- Institution(s):
- University of Sussex
- Region(s):
- South East
- Date first submitted:
- 3 Dec 2009
- Date last modified:
- 24 Mar 2011
- Relationship to RDF:
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- Domain A: Knowledge and intellectual abilities
- Knowledge base
- Domain B: Personal effectiveness
- Domain C: Research governance and organisation
- Domain D: Engagement, influence and impact
- Focus:
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- Research project skills
- Audience:
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- Postgraduate researchers
- Doctoral researchers
- Research staff
- Supervisors
- Research masters
- Range:
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- International (open to HEIs outside the UK)
- Faculty
- National/regional
- Department
- Institution
- Discipline
- Inter-institutional
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Rationale, aims and outcomes
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What is the rationale for doing this?
How does it fit with institutional strategy?
What are the main features of the provision?
What are the aims and expected outcomes?
We recognise that our researchers need diverse and flexible support for their use and evaluation of information materials. Using feedback from the Sussex research community, this bespoke online tutorial was designed in the Library (by a doctoral student) in an attempt to gather all the elements together needed to support current researchers at Sussex.
InfoPlus offers an alternative method of reaching and supporting researching students and staff who are not based here on campus. As many of the materials move to online then this method of support will sit alongside any other remote technology we introduce for supporting researchers.
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Engagement
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Are there any pre-requisites for engagement, e.g. levels of skill, years of experience, essential pre-activities?
How many participate in each 'activity'?
Researchers are able to "dip in" to the resource to use whatever sections they feel they need support in. It is not envisaged that a researcher would need to work through all the content.
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Evaluation: benefits, challenges and next steps
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How do you monitor effectiveness?
Who do you seek feedback from?
Do you have benchmarks?
The benefit of offering an online resource is that distance learners can take advantage of more in-depth Library support than just webpages. Some researchers have used InfoPlus before they registered and began their course, and this allowed them to identify areas in which they might benefit from more support.
There are a great many challenges around providing, supporting and evaluating information. This is a fast-moving area and InfoPlus has been designed with this in mind. We would expect to be able to adapt the content fairly easily and regularly to take changes and advances in access in mind.