Bridging the skills gap: developing innovative library support for researchers08 June 2010

Workshops

Waving and definitely not drowning! : offering library support for academic research in a Google world

Annamarie McKie

LLS Learning and Research Services Manager, University for the Creative Arts

This interactive session will focus on the experience of UCA in encouraging academics to make use of library resources for their research. It will explore how the context for research support is changing in light of the introduction of the REF, recent RIN reports on communicating knowledge and academics' use of libraries, and the 2008 SCONUL report on providing library services to international students. New approaches at UCA have included surveying academic staff, offering a programme of top-up sessions, training research supervisors and research students, and creating a digital repository for research outputs.

UCA (University for the Creative Arts) is a new university with ambitions to be the 'leading creative arts university serving the needs of the creative industries in the South East and beyond' and is located at five campuses: Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester.

Gearing up for e-theses

Isobel Stark

Academic Liaison Librarian, University of Southampton

The University of Southampton mandated e-deposit of all PhD theses submitted after October 2008. The Library, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit and the Cartography Unit teamed up to provide Roberts funded training for postgraduates and supervisors over the first two years of e-thesis deposit. As the project draws to a close, what did we learn, what could we have done better and what would we recommend for other HEIs going down this route?

The University of Southampton is a member of the Russell Group and carries out teaching and research in all the major disciplines. It has approximately 1400 research postgraduates.

Gill Downham, Academic Liaison Librarian

John Baxter, Researcher Development Coordinator

Library and Learning Support Services, University of Surrey

The University of Surrey’s organisational structure supports an integrated approach to research student training and development. The University's researcher development team is located within Library and Learning Support Services, allowing for coordinated provision with the work of Academic Liaison Librarians (subject information specialists) and institutional repository staff. This is further enhanced by a dedicated physical hub of learning and research development, the Student Personal Learning and Study Hub (SPLASH) in the Library building.

This workshop will explore our experience to date, allowing us to share our practice and perspectives on the issues in the RIN report "Mind the Skills Gap", including the scope and mode of training and support, uptake and engagement and the impact of "information skills" on research quality.

The University of Surrey is a 1994 Group institution with approximately 1100 postgraduate research students.

Supporting the REF at the University of Brighton

Suzanne Tatham and Helen Woodward

University of Brighton

Many University of Brighton researchers were awarded "World leading research" in the last RAE. High scoring areas included Art and Design, Biomedical Sciences and Hospital-based Clinical Subjects. The University is looking towards raising its research profile further. The library has an important role in preparing for the forthcoming REF. We are offering practical bibliometrics workshops for researchers and research administrators. These are being offered as part of a programme of practical workshops aimed at supporting researchers including Endnote, "Getting to Grips with Google", Exploring Online Library resources and Keeping up to date using RSS. In an interactive session, we will present our findings from our year of preparing for the REF.

The University of Brighton has approximately 400 postgraduate research students and is based on five campuses in Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings.

Rowena Macrae-Gibson, Liaison Librarian

London School of Economics

LSE Library's flagship six week programme for PHD students, MI512: Information Literacy - tools for research, has been a great success. this interactive workshop will introduce you to the programme, the topics covered and the challenges in running such a programme, Delegates will be able to share best practice and to invetigate if similar programmes could be run in their own institution.

LSE is a specialist university with approximately 1100 postgraduate research students.

Joanna Ball and Helen Webb, Research Liaison Team

University of Sussex

In 2005, the University of Sussex Library replaced its Subject Librarians with two smaller teams focussing on learning and teaching, and research. Providing collections and services in this way has at times been challenging but has allowed us to develop a flexible service responsive to changing user needs. The session will outline the range of services the Library’s Research Liaison Team is able to provide, and give an opportunity for delegates to discuss the future direction of research support provision and come up with practical ideas to implement within their own institutions.

The University of Sussex is a 1994 Group institution with approximately 1000 research postgraduates.

All workshops

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