FACULTY OF MEDICINE AND HEALTH SCIENCES

1. Introduction

   Welcome to the Library Guide for the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Midlands State University. This guide serves as your comprehensive resource hub, specially crafted to meet the research and study needs of the faculty. The collection, carefully selected in collaboration with faculty members, is designed to align perfectly with the requirements of key stakeholders. It features an extensive range of resources, including electronic and print books, journals, research papers and audio-visual collections.

   The guide provides answers to questions relating to the availability, access, and usage of the required resources. It is designed to enhance your ability to conduct research effectively using print and electronic resources. Explore the wealth of knowledge available here to advance your learning, teaching, and practice in the medical and health sciences field.

   What are the Library’s Service Standards?

   The Midlands State University Library is committed to providing high-quality services to its clients. We treasure customer feedback, strive to improve our performance, and ensure that the services provided are responsive to the needs of our clients. In support of this commitment, the Library produced a Library Service Charter. The Charter is a guiding principle that directs how the Library serves, behaves, and holds itself accountable for its actions. It also attempts to demonstrate the Library’s commitment to value its customers by providing a memorable experience and ensuring that every interaction results in positive experiences.

   Client Expectations

   Expect from us:

   • Prompt and courteous service
   • Helpful, well-trained staff who will treat you with respect
   • Fair and equitable access to our collections and services
   • Collections that aim to meet your needs and are well-maintained and accessible

   Library Expectation

   Help us to help you by:

   • Treating other people in the library with respect and courtesy, whether these are other clients or library staff
   • Treating library facilities, equipment, collections, and property with due care
   • Assisting staff understand your needs clearly
   • Providing us with feedback on how we may improve our services or we can resolve a specific service problem

   Access to Library Resources

   The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Library at MSU manages a diverse collection that comprehensively caters to the academic programs within the field of Medicine. Access to the Library is restricted to MSU bonafide clients only, consisting of registered students or current employees associated with the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Non-MSU students or staff looking for library access can do so by formally requesting authorisation and fulfilling the required fees to be acknowledged as ‘Approved readers.’ Borrowing privileges are uniquely customised based on the client’s category, ensuring tailored access to resources relevant to the distinct programs within the Faculty of Medicine.

   1. Teaching staff– Allowed to borrow a maximum of 8 books at a time for one month
   1. Non-Teaching staff – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 6 books at a time for one month
   2. Undergraduate students – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 3 books at a time for seven days
   3. Approved readers – Do not have any borrowing rights. They are only allowed access to library materials within the building.

   building.

Print Journals

A journal or periodical is a scholarly publication containing articles written by researchers, academics, practitioners and other experts. Journals usually focus on a specific discipline or field of study such as biology, chemistry or computer science. Journals are published at regular intervals such as monthly, quarterly or yearly and several authors contribute to each issue. Electronic journals are online versions of the printed journals and they are only accessible over the internet.

How to access access Print Journals

1. Go to www.msu.ac.zw and point your mouse to “Libraries”
2. Select “Catalogue”
3. On the Online catalogue page click on “Advanced Search”
4. Enter your keywords in the search form provided
5. Under “Item Type” select “Journal” to limit your results to journals only
6. Click on the “Search” button to get results
7. Click on a journal title of your choice to get the Call number
8. Approach appropriate shelf in the Special Collections section to retrieve the journal.

How to access e-Journals

1. Go to msu.ac.zw
2. On the main MSU website, click on the “Libraries” link
3. You are taken to the MSU Library webpage
4. On the MSU webpage, hover your mouse over the “Electronic Resources” link, and a dropdown menu featuring links to various e-resources will appear.
5. Select the “E-Journals” link to navigate to a page that displays all available e-Journals.
6. All e-Journal collections are arranged alphabetically, and you can use the A-Z index to navigate to an e-Journal collection of your choice e.g. “Proquest Central”.
7. Select an e-Journal collection of your choice by clicking on its name, you will be presented with a page requesting your MSU email address and passowrd.
8. Input your MSU email address and password, which will lead you to the e-Journal collection, allowing you to search and download.

IMPORTANT JOURNAL MEDICINE AND HEALTH SCIENCES JOURNAL COLLECTIONS

Research at Midlands State University

The MSU Institutional Repository (MSUIR)

The MSUIR is an online digital collection of the university’s research output. The collection contains documents such as research papers, conference papers, books, book chapters, speeches, public lectures and seminar series presentations.

