Approaching Digital Research

1427893_300Helen Young, one of the Academic Services’ Team Managers, is the subject of a new article on Academic publisher’s Taylor & Francis’s LibSite Research blog this month.

In a new series of blog posts, the publisher asks members of their Digital Practices Research UX Project steering group about their involvement in the project, their experiences of digital research UX to date, and how they are looking forward to applying the knowledge gained through the process.

In this first post Helen talks about her involvement in the UX Project and her experiences of working with post graduate researchers to manage their online research.

You can read the article here:

http://www.tandf.co.uk/libsite/digitalResearchHub/approachingResearch/?hootPostID=360a7f2da875abdf9ddd1b9527b65543

Open Access PGR Session – Why Is OA Important To Me?

OAlogo-264x95 The Open Access publishing movement has been growing in influence in the scholarly communications’ process in the UK for a number of years.  As many funders (e.g. HEFCE, RCUK, EU, Wellcome) and universities now mandate publishing using an open access route for certain publication types, it is becoming impossible to ignore it if you are wanting a career in academia. If you are a PGR and unware of the issues, come along to the next workshop on ‘Open Access – why is it important to me?’, next Thursday, 5th May?

This session will explain what open access is and how it impacts on your research practice and dissemination. By the end of it, participants will be able to:

  • Recognise the drivers behind the open access publishing movement
  • Identify the two main routes to open access (green and gold)
  • Discuss the benefits and challenges of publishing via the open access routes
  • Identify the key aspects of effective file management
  • Recognise how open access can benefit you as disseminators and consumers of research outputs
  • Identify the tools for open access at Loughborough University (LUPIN and the Institutional Repository)
  • Identify where to go for help and support at Loughborough
  • Meet and network with other PGR students from across campus

This session is being run on Thursday 5th May, between 9.30-11.00am, in the Graduate House. It is especially recommended for all mid-career and experienced postgraduate research students and relates to the Researcher Development Framework’s Domain D2 – Communication and dissemination.

Click here to log into Learn to book on this workshop:  http://learn.lboro.ac.uk/mod/booking/view.php?id=376097

Who’s Talking About Your Research?

altmetric_logo

Who’s been talking about your research then? The donut can help! The multi-coloured Altmetric ‘donut’ is becoming a familiar sight on publisher web pages, LUPIN, and other sites.  The donuts give an indication of the attention that a paper has received in social media, the press and policy documents.  This, in turn, may be an early indicator of future citation rates.  But until now you have only been able to find out this information on a paper by paper basis. 

To get a better overview of the reach of all Loughborough University’s research in one place, we have just taken out a one-year trial subscription to Altmetric Explorer. This uses publication information from the data you add to LUPIN to give an overview of the attention an individual or department’s research at Loughborough is getting – and most importantly where that attention is coming from and in what context.  This data can be explored and filtered in all sorts of ways including by discipline, funder, date,  journal and publisher.

Go explore for yourself at:

https://www.altmetric.com/login.php

Remember, if accessing from off-campus, don’t forget to have the VPN activated.

Emerald Insight Website Maintenance, Tuesday 22nd March

emerald-insightEmerald will be performing necessary site maintenance to their research platform, Emerald Insight, which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 22nd March beginning at 8.00GMT and scheduled to last approximately 12 hours.

During this time, the site will be placed into ‘read-only’ mode, making the following functionality unavailable for the duration of the upgrade:

  • Activating access tokens
  • Adding publications as favourites
  • Alert subscriptions
  • Any changes to ‘My Account’ and ‘Institutional Account’
  • E-commerce
  • Registration
  • Search

Should you access the website during this time, you will receive a notification that the site functionality is temporary unavailable within your browser. Please note that this may also affect some functionality on emeraldgrouppublishing.com.

Emerald apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Database Trial – Sage Research Methods

lWymAW36_400x400Until 31st October we are re-running a trial of Sage Research Methods, an online tool created to help researchers, faculty and students with their research projects.

SAGE Research Methods links over 175,000 pages of SAGE’s renowned book, journal and reference content with truly advanced search and discovery tools. Researchers can explore methods concepts to help them design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method, conduct their research, and write up their findings. Since SAGE Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more.

With SAGE Research Methods, researchers can explore their chosen method across the depth and breadth of content, expanding or refining their search as needed; read online, print, or email full-text content; utilize suggested related methods and links to related authors from SAGE Research Methods‘ robust library and unique features; and even share their own collections of content through Methods Lists. SAGE Research Methods contains content from over 720 books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks, the entire “Little Green Book,” and “Little Blue Book” series, two Major Works collating a selection of journal articles, and specially commissioned videos.”

