Academic Resources
Writing Resources
Explore the links and resources below to elevate your studies at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing.
APA Writing Guidelines
Download: APA Guidelines for Nursing Students (PDF)
Writing at the University of Toronto
The University of Toronto expects its students to write well, and it provides a number of resources to help them. To find what you need, start with our page of frequently asked questions, investigate writing centres and writing courses, consider attending one of the workshops in our Writing Plus series, look at our advice pages, and read the latest news about writing support programs. Books pages describe self-instruction resources for learning academic writing.
Health Sciences Writing Centre
The Health Sciences Writing Centre is a tutoring facility open to all nursing students. They offer free, 45-minute sessions (longer sessions available for grad students) with experienced writing instructors. You may bring in writing assignments at any stage, and they will help you develop your capacity to plan, research, organize, write and revise your papers. They also offer workshops on a wide variety of academic skills of specific interest to nursing students and work with students whose first language is not English. Visit the website to make an appointment online (UTORid required).
English Language Writing Support
Housed in 63 St. George Street, within the School of Graduate Studies, English Language Writing Support (ELWS) provides graduate students with advanced training in academic writing and speaking. As you prepare to attend your first conference, to write your first proposal, or to publish your first paper, you will need stronger communication skills than those needed in undergraduate work. By emphasizing professional development rather than remediation, ELWS can help you cultivate the ability to diagnose and address the weaknesses in your oral and written work.
How Not to Plagiarise
You’ve already heard the warnings about plagiarism. Obviously it’s against the rules to buy essays or copy chunks from your friend’s homework, and it’s also plagiarism to borrow passages from books or articles or websites without identifying them. You know that the purpose of any paper is to show your own thinking, not create a patchwork of borrowed ideas. But you may still be wondering how you’re supposed to give proper references to all the reading you’ve done and all the ideas you’ve encountered. Download “How Not to Plagiarize” (PDF).
Role of Turnitin to Support Academic Integrity
Turnitin is the leading academic plagiarism detector, utilized by teachers and students to avoid plagiarism and ensure academic integrity. This internet-based, plagiarism-prevention service checks for potential unoriginal content by comparing submitted papers to several databases using a proprietary algorithm.
Nursing eResources – Gerstein Science Information Centre
The Gerstein Science Information Centre is the largest science and health science academic library in Canada. It has a print collection of over 1 million volumes of journals and books. The library also provides access to over 100,000 online journals and books. The Nursing e-Resources Guide consists of selected resources that are licensed by the University of Toronto Libraries or are freely available on the web. Its aim is to provide easy access to resources that complement the nursing curriculum.
Mentorship Resources
BScN Student Mentorship Program
The BScN Student Mentorship Program connects incoming BScN students with student mentors to learn about the program from the perspective of an insider. Mentors are available to answer questions, connect you to resources, and provide vital support and guidance as you transition into the first year of the program. New students registered to the mentorship program are invited to a dedicated forum to post new questions/topics, reply to existing threads and connect with student mentors. For full details, contact the Nursing Undergraduate Society (NUS) at: nus@utoronto.ca.
MN and PhD Mentorship Programs
In Fall 2014, the Graduate Nurses’ Student Society (GNSS) launched MN and PhD Mentorship programs. For more details, please visit the GNSS website.
Student Life Leadership Programs
Visit the Student Life Leadership Programs website for details on how to access their services.
Academic Support Resources
Academic Success Centre
The Academic Success Centre is comprised of dedicated professionals, from diverse academic backgrounds, who work to help students develop skills, strategies, and competencies needed to succeed. The centre provides workshops and lectures tailored to specific needs of students and their programs of study. The drop-in centre offers students assistance to develop study strategies and writing skills.
Accessibility Services
Accessibility Services facilitate the inclusion of students with disabilities into all aspects of university life. If you have a disability/health consideration that may require academic accommodations, please contact the Accessibility Services Office as soon as possible. The St. George Campus Accessibility Services staff (located in Robarts Library, First Floor) are available by appointment to assess specific needs, provide referrals, and arrange appropriate academic accommodations.