How to access MSUIR

1.  Open browser and go to www.msu.ac.zw
2. Click on the ‘Libraries’ link. You will be redirected to the Library Homepage.
3.  On the library homepage, click on ‘Electronic Resources’ and select ‘Institutional Repository’. You will be redirected to the Midlands State University Institutional Repository (MSUIR) Homepage.
4. You can now browse collections arranged by disciplines, referred to as ‘Communities’. If you scroll down you can view recent additions to the collection.
5. You may also discover items by Author, Date, Title, Subject (Check on the right side of the page under ‘Browse’
6. To search the whole MSUIR, enter your search terms inside the search box at the top right corner of the page under ‘Search MSUIR’ and results for your search query will be displayed on the screen.
7. Click on a result of your choice and scroll down the page to view abstract and other document information.
8. To open document, click on the ‘View/ Open’ Button.
9. Depending on your browser settings, the document may open in browser or prompt you to download.

OPEN ACCESS INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES

1.PubMed Central (PMC) – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

Free full-text archive of biomedical and life sciences literature).

2. Europe PMC – https://europepmc.org/

European counterpart to PubMed Central, with additional content.

3.bioRxiv (Preprints) – https://www.biorxiv.org/

Preprint server for biology and medicine.

4.medRxiv (Preprints) – https://www.medrxiv.org/

Preprint repository for health sciences (clinical, public health, epidemiology).

5. Open Science Framework (OSF) – Medicine – https://osf.io/

Collaborative platform for sharing research data, protocols, and preprints.

6. Zenodo (Biomedical & Health Research) – https://zenodo.org/

General-purpose repository with medical research datasets and publications.

7.ClinicalTrials.gov – https://clinicaltrials.gov/

Database of clinical studies worldwide (results often linked to publications).

8. WHO IRIS (Institutional Repository for Information Sharing) – https://apps.who.int/iris/

World Health Organization’s repository for global health research.

9. Cochrane Library (Open Access Reviews) – https://www.cochranelibrary.com/

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses in healthcare.

10. PLOS Medicine – https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/

Open-access journal with high-impact medical research

The MSU Library Research Support Section

The MSU Library Research Support section plays a crucial role in assisting students and academic staff in their research endeavours. The Research Support section facilitates access to information and supports users in navigating the vast print and electronic resources available through the library. Here are some key functions of library research support services:

1. Reference and Information Services

1. • Assisting users in locating relevant resources, answering reference questions, and navigating library catalogues and databases.
   • They provide guidance on effective search strategies and help users refine their research topics.
   • Training sessions and workshops to enhance users’ information literacy skills, teaching them how to critically evaluate information, cite sources, and use library resources effectively.
   • Helping users with access to a wide range of resources, including books, journals, databases, and multimedia materials.

1. Research Consultations

1. • One-on-one research consultations to provide personalized assistance, helping users develop research strategies and find relevant sources for their projects.

1. Reference Management

1. • Assisting students and staff in using and managing their references, including the use of citation management tools such as Zotero and Mendeley.

1. Library Workshops and Training

1. • Organising workshops and training sessions on various topics related to research, academic writing, and information literacy to help users develop their academic and research skills.

1. Copyright and Fair Use Guidance

• Providing information on copyright regulations, fair use, and plagiarism and helping users understand and adhere to legal and ethical standards in their research.

1. Assisting Researchers With Finding the Right Publisher

• The Research Support section also assists aspiring writers with identifying the right journal and publisher for their work. It does this by using specialised online tools such as Think-Check-and Submit and publishers’ journal finders.
• Support is also given for authors to avoid predatory publishers by publishing the Beall’s List of predatory publishers.

For assistance for any of the services listed above, do not hesitate to contact the Library Research Support on libraryresearchsupportservices@library.msu.ac.zw or use the Library WhatsApp number – 0717 290 290. You may also approach the Information Desk located at the Main Library and ask for further assistance.

Steps in the research process

Step 1: Identifying the Problem

The first step in the process is to identify a problem or develop a research question. You need to identify a topic that is of interest to you to make it easy along the way.

Step 2: Review the Literature

Once the problem has been identified, it is time to gather information related to the problem or topic. Gathering literature about the topic will give you more insights into what has already been published by other researchers, how they researched the problem and the results or conclusions they got. You will need to use the library’s resources to get this information. These include the library catalogue, electronic books, electronic journals and indexes.

