Academic Tech Tips

If you’re a booklover whose typical conversations with friends include the question, “Read any good books lately?,” finding new reading materials can be easier than you think. Goodreads is a free website that allows you to keep track of what you’ve read or are planning to read, write reviews, and see what your friends are reading. The main benefit of using Goodreads is its social networking potential; using the site is all about getting suggestions from other users.

Loyola Libraries has its own account, which provides the Loyola community with a great chance to learn what faculty and staff at Loyola Libraries are reading. If you are already on Goodreads or want to join, don’t forget to add Loyola Libraries as a friend to get their book reviews in your regular digest.

Set up an Account

While you can simply peruse the website to learn what others are reading, in order to get the most out of Goodreads, you’ll want to set up an account and start adding friends. Once you provide your email address and create a password on the on the Sign-up page, Goodreads will enable you to find friends in your address book who already have accounts, if you use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or AOL. Additionally, you may send a Goodreads invitation to your contacts who do not yet have an account. It’s also worthwhile to check out the recent reviews, where you can learn how users have rated books in categories such as popular, most read, and unpopular. It can be helpful to learn how others have rated your favorite book or the next novel you are planning to read; and it’s especially rewarding to receive recommendations from those whose opinions you value most, your friends!

For this week’s tech tip, we offer timely and important information for instructors who are using the Blackboard Grade Center.  With the end of the semester drawing near, it is essential to keep a copy of your Grade Center. Downloading the Grade Center each time you enter new grades is a good way to maintain a backup of your Grade Center in case Blackboard becomes inaccessible. Excel also offers more complex mathematical functions than Blackboard’s Grade Center. If you download the Grade Center to Excel to do additional grade calculations, you will then need to upload the grades back into Blackboard. You’ll only need to follow the steps for downloading if you just wish to keep a backup of your grades.   For complete instructions on how to back up your Grade Center, visit the link to instructions below.  For more help documentation on the Grade Center, visit the Grade Center Help page.

Instructions:  Backing up your Grade Center

Grade Center Help Page