attachments
1. E-Learning-Reserved
2. Level-2-Reserved
While the Librarian I position is administrative in nature, the incumbent is expected to perform both academic and administrative library roles due to the changing nature of the information services landscape in academic institutions. The nature of the library system at Busitema and a shift to digital services and programming, growing call for inter-and-cross disciplinarity research and specialization, the flux in e-educational roles, diversity and changing user information seeking behavior, and the COVID-19 induced challenges, Busitema University Library keeps upfront of the global vitality hence the need to attract the best to creatively and innovatively spearhead it’s digitization agenda.
Note: Due date for receiving applications is 29th April, 2022
Click to Download Full Advert
We have come to the end of Semester II of the Academic Year 2020/2021. This serves to remind all final year students that come for library clearance to:
We want to make you aware that this Thursday (27/01/22) at 10:30pm IST, there will be scheduled down time for approximately 30 minutes. We will be using this time to add more capacity to our infrastructure and speed up our overall service.
To ensure uptime and stability of the platform, we are performing this upgrade on our infrastructure. During this maintenance window, the MyLOFT platform will be inaccessible. All services will resume immediately after the maintenance window.
Theme: It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Challenging Established Norms
Busitema University joined the rest of the World to celebrate the International Open Access Week which started on Monday 15th through Friday 19th November 2021. While the official celebrations were in the month of October, and the Open Access Week was Monday 25th through Friday 29th October, Busitema University Libraryheld her events when all the students had reported back to the University and the academic staff was less busy with teaching activities. Due to the Covid-19 assembly restrictions, the week-long celebrations had to be conducted via Zoom. The theme of the 2021 Open Access Week was “It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Building Structural Equity.” However, given the unique challenges that Busitema was facing and to match with the series of activities suggested, our theme was: "It Matters How We Open Knowledge: Challenging Established Norms". Every day we had a unique activity: Click to view dailly activity description
As pressure increases for health researchers to establish an evidence base for best-practice guidance, identify gaps in knowledge, or help inform policy and practice, skills in conducting evidence syntheses has become increasingly relevant. Systematic reviews are one of the methodologies of evidence synthesis. They tell us what evidence exists on a particular topic, and through a critical appraisal of available evidence, help us to assess how reliable evidence is, and whether we know what we think we know. Systematic reviews employ a clear and reproducible method of identifying research on a particular topic, appraising its quality and summarizing the findings from the research. This calls for a systematic process from identifying a topic, up to the final report. The training will provide an introduction to the evidence synthesis process, grow familiarity with techniques and tools used in systematic reviews and evidence synthesis, and practice using PICO frameworks to develop search strategies.
The training took place on Tuesday 26th & Wednesday 27st October 2021 from 9:00am-4pm.The training was conducted in accordance with the COVID 19 SOPs by ensuring social distancing, sanitizing and hand washing as well as strict wearing of masks.
The Training was facilitated by Dr. Alison Annet Kinengyere, Information Scientist at Sir Albert Cook Library, Search Coordinator at the Africa Centre for Systematic Reviews and Knowledge Translation, College of Health Sciences, Makerere University.
PICTORIAL
In May 2021, a five-year UPTODATE grant running from 2021 to 2025 was awarded to Busitema University Faculty of Health Sciences. The grant is supported by Harvard, Better Evidence and Ariande Labs to access. UpToDate is a vital clinical decision support tool for clinicians, medical students and researchers. It cover(s) over 25 medical specialists that can be consulted during ward rounds, clinical exposures, classroom teaching and research.The grant will benefit over 600 students at graduate and undergraduate level; 80 academic staff as well as the Mbale Regional Hospital community. Under this UpToDate grant, two staff from the Faculty of Health Sciences (Dr. Gavamukulya Yahya – senior lecturer & Ms. Glorias Asiimwe – Faculty Librarian) are to be trained as University`s Champions responsible for trainings, sensitizing and supporting students and staff in using UpToDate.