Category Archives: Library
OA and the research lifecycle 2: producing the research proposal
Your research proposal is likely to address a range of issues arising throughout the research lifecycle, some of which are covered by the other posts in this series. To avoid repetition, in this post I will focus on some of the things to consider if you plan to engage with open access in a collaborative project.
OA and the research lifecycle 1: identifying a new research area
Open access to published work
Whether you already have an idea for a new research area or are uncertain where to start, gaining an overview of the current literature is critical. Fortunately, not all of this is hidden behind paywalls. Thanks to those researchers who have been willing to disseminate their work through open access repositories and journals, there is now a substantial quantity of research available freely to all.
Much of this is harvested by CORE (COnnecting REpositories). CORE’s mission is to “aggregate all open access research outputs from repositories and journals worldwide and make them available to the public” (About CORE). CORE currently indexes nearly 25 million open access articles.
Online tutorials for PGR students and early career researchers
There are now five new interactive tutorials on the Skills Hub. You will find them in a new section ‘Postgraduate Research Skills‘ on the ‘Academic Skills‘ tab.
- Author bibliometrics – examines the key author bibliometrics and their use
- Journal bibliometrics – explores the use of impact factors and other metrics for ranking journals
- Journals and articles – addresses your publication strategy, journal types and what makes a ‘good’ paper
- Other forms of publishing – covers posters, exhibitions, creative works, website authoring and Open Access publishing
- Networking – making the most of face to face and online networking with fellow researchers
Open Access Week webinars
Next week (October 19th to 25th) is international Open Access Week. It is a great time to catch up on what open access means for you and your research. Here at Northampton we will mark the occasion with a series of posts on the subject of open access throughout the research lifecycle. These will expand on the guide we produced earlier this year and will hopefully answer some of the questions you may have. Look out for them here on the Research Support Hub.
Other organisations are celebrating Open Access Week with various events, including a number of webinars which are, of course, open to everyone. Why not check out some of these?
Library guides to subject resources
If you are new to Northampton and not entirely sure which resources are available for your discipline then the Academic Librarians’ “Library Support for…” guides may be of use to you.
Each guide has information about books and journals for a subject area (e.g. Education, Accounting and Finance; Engineering); some subject specific tools and resources; tips on searching for and evaluating your results; and other expert help from your Academic Librarian.
Although these are mainly written for students on taught courses, new research students and staff may well find them a useful starting point so please do take a look.
You’ll find links to all the resources on the Academic Librarians page on the Skills Hub.
Researcher help desks – Autumn 2015
A new term means that researchers have new opportunities to drop in to the library to get help. As usual, Nick and I are offering weekly help sessions at alternate campuses and we’d love to have some visitors.
The dates and times are below.
UK Data Service – free webinars
The UK Data Service, the ESRC-funded source of social and economic data, are offering a number of free webinars over the next couple of months:
- Webinar: Key data: Census – 3 September 2015, 3pm
- Webinar: Key data: Business data – 10 September 2015, 3pm
- Webinar: Key data: Longitudinal data – 16 September 2015, 3pm
- Webinar: Introduction to the UK Data Service – 6 October 2015, 3pm
- Webinar: Key data: International macrodata – 8 October 2015, 2pm
- Webinar: Finding and accessing data in the UK Data Service – 14 October 2015, 3pm
- Webinar: Getting started with secondary data – 22 October 2015, 3pm
Click on each link to find out more and to book a place.
Find out more about the UK Data Service.
RDM at the University of Northampton: state of play
Over the last three years the University has been implementing its roadmap for research data management (RDM). This post outlines some of the work that has been undertaken and describes where we are now with respect to support for RDM at Northampton.
The University’s RDM roadmap was created in response to a demand from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) that Universities in receipt of EPSRC funding must conform to a set of expectations concerning the management of research data. Institutions were (by April 2012) expected to produce a roadmap outlining how they would meet these expectations and then (by April 2015) to implement that roadmap.
Data management planning using DMPonline
In its research data policy and principles, the University of Northampton strongly encourages researchers to produce data management plans (DMPs) for their research projects. DMPonline is the recommended tool for this purpose.
Last year the university’s Research Data Working Group discussed the creation of Northampton-specific guidance for DMPonline users. The tool permits institutions to enter local information about support for data management planning which users will see when they create their DMPs.
For Northampton, the local guidance now covers the University’s policies, procedures and responsibilities for research data management, as well as information about related services (such as TUNDRA2 and NECTAR) that can be used in your DMP.
To see the new University of Northampton guidance in DMPonline you will need to take the following steps when you create your plan:
Guide to open access monograph publishing
The OAPEN-UK project has just published a Guide to open access monograph publishing for arts, humanities and social science researchers. 
The guide has been produced to “assist arts, humanities and social sciences (AHSS) researchers in understanding the state of play with regards to open access in the UK and what it means to them as current and future authors of scholarly monographs” (p.4).
It starts with an overview of open access publishing and business models for monographs and then goes on to address some common concerns of researchers such as legal issues, financial concerns, quality etc.
It is available to read online or download as a PDF.
UON Graduate School Blog 