Research Support – issues and practiceinformation

Clare Boucher, Swansea UniversityKate Bradbury, Cardiff University

Re-skilling for research

“An investigation into the role and skills of subject and liaison librarians required to effectively support the evolving information needs of researchers”

Re-skilling for research

• Identifies many familiar skills considered essential for Research Support: bibliographic, information literacy, information discovery, citing & referencing, marketing, knowledge of data sources

• We will focus on a few of the areas identified in the report where we are involved in new services at Swansea & Cardiff

“Understanding of research impact factors and performance indicators and how they will be used in the REF, and ability to advise on citation analysis, bibliometrics etc”

RLUK p38

Skills & Knowledge set

Bibliometrics training - Cardiff

Training session & workshop (following a workbook) including citations, impact factors but also Open Access issues and improving visibility. Offered to all staff on HR programme, plus tailored option for schools.

SciVal trial• Cardiff University has SciVal on trial for 4 months to

assess its value in identifying research strengths at Cardiff.• SciVal is being used nationally - For example, the

Department of Business, Innovation and Skills report International Comparative Performance of the UK Research Base - 2011, used SciVal (amongst other sources) to assess the UK research strengths.

• Collaborative effort between University divisions.• Library’s role is to retrieve & present data from the

database to fully assess its value for institutional research assessment.

• May also trial InCites for comparison.

“Understanding of the national and local research assessment processes and the requirements of the REF”

RLUK p37

REF support - CardiffOnline Research @ Cardiff (ORCA) institutional repository – used

as database to supply REF outputs. Major effort going in to ensure all REF outputs are in ORCA.

Close liaison with Planning & other divisions to ensure REF requirements are identified and met.

Data mapping – every piece of data required for REF listed & source is identified.

Subject librarian support – details of outputs; impact evidence; final collation of outputs; advice on citations, improving visibility & scholarly communications; plus getting records into ORCA.

As much full text into ORCA as possible: increase readership increase citations?

Individual/personalised

“Ability to gain an appreciation of individual researcher/project needs, including effective listening skills”

RLUK p37

Researchers’ Needs

• “Support needs to be based on a close understanding of the researchers’ work, its patterns and timetables.” (RIN, 2009, p6)

• Researchers crying out for customised information support. (CILIP Update, 2009)

• Personalising library services in HE (Due out in Aug. 2012)

Personalising Services for PhDs and Early Career Researchers (ECRs) -

Swansea• Feelings of isolation amongst this group (Blake &

Wright, 2010)• Anonymity of library support and need for a

“known contact” (Syvälahti &Nevalainenn, 2011)• Swansea’s Health & Medicine Subject Librarians

piloted the idea of a “personal librarian” for each new PhD student/ ECR in Health Sciences.

Dear PhD student.... SUBJECT LINE: Library Support during your PhD studiesDear Sarah JaneAs a new PhD student, you have been assigned a specialist subject librarian, Susan

Smith, to act as your main point of contact with the Library. We are trying to link each new postgraduate to an individual librarian. This can be

a boon for you because you have someone you know you can contact directly for advice and queries. After meeting with you, your link librarian will be aware of your area of interest and may often come across items that may be of interest to you.

Susan has numerous years of experience as a librarian in the fields of Health & Medicine, and will be able to advise you on search techniques, databases, using EndNote to manage references and other resources to support your research.

Susan will be writing to you shortly to introduce herself and arrange to meet up with you at a convenient time.....

Proactive Personal Engagement

• Not easy with more established researchers • Vital if we are to “gain an appreciation of

individual researcher/project needs”

IDEAS?

Road shows?

Link Librarians for

Research Teams/ Groups?

Future

Skills gaps identified by RLUK report – nine areas which are considered to be of increasing importance in the future, but over 50% of respondents indicated that they have limited or no skills or knowledge:

Future• Preserving research outputs• Data management and curation• Complying with mandates of funders• Data manipulation tools• Data mining• Metadata• Preservation of project records eg correspondence• Sources of research funding• Metadata schema & advise on discipline/subject standards &

practices for individual research projectshttp://www.rluk.ac.uk/content/re-skilling-research p3

Further readingBlake, M. and Wright, N.(2010) Postcards from the (research) edge: staying in touch

with students throughout their PhD travels. SCONUL Focus, 49 . pp. 33-35. http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29631/

Priestner, A. and Tilley, E. (forthcoming) Personalising Library Services in Higher Education: The Boutique Approach. Ashgate http://personalisedlibraries.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/personalising-library-services-coming-soon.pdf

RIN & British Library (2009) Patterns of information use and exchange: case studies of researchers in the life sciences http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/using-and-accessing-information-resources/patterns-information-use-and-exchange-case-studie

RLUK (2012) Re-skilling for research http://www.rluk.ac.uk/content/re-skilling-research

Syvälahti, K. and E. Nevalainen (2011). Knotworking as a means to strengthen information skills of research groups. LILAC. London.