Step 3: Research Purpose/Design

This is a practical framework for answering the research questions. This involves making decisions about the type of data that you are going to collect, how you are going to collect it (methods), time scale and the location of your research.

Step 4: Collect Data

This step involves collecting data about your research problem from the participants in your research. Data can be collected in the form of interviews, questionnaires, observation etc.

Step 5: Analyse and Interpret Data

All the activities that were carried out in the above steps now culminate into this step. Here you will analyse data so that the research questions can finally be answered.

Step 6: Report and Evaluate

In this stage, you are now writing about the results that you got from the research. What were the conclusions about the problem you were researching on? What are your recommendations? What can be done to improve things or avoid negative things?

(Blankenship, Diane Applied Research and Evaluation Methods in Recreation, Human Kinetics 2010)

Choosing where to publish

It is important to find the most relevant journal to publish with so that your research output gets the attention that it deserves. You should always be able to check for certain important factors when looking for a journal to publish with. Some factors to look out for include:

• Scope of the journal
• Peer review process
• Journal Metrics
• Open Access options
• How to spot a predatory Journal

Where is the Journal Indexed?

It is important that you check whether the journal is indexed in major indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science.  These indexes assess a journal’s quality before indexing them and it is most likely that your work becomes more discoverable if you publish with journals indexed in them.

Journal Finders

A number of publishers offer some tools that can be used by aspiring authors to assist in choosing the most appropriate and trusted journal title. Below are some links to the most common tools used to choose a journal.

• Elsevier Journal Finder
• Springer Link Journal Suggester
• Wiley Journal Finder
• Sage Journal Selector
• Emerald Journal Finder
• Web of Science Master List
• Check. Submit
• Scopus Journal Analyzer
• Dimensions

RESEARCH IMPACT AND METRICS

Metrics are a measurement of the importance or impact of a journal or author. There are several metrics that can be used to indicate the importance of a journal. Author level metrics can also be used to show impact that an author makes on the scientific community or field of the study.

Journal Metrics

Journal Impact Factor

The Journal Impact Factor is used to measure the importance of a journal by calculating the number of times articles are cited within a particular year. You can find the impact factors of journals in Clarivate Analytics’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

CiteScore

CiteScore is the average number of citations received by articles recently published in the journal. It is available for journals and book series which are indexed in Scopus.

SJR – Scimago Journal Rank

The SJR aims to capture the effect of subject field, quality, and reputation of a journal on citations. It calculates the prestige of a journal by considering the value of the sources that cite it, rather than counting all citations equally. It is useful for comparing and anlysing journals within the same discipline, and forms the basis of the subject category ranking.

SNIP

The SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) measures citations weighted by the subject field. It is useful for comparing journals not just within the same field but also across disciplines. SNIP is available from Scopus.

ALTERNATIVE METRICS – ALMETRICS

Article level metrics help researchers to understand how their research is being used in the digital or online environment through factors such as downloads, page views and mentions in social media platforms. Many publishers such as Elsevier, Oxford University Press, PLos and Springer Nature now provide alternative metrics on the search results page by using the Altmetric bookmarklet or Plum Analytics. You can get the attention that your research is getting from fellow researchers through mentions in Twitter, Researchgate, Facebook and Linkedin.

RESEARCHER IDENTIFIERS AND DISAMBIGUATION

An important aspect of research is to keep track of your research output and to uniquely identify your among many other researchers. There are several author identifier tools that you can use to achieve this.

ORCID – Open Researcher and Contributor ID

This provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes an author from other authors with a similar name. It makes it easier for researchers to compile their research output even if they change their affiliation or if their name is spelt differently in other publications. Researchers are able to compile their profile, research interests, educational qualifications contact details etc.

ResearcherID

Similar to ORCID, this tool free is also able to provide you with a unique identifier. You can also link your ResearcherID to ORCID so that you can enjoy the benefits of using both systems.

Scopus

Scopus allows researchers to create an author profile that includes all their citations that are included in this multi-disciplinary database, even with name and affiliation changes. Researchers are also able to get email alerts when someone cites their articles.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar Profiles provide a simple way for authors to showcase their academic publications. You can check who is citing your articles, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name.

How to Spot a Predatory Journal or Publisher

Predatory publishers make false claims about their peer review process in order to charge unsuspecting researchers article processing fees. Most predatory publishers will spam the mailboxes of prospective authors with offers of rapid publication.