We have trial access to Sage Research Methods, Sage Research Methods Cases and Sage Research Methods Data Sets.  To begin searching please go to: http://srmo.sagepub.com/ – access is via IP address.

We welcome feedback – good or bad – about this trial. Please contact Steve Corn with your comments.

Database Trial – Sage Research Methods

lWymAW36_400x400Until 31st August we are running a trial of Sage Research Methods, an online tool created to help researchers, faculty and students with their research projects.

SAGE Research Methods links over 175,000 pages of SAGE’s renowned book, journal and reference content with truly advanced search and discovery tools. Researchers can explore methods concepts to help them design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method, conduct their research, and write up their findings. Since SAGE Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more.

With SAGE Research Methods, researchers can explore their chosen method across the depth and breadth of content, expanding or refining their search as needed; read online, print, or email full-text content; utilize suggested related methods and links to related authors from SAGE Research Methods‘ robust library and unique features; and even share their own collections of content through Methods Lists. SAGE Research Methods contains content from over 720 books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks, the entire “Little Green Book,” and “Little Blue Book” series, two Major Works collating a selection of journal articles, and specially commissioned videos.”

We have trial access to Sage Research Methods, Sage Research Methods Cases and Sage Research Methods Data Sets.  To begin searching please go to: http://srmo.sagepub.com/ – access is via IP address.

We welcome feedback – good or bad – about this trial. Please contact Steve Corn with your comments.

Scheduled Service Interruption for Elsevier Research Platforms on 1st August

logo_ELSEVIERThis Saturday, 1st August, access to certain Elsevier platforms will be unavailable due to a scheduled maintenance for approximately 4.5 hours starting at 06:00 PM EDT.

The platforms and solutions involved are:

  • Elsevier Research Platforms: ScienceDirect, Scopus (including Author Feedback Wizard), Engineering Village, Mendeley
  • Research Intelligence: SciVal Funding
  • R&D Solutions: Reaxys, Embase, Geofacets

Each platform will be displaying a warning to users of this scheduled downtime, and during downtime, there will be a message informing users of the temporary unavailability of service.

To stay up to date with any developments, follow the individual Twitter accounts for the products.

We apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Summer Elevenses in the Library

IMG_0044We’re running another series of our popular Elevenses range of bite-sized training sessions for staff and post graduates in the Library this summer.

This the schedule for the weeks ahead (click on the link for more information and booking details):

During these sessions you will have the opportunity to learn more about the research related topic listed above, as well as to network with other researchers from across campus. Experts from the Library, Careers and Employability Centre and Research Office will be delivering short presentations, answering questions and leading discussions on key issues.

All the sessions will be held in the Library Seminar Room 1 and start at 11am, and will last approximately half an hour. Booking is necessary as spaces are limited.

Refreshments will be provided.

EThOS Share My Thesis Competition

share_your_thesis_hashtag_bottom

The British Library is currently running a Twitter based competition for all PhD authors and current doctoral students, inviting them to say why their doctoral research is/was important, using the hashtag #ShareMyThesis.

The competition aims to raise awareness of the importance of doctoral research and increase visibility of the PhD thesis as a valuable source of research information. It is generously supported by Research Councils UK and Vitae, and there are some great prizes.

The competition closes on 9 February, when eight entries will be shortlisted and invited to expand their tweet into a blog post. Entries are flooding in already, and you can see them all here:

https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%23sharemythesis&src=typd

For further details, visit the competition page on the British Library website here:

http://www.bl.uk/share-my-thesis/

 

ResFest 2015

resfestThe School of Civil & Building Engineering will be holding their first ever research festival next week, Tuesday January 20th (9.30am-4pm). 

The activities of ResFest will support you in thinking about your research skills, looking for research funding, creating research impact and engaging with the public. A range of academics will share their knowledge and best practice with you, and you will have great opportunities for networking and learning about other research in a fun and informal manner.

  • Showing-case your research and learn about what we do: exhibitions and tours
  • Best practice workshops: public engagement and research impact
  • Research funding: workshops and interactive sessions
  • How to do research: hands-on sessions
  • Social media help desk
  • Games, competitions and networking.

All events are free to attend, but the School is expecting high demand and an advanced online registration is required.

Please register here for the main event:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cbe-research-festival-2014-tickets-14504049001

Please register here for specific sessions:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/cbe-research-festival-session-bookings-tickets-14524106995

All sessions are free, subject to availability.