Author Archives: Miggie Pickton
Free trial: new resources from Web of Knowledge
Until 31 August Thomson Reuters are offering free access to additional databases on Web of Knowledge. They say:
“In addition to active subscriptions to Web of Science, BIOSIS, and Medline, member institutions now have access to:
- Comprehensive research data from international data repositories
- Bibliographic and table of contents information from world-leading scholarly journals and books
- Authoritative research information in all applied life sciences fields like biomedical, animal studies, agriculture and more
- Coverage of applied research in food science, technology, and nutrition
- Bibliographic and citations information from 1,200 core science and engineering journals published in the People’s Republic of China
- A comprehensive index to the global journal and proceedings literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities
- Patent and patent citation information”.
Conference report: 9th China-Europe International Symposium on Software Engineering Education
Submitted by Dr Scott Turner
Two members of the Computing Team, School of Science and Technology Gary Hill and Scott Turner on 12-14th May 2013 presented a paper Electronic Online Marking Of Software Assignments (EOMOSA) in Milan at the 9th China-Europe International Symposium on Software Engineering Education. This conference was held in Northampton two years ago.
This conference series brings universities in Europe together with some of the top universities in China, in the field of software engineering, to discuss industrial orientation software education. As well as presenting, one member of the team chaired a session and members of the School of Science and Technology continue on the programme committee.
Quiz: What type of digital researcher are you?
Rachel Maxwell, one of my Learning Technology colleagues, has just drawn my attention to this quiz from the University of Exeter: What type of digital researcher are you?
Intended for research students, the quiz comprises a series of short questions, designed to establish the areas of digital scholarship you already find valuable and to identify areas you might like to think of developing further.
Outputs include your rating on a series of axes: media savvy; infomation junkie (that’s me!); research networker; career builder; digital specialist; and digital sceptic.
Why not give it a go? – it is Friday afternoon after all!
School of the Arts researchers on the radio
Submitted by Larissa Allwork
Alan Smith broadcast on American Radio
It is a great pleasure to announce that Alan Smith, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing in the School of the Arts has recently been interviewed for North Carolina Public Radio. You can listen back to his interview, ‘Debating Philosophy in Prisons’, using the player below, or access it from the show’s website.
See also the celebration of Alan Smith’s work in The Guardian.
TV Fangdom Conference on Radio Northampton
On 8th May, Reader in Television Studies, Dr Lorna Jowett appeared on BBC Radio Northampton to talk about the upcoming TV Fangdom Conference on Television Vampires which will be held at the School of the Arts (7-8 June 2013).
To listen back: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0182rl8
You will find it approximately 2 hours and ten minutes into the show.
Conference report: University of Zaragoza ‘Acts of Remembrance’ conference
Submitted by Dr Larissa Allwork
Dr Andermahr and Dr Allwork’s Santander Funded visit to the University of Zaragoza ‘Acts of Remembrance’ Conference (24-26 April 2013)
Last week, Dr Andermahr and Dr Allwork gave papers to the University of Zaragoza ‘Acts of Remembrance’ conference, organised by Constanza del Rio Alvaro and Maite Escudero Alias. In a panel dedicated to ‘Agency, Trauma and Memory in British Women Writers’, on Wednesday 24th April, Dr Andermahr addressed the audience with her paper on trauma in Jeanette Winterson’s ‘Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?’ while fellow Winterson scholar Susana Onega (University of Zaragoza) spoke on ‘Class, Trauma, Shame and Spectrality in Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger. Speaking to the conference on the same day in a panel on ‘Holocaust Memories’ with Christoph Houswitscka (Bamberg University, Germany) and Rudolf Freiberg (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany), Dr Allwork talked about trauma and researching and writing the histories and memories of the Holocaust. Both Andermahr and Allwork’s papers were well received, reinforcing our academic partnership with the University of Zaragoza’s Research Group in Contemporary Narratives in English and raising the international profile of the University of Northampton.
Accessing electronic theses
FAQ: How can I get hold of a PhD thesis on my chosen topic?
Other people’s theses can be useful for both content and framework. Not only are they useful models for new PhD students, but also they contain comprehensive literature reviews, detailed methodologies and interesting findings which can be compared with one’s own.
There are a couple of key sources of UK theses: EThOS and Index to Theses. Printed copies of Northampton theses are also available in the two university libraries and indexed in NECTAR.
Finding an open access journal for your article
FAQ: How can I find a suitable open access journal in which to publish my work?
Perhaps your funder expects you to publish your work in an open access journal, or you’d like to enjoy the citation advantage of making your work open access, but you’re not sure where to start. Here are a few things to think about.
What do you think of the Research Support Hub?
Six months have passed since we officially ‘launched’ the Research Support Hub in October 2012. In that time the Hub has:
- published over 270 items on topics of interest to Northampton researchers
- publicised more than 100 training sessions and events
- shared over 175 funding opportunities
- applied over 250 different tags to describe and group this information in a meaningful way
- been viewed over 11,000 times by readers from more than 100 countries
- moved to the first result (out of 111 million) on a Google search for Research Support Hub
But how has it been for you?
Do you find the Hub useful? Are we writing about matters that interest you? Would you like to see more of some topics, or less of others?
After six months it is timely that we review the use of the Research Support Hub and ask our readers what they really, really want. To this end, please feel free to write a comment about this article, or contact one of the contributors directly.
All ideas will be gratefully received.
Workshop report: Research data management for librarians
Yesterday’s event for Library and Learning Services staff was the third in the series of research data management (RDM) workshops being run by Digital Curation Centre (DCC) staff for the University of Northampton. Our ‘institutional engagement’ with the DCC is part of a sector-wide initiative to enhance the skills of researchers, and those who support them, in RDM.
As a basic introduction, the session started by clarifying what research data are, then covered data management planning, data sharing and the skills required to support these tasks. It concluded with a round-up of progress in RDM activity at Northampton.
Interestingly, some of the most energetic debate focused on the challenges of sharing data.
Mendeley bought by Elsevier
Are you a Mendeley user?
If so, you may be interested to see what happens now that Mendeley has been bought out by Elsevier.
At £65m the benefits to the creators of Mendeley are clear to see, but how will its user community fare under the new ownership? There seem to be some concerns among academics that Mendeley will lose some of its independence and openness – you can follow the discussion here.
Update 16/4/2013: Further discussion from Research Information here.
Thanks to Ray Kent from De Montfort University for sharing this news on the JISCmail MORE list.
UON Graduate School Blog 