Here are some factors you may need to consider:

• Use the Think Check Submit checklist for journals
• Lookup titles in Directory of Open Access Journals
• Lookup titles in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
• Use indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science to check if journal is listed there

You can also follow the links below for more information on identifying predatory publishers.

Criteria for determining predatory publishers

6 Ways to Spot a Predatory Journal

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR RESEARCH VISIBILITY

Activities aimed at increasing the visibility of research output are very important to an academic’s career. Increasing the visibility of research ensures that research results are discovered by a wider spectrum of researchers and in turn the work gets more attention and impact. This also helps in the success of the researcher.

Here are some methods that can help in increasing the visibility of research:

1. Register to get unique author identifiers and create your profiles:

• ORCID
• ResearcherID
• Scopus ID
• Google Scholar

1. Share Outputs of Your Research Through Open Access

Evidence of your research output include research articles, conference, posters, presentations and papers, preprints and research data. By making these publicly accessible, you are increasing the chances of your work getting discovered and cited. Moreover, many funding institutions and universities now require that both publications and their accompanying research data be made available through Open Access.

To make your work Open Access, you can use the following:

• MSU Institutional Repository
• CiteSeer– (Computer and Information Science)  
• PubMedCentral– is a repository for US federally funded research outputs in Medicine.

Share Your Research Data

Apart from publications, you can also share your research data through various platforms listed below.

• F1000Research – Useful to researchers in Life sciences
• Mendeley Data
• JSTOR Data For Research
• OpenAire
• Dryad
• Slideshare

1. Keep an Updated Online Profile or Web CV

There are a number of platforms that can be used to create profiles where you can capture your research interests, make a list of your publications and highlight your professional accomplishments.

• Google Scholar Citation Profile
• ImpactStory

ImpactStory is a free online platform that permits you to showcase your research outputs (publications, presentations, data, code, posters, etc.) together with measures of their impact.  Impact story uses ORCID profiles to find and import scholarly works.  To make sure that your Impact story has all your outputs, make sure that you import them to ORCID and synchronise your ORCID profile with Impactstory.

• Kudos

This is a relatively new tool that helps researchers promote their research outputs.  It is free to use  and allows you to showcase your publications by creating links to full text. Kudos will always monitor:

• Number of times the publication is downloaded from the publisher’s site
• Number of times the publication’s abstract is clicked on or viewed on the publisher’s site
• Number of tweets posted by author to promote the publication
• Number of Facebook posts by author to promote the publication
• Number of visits to the publication page on Kudos that is generated by sharing activities via email or social media
• Number of times author has sent email to colleagues/friends with link the publication page on Kudos or with the link to the article page on the publisher’s site
• Total number of visits to publication page on Kudos
• A score generated by Altmetric.com (which includes tweets, Mendeley and CiteULike readership)

1. Engage and Participate in Social Networking Communities

Another great way to disseminate your research and gain reputation is through active engagement in research networking communities.  Research networking will allow you to create online profiles, showcase your research outputs, discover communities of interest and take part in discussions by posting and answering questions in your network.  All of them will also let you know about impact of your activates in these networks, for instance downloads of your publications, views of your profile and levels of your activity as compared to others in the network.

• • Researchgate
  • Mendeley
  • Academi.edu
  • Linkedin

Frequently Asked Questions

Question : Can you return a book borrowed from the Main Library to any Branch Library?

Answer : You can only return a book to the library where you borrowed it. This is done in order for the home library to be accountability for each and every material in its collection. In the OPAC, all library materials are identified by location and returning a book to the library where it was borrowed helps other users quickly locate the book.

Question : Can a student borrow a book during vacation?

Answer : During vacation, the library will be open and serving clients. Students will only be allowed access to the library and not allowed to borrow books for outside the library use. Students are allowed to borrow books during semester break and are encouraged to observe the due date stamped on the library books.

Question : Is the library open during Public Holidays?

Answer : The Library is closed during Public Holidays. To view the Library opening and Closing times click here

Question : How do I access e-resources?

Answer : For steps on how to access e-journals, e-books, Institutional Repository, OPAC, Past Examination papers click here

Question : What happens if I have a an overdue book?

Answer : An overdue book attracts a fine which is automatically recorded in the KOHA System. The fine that accrues in a client’s account is determined by the type of material borrowed. For more information on fines click here

Question:What documents do one need to be allowed to gain entry into the library?

Answer : A client is required to produce a valid student/staff ID at the Library entrance. For students, one needs to be registered for that semester.

 Faculty of Medicine User Guide 2025.

Scopus Title List