ACORN
ACORN provides online access to student and alumni academic information. Support regarding security, hours of operation, and browser issues are also provided. Visit the ACORN website for more info.
Nursing Simulation Lab Resources
Photos, Floor plan and Overview available here.
The Sim Lab – Nursing Simulation Lab – is a state-of-the-art teaching facility, designed to provide flexibility in a variety of teaching and learning contexts.
The Sim Lab incorporates the following simulated environments for health care delivery practice:
- an inpatient ward with eleven beds and a large nursing station
- a critical care unit with four patient beds
- the Bluma Appel Isolation Room, an isolation room with an ante- and exit room
- a full operating room
- a one-bed post-anaesthesia care unit
- a home care setting living space, that also works as an interview or ambulatory clinic room.
The Sim Lab provides a learning connection to real life situations and clinical dilemmas through a variety of activities and simulation exercises in a supportive setting.
The Sim Lab offers several simulation modalities including:
- computerized adult and infant high-fidelity patient simulators
- medium-fidelity adult, paediatric and infant patient simulators
- various bench-top anatomical models and task trainers.
The adult and infant high fidelity simulators are capable of verbal responses, realistic vital signs, breath and heart sounds, and other physiological responses that allow students to learn and make mistakes in a safe environment, without any risk to patients.
Through integration of advanced technology, informatics and active learning principles, students have the opportunity to practice hands-on high quality and safe nursing care individually and in groups.
The lab is fitted with pan-tilt-zoom cameras and hanging microphones throughout. Students and teachers can view simulations in any part of the lab from the control room, the two debriefing areas or from the one-way windows in the operating room and the isolation room.
From the Sim Lab control room, educators can easily videotape students in as many as six beds simultaneously. These videos are automatically and almost immediately uploaded to a secure server in our building and made available to the students through a secure website. Recent innovations include the ability for students to share videos with each other, upload external videos, comment on a peer’s video for a peer assessment assignment and also submit a paper assignment under an individual video – all through a secure server.
The Sim Lab is used for training, performance evaluation, remediation, program evaluation, research projects, and health-care equipment trials and demonstrations.
The facilities are utilized by a variety of educational programs and agencies within and outside the university community, on a regular booked basis (weekly and/or monthly) or for intermittent and one-time events. Activities have included skills development, physical assessment testing, mock codes, mandatory required simulation exercises, hospital orientations, critical care education courses, implementation of research protocols, development and testing of instructional DVDs or films, and media photo shoots. Participants taking part in these activities are nursing students (undergraduate and graduate programs), health professionals involved in professional development programs, researchers conducting studies at the lab (used as a simulated hospital) and industry professionals who need a simulated space to refresh their clinical skills.
Contact
Sim Lab – Nursing Simulation Lab
Administrator: Luciana Boic
Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing
University of Toronto
155 College Street, Suite 172
Toronto, ON, Canada, M5T 1P8
Phone: 416-978-7703
Email: lab.nursing@utoronto.caMonday to Friday, 9:00am to 5:00pm
The Health & Wellness Centre provides the same services as your family physician. Students who have registered and paid fees at the University of Toronto are eligible for services.
The Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, in partnership with the U of T Health and Wellness Centre, offers confidential on-site counselling services to all full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in our programs.
Students have access to individual, time-limited coaching, counselling and solution/goal-focused psychotherapy through the Faculty’s Embedded Wellness Counsellor.
The Counsellor offers brief counselling services to students tailored to the challenges presented by university life. The focus of counselling is on strengths, resiliency, and skills building. When needed, the counsellor can also provide information and referrals for University-based supports as well as longer term community-based resources.
To book or reschedule appointments, students should call Health & Wellness at 416-978-8030.
For more information regarding University of Toronto’s Health & Wellness services, please visit http://www.studentlife.utoronto.ca/hwc.
Additional Resources: