For many students deadlines are on the horizon.

Did you know the Skills@Cumbria Team offer support to University of Cumbria students' and will give feedback on 500 words of an assignment once per module? This can be either via email or in an online one-to-one appointment. Feedback focuses on your academic skills, referencing, use of literature, and academic writing style. We will let you know where things are going well or suggest edits to develop your work. 

You can submit your work for email feedback via the Student Enquiry Point.

You can book an appointment and find out more about the service on our need more help page.

13 March 2025 

A new post on our Live Well, Learn Well at Cumbria Blog is called Master Your Dissertation Journey: Tips for Academic Success.  Here is a flavour ....

"We might compare research projects to mountain-hiking, perhaps climbing Wainwrights in the Lake District. There are ups, downs, stretches that will be harder work, perhaps. Weather conditions might mean sometimes the path ahead to the summit is clear, but sometimes mists abruptly descend and it’s easy to become despondent or even lost . Maybe you need to retrace steps to get back on the right path. Sometimes the terrain is forgiving; sometimes it’s boggy, slippery or even treacherous. You might feel this particular Wainright is maybe for more experienced hikers…But then turning a corner reveals a view where you see the extent of your progress and marvel at the view"

This and more about thriving at university can be found on our Live Well, Learn Well webpages. 

25 February 2026

We still have lots of Webinars coming up in February and March via Webinars: Library and Academic skills

There are a variety of topics and timings so check out the timetable for details. 

We have the following new webinars coming up in March:

• In your own words: how to paraphrase
• Honing your academic style

If you cannot make the dates for a specific topic, check in the blue banners if we have a pre-recording of the key points from that webinar. 

Details of how to join the session will be sent to you by email at the time of booking and a reminder one hour beforehand.

Here is what some students had to say after attending a webinar: 

• "Thank you very much for today! It's been very reassuring and helpful"
  
  
• "Thank you. I am feeling a bit more confident after being out of the academic loop for a while!"
  
  
• "The redraft has just given me a lightbulb moment as to where I'm going wrong with my own academic writing!"

23 February 2026

Did you know our libraries provide a variety of study rooms and spaces for you to make use of when you need to work on assignments.  You can either book or drop in to find one suitable for your needs. We offer everything from group study to quite spaces to focus. Find out more about what is available and book study rooms from our study spaces page. 

17 February 2026

Are you a distance learner? Did you know that you can have library books posted to your home address?

The postal loan scheme costs £25 per year and payment can be made through the online store. This will allow you to select 'home delivery' when you place a book request on OneSearch.

Your books will be sent to the home address that you have registered at the university, and you can return them via our prepaid collect+ service, or at any of our campus libraries. There is no further charge for this after the initial fee.

Click here for full details, or contact us with any questions by email library@cumbria.ac.uk or use the Ask a Librarian chat service.

03 February 2026.

Since Friday, several other universities have reported issues accessing ProQuest Ebook Central. 

The issue presents with the following error message when accessing previously available e‑books:

“Sorry, your institution does not allow access to ProQuest Ebook Central from your current IP address.”

In the meantime, ProQuest advise the following troubleshooting steps for anyone who may experience problems:

1. Clear your web browser history, cache, and cookies
2. Try using an incognito/private browsing window
3. Try accessing via an alternative web browser
4. Update the browser to the latest version

 Any queries email skills@cumbria.ac.uk

20 January 2026

A key business database provided by the library is Mintel

Mintel contains material to help you with marketing, strategy and innovation modules by providing :

• Reports on market sectors  
• SWOT analyses of markets
• Innovations in brand development  
• Consumer data

Mintel now have an AI powered search to interrogate Mintel material.

It is called Leap and the link to it is by the Mintel logo.

Check out the ‘Learn how to use Leap” guide first of all.

Then start typing in your questions.

Types of questions you can ask:

• “What innovations are the in the UK cheese market?”
  
  
• “Provide a SWOT analysis of the UK Beer Market”

• “How many consumers like to go to music concerts in the UK?”

For any help please email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

23  January 2026

We know a lot of our student are completing assessments including exams at this time of year. Don’t forget to take a look at our exam preparation page for hints and tips. 

Our exam skills reading list has some useful texts to help you get prepared. Plus, our short video covers some useful tips for exams. 

Good luck with your assessments. 

09 January 2026

Our Ask a Librarian Chat Service is available online 24/7. for any type of library or skills questions. 

It might you are trying to locate a specific book title, or you are struggling to find sources for your research study, or need to know how to reference a particular source. 

Whatever it is give us a try!

9am to 5pm - you would be chatting online with staff from the University Library

5pm - 9am - overnight you will be helped by a librarian based overseas, mostly in the USA. 

Use the form on the link above or look for the orange 'Ask a Librarian' tabs on Onesearch and selected library webpages.

You can also pop into a campus library too, and ask for help at the library desks. 

09 January 2026

We know students use the free reference generator called MyBib.com to create their reference lists. 

However we see a lot of errors in these reference lists when students ask Skills@Cumbria for assignment support. This can be because they have selected the wrong Harvard version.

When using MyBib.com make sure you select the format for 'Cite Them Right 13th edition - Harvard (no "et al.")

We also have plenty of referencing support on our Referencing page for you to check out too.

Any queries or to ask for a reference list check email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

09 January 2026

This  time of year often finds students gearing up to do their dissertations or research projects.

Did you know we have some great guidance on our Skills pages to help with all aspects of your dissertation from deciding on your topic, to conducting your literature search, to planning and writing it up?

Head over to these pages to find out more:

Dissertations and research projects

Literature Reviews

Being Critical

Paragraph structure

Getting the flow going....

Remember you can also ask for help from the Skills Team whether in an appointment or via email to skills@cumbria.ac.uk or checking into one of our webinars.

12 January 2026

We have a new ebook database in stock called O'Reilly. 

The ebooks on this database include titles on computing, business, supply chain, project management, graphic design and soft skills such as presenting, negotiation and communication etc.

O'Reilly also includes videos, audiobooks, articles and playlists. 

You can also search for their titles in Onesearch

09 January 2025

You use critical thinking and reading skills every time you access a piece of information. That could be the news, something on social media, or an academic source like a textbook or journal article. Join the Library and Skills@Cumbria Team to develop these skills. You may be increasingly aware of bias and the term “fake news”. But what do they mean?  

Find out how digital and online misinformation, disinformation and malinformation works, and how you can protect yourself and others from it. 

Attend our webinar: Stop, Verify, Correct on Friday 28th March at 13:00. This is part of our Enhancement Week programme
Access our tutorial  
Upskill your critical approach
Access the handout about Misinformation and StopVerifyCorrect. 

21 March 2025

We know students like to use Google Scholar to search for journal articles as part of their literature searching journeys.

But did you know you can set up Google Scholar to link easily from your results to the full text resources we provide for you?  

Find out more on our updated video or click here to read up about it.

Any questions please email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

27 August 2025

 Two videos to help you with using Refworks.

Refworks is a reference management tool to help you manage your references, create reference lists and even help when writing your assignments in Word or Google Docs.

For an introduction to Refworks click here.

To use Refworks in Word using a tool called Reference Citation Manager click here.

Did you know we run webinars on Refworks? Check out dates on our Webinars page

Any queries email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

12 September 2025

Check out our Quick Guides to searching on Onesearch

Two guides to help you to get the best out of using Onesearch:

Basics - to get you going see our Quick guide to OneSearch - basic

Advanced Search - check out further tips and more complex searching on our Quick guide to Advanced searching in OneSearch

Any queries about searching email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

2 September 2025