Academic Support



Throughout the year, Varsity College Information Specialists provide training and guidance to students with regards to digital, information and general academic literacy.

Practical workshops are timetabled to ensure that students acquire vital skills that will contribute towards their success at VC and beyond. These include:

  • Effective assignment research
  • Correct referencing
  • Avoiding Plagiarism 
  • Database training (e.g. EBSCO, Jutastat and Sabinet).

Speak to your Information Specialist about these optional sessions, or learn more about the specifics of our academic support, skills development and training here.

Digital citizenship:

Varsity College Information Specialists are actively involved in ensuring that students are responsible, digitally literate online citizens. In other words, that they know how to use technology to gather and convey information in a respectful, legally compliant way. These are essential skills in an age where ideas are a major asset.

There are nine aspects to Digital Citizenship: access, responsibility, security, safety, etiquette, commerce, communication, rights and education.

Training programme:

Information Specialists offer a wide range of individual/group training sessions with the main focus on enhancing the information and digital literacy skills of all VC students and staff. These workshops can include everything from basic library orientation to search skills and more advanced information retrieval strategies. To arrange a session, consult your campus Information Specialist.

Referencing:

We mainly use the Harvard method of referencing at Varsity College. Failure to accurately acknowledge sources used in your assignments could result in a charge of plagiarism – VC uses SafeAssign to detect plagiarism – and/or possible disciplinary action. However, correct referencing is not as difficult as it seems. Information Specialists provide training workshops and individual sessions on correct referencing practices. Speak to your campus Information Specialist for assistance.

Information management apps and online tools:

Information Specialists can point you to various apps, sites and online programmes that will help you minimise hassles when completing assignments.

Info/File management tools
Social media, communication networks and learning platforms Brainstorming and ideas generation
Automatic reference creation