By Patience Gbeze/Edward Dankwah, GNA
Accra, March 5, GNA –Mrs Cynthia Atua-Ntow, Resource Person for ENDNOTE Training at the University of Ghana (UG), has called on faculty and students to fully embrace EndNote, a premium reference management software to enhance academic writing and research productivity.
She said EndNote, subscribed to by the institution, was one of the leading reference managers globally and eliminated the need for manual referencing.
Speaking during a training session organised by the Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences, UG, Mrs. Atua-Ntow said in today’s academic environment, technology had made it possible to generate accurate citations and bibliographies with just a click of a button.
“EndNote allows you to carry your entire research library with you wherever you go. Whether on your phone or desktop, you can access thousands of journal articles for years, since the University subscribes to it,” she added.
She stressed that each library could host up to10,000 journal articles, making it a powerful tool for long-term research management.
The Resource Person highlighted the software’s collaborative features, explaining that researchers working on joint projects could share a common library, with each collaborator contributing resources to enrich the database.
According to her, this makes it valuable for faculty members and postgraduate students engaged in research.
She indicated that as subject librarians, they were mandated to make such electronic resources known to their constituents.
Mrs. Atua-Ntow said although the e-resource department at the Balme Library oversees institutional training, patronage had often been low when sessions were broadly advertised.
To address this challenge, she said librarians were adopting a more proactive “subject librarianship” approach by taking the training directly to departments and users.
“Sometimes people are not even aware these resources exist, and others assume they are difficult to use. So, we must break it down to their level,” she added.
Mrs Atua-Ntow noted that the hands-on method had proven more effective than slide-based presentations.
She commended the availability of a well-equipped instructional laboratory where the EndNote software was already installed, enabling participants to practice in real time.
“Our goal now is that by the end of the training, everyone should be able to reference comfortably and build their own research libraries with confidence,” she stated.
She assured participants that librarians across the University remained available to provide further support after the training, encouraging users to seek assistance whenever needed.
Dr Benjamin Osei Botwe, Head of Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences, UG, said traditional manual referencing was often time-consuming, prone to typographical errors, and susceptible to the loss or misplacement of references.
“In contrast, the use of reference management tools and software enables scholars and students to organise, store, and generate citations efficiently, ensuring accuracy and consistency in academic writing,” he added.
Dr Botwe reiterated that the Reference Management Software was designed to assist scholars and students in recording sources and automatically generating bibliographies and in-text citations in various referencing styles.
He said the primary objective of this initiative was to build the capacity of staff and students to cite with ease and confidence using reference management software such as EndNote, which was made freely available to the UG community by the University Management.
The specific aims are to provide staff and students with practical, hands-on experience in using the EndNote Reference Manager, to promote the adoption of reference management software for effective citation and reference organisation.
It is also to create broader awareness of digital reference management tools that support high-quality scholarly writing.
This initiative aligns with the University of Ghana’s strategic plan to promote a transformative student experience and demonstrate sustained commitment to supporting faculty and staff in research excellence.
GNA
Edited by Linda Asante Agyei