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By USucceed, September 25, 2012 8:28 am

A new office at UMKC located in the recently renovated Atterbury Student Success Center (former University Center) is a one-stop-shop were students may get assistance in five key areas: Admissions (domestic and International), Cashiers & Collections, Financial Aid & Scholarship, and Registration & Records.

UMKC Central opened on August 20^th at the start of the fall 2012 semester and has since been assisting students in taking care of university transactions.  The goal of UMKC Central is to promote student success by providing student focused services in a single point of contact.  At UMKC Central students may get help with problems, gain additional information to manage the enrollment process or perform regular transactions to meet their academic and financial objectives.  The Customer Service Coordinators have all been cross trained in the five key areas, providing a convenient focal point for answering questions and getting assistance.

The starting point for getting assistance at UMKC Central is the Info Hub located on Level 2 of the Student Success Center. At the Info Hub a ticket is generated that details the type of assistance students are requesting. This provides the Customer Service Coordinators the information they need to get started at finding a solution. Once the Customer Service Coordinator has been assigned a ticket they will make every effort to work with students to address their issue and avoid having to refer students to the home offices in the Administration Center or elsewhere on campus.  Students are also able to call UMKC Central for assistance.

Contact UMKC Central:

Web – www.umkc.edu/umkccentral

Email – umkccentral@umkc.edu

Phone – 816.235.6000

“Like” us on Facebook <www.facebook.com/umkccentral>

Follow UMKC Central on Twitter < www.twitter.com/UMKCCentral>

Be sure to check-in to UMKC Central on FourSquare < foursquare.com/umkccentral> to receive a Newbie Special: On your 1st check in to meet with a Customer Service Coordinator you will receive a UMKC Central t-shirt & water bottle or flash drive. Let the Coordinator know that you unlocked this special. This offer is only valid to UMKC students who check-in at UMKC Central and meet with a UMKC Central customer service coordinator to address university transactions.

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By USucceed, September 25, 2012 8:24 am

What is Lucerna? Put simply, Lucerna is UMKC’s only all-discipline undergraduate research journal. A new edition is issued every year showcasing the best and brightest UMKC students and the work they’ve been dedicating their time and effort to. Lucerna publishes research essays completed at UMKC that are 2000-5000 words. These essays are rigorously selected, determined competitively, and evaluated anonymously.

As we go through our academic careers here at UMKC, it is sometimes easy to get caught up in the routine of classes. Write a paper, turn it in, and never think about it again. Repeat. Most likely you have at least a dozen old papers on your computer that you haven’t looked at or thought about since the day they were due. Yet, each of these papers represents something more than just a percentage of a course grade; they are documentation of your progress as a student and as an individual at UMKC.

Lucerna offers the opportunity for you to present yourself through the publication of your UMKC research. Those old papers I mentioned previously can be easily polished to become a Lucerna submission and moreover a published essay. If they were written for a class at UMKC, pull them back out, dust them off, and look over them again. That paper is your chance to present a new idea or topic to your fellow students or present an old topic in a new light.

Essays are accepted from all disciplines and are reviewed on a competitive basis against other students’ submissions. Students from all over UMKC can submit to Lucerna, so your competition will be fierce. Being published as an undergraduate student weighs heavily on your resume or CV and will set you apart from your competition as you move on to graduate school, professional school, or into the job market. Being published is an accomplishment that will help propel you toward your academic, professional, and personal goals.

Lucerna is an awesome opportunity for you to expand your horizons, get some great experience, and even get published as an undergraduate. Please contact me, Taylor Barton, with any questions or comments at tjb8t7@mail.umkc.edu. I would love to talk with you about how Lucerna can benefit you.

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By USucceed, September 18, 2012 8:10 am

RooGroups is an online hub for all student organizations.  Students can sign on to RooGroups using their UMKC SSO and login information and set their own personal profile.  They can add favorite organizations to their profile, which makes it easy to access those organizations’ pages. They can quickly see upcoming events with their organizations and other organizations on campus with the bulletin boards. It is also a great way to access important organization documents, such as forms, meeting minutes, and bylaws.

Student leaders can also register their organizations and, as a result, others can learn more about their organization, the activities happening around campus, and also keep track of membership, important documents, and service hours.

For more information on RooGroups, e-mail getinvolved@umkc.edu.

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By USucceed, September 18, 2012 8:08 am

Beware of the dreaded Paywall!  Interlibrary loan and proxy servers are your way around the wall.

As a student using the internet to research, you are likely to come across journal articles with titles and descriptions sounding precisely like what you need. Sometimes after clicking on the article’s title, however, a screen pops up requiring you to create a username and password in order to enter the website. Even worse, some sites won’t let you read the article until after you have paid a fee – as much as $50 (or more) for a single article!

If this ever happens, put on the brakes fast. You have come face-to-face with the economics of the journal publishing world: you just hit a paywall.

But did you know–UMKC students never need to pay for an article for their research.

First, start your research early. For free, you can order almost any article through interlibrary loan and usually receive it in just a few days.

Another tip is to start your search through the UMKC Libraries website. Doing this not only assures you are searching academically-oriented search engines like Google Scholar, but also means you automatically are using the UMKC proxy server.

A proxy server performs all the electronic handshakes between your search, the UMKC Libraries’ collections, and the journal publishers to keep you from encountering most paywalls. This can be done on campus or remotely, using your single-sign-on.

UMKC Libraries can help make sure that you are not paying unnecessarily for access to journal articles.

Let UMKC Libraries deal with the paywalls, so you can spend more time dealing with your projects!

If you have any questions, contact your subject liaison librarian for assistance.