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Research Data at Cambridge – highlights of the year so far
By Dr Sacha Jones, Research Data Coordinator This year we have continued, as always, to provide support and services for researchers to help with their research data management and open data practices. So far in 2020, we have approved more than 230 datasets into our institutional repository, Apollo. This includes Apollo’s 2000th dataset on the impact of health warning labels on snack selection, which represents a shining example of reproducible research, involving the full gamut: preregistration, and sharing of consent forms, code, protocols, data. There are other studies that have sparked media interest for which the data are also openly available in Apollo, such as the data supporting research that reports the development of a wireless device that can convert sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into a carbon-neutral fuel. Or, data…
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Multiplicity, the unofficial theme of Researcher to Reader 2019
For the past four years at the end of February, publishers, librarians, agents, researchers, technologists and consultants have gathered in London for two days of discussions around the concept of ‘Researcher to Reader’. This blog is my take on what I found the most inspiring, challenging and interesting at the 2019 event. There wasn’t a theme this year per se, but something that did repeatedly arise from where I was standing was the diversity of our perspectives. This is a word that has taken a specific meaning recently, so I am using ‘multiplicity’ instead : The principles of Plan S are calling for multiple business models for open access publishing, according…
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Perspectives on the Open future
‘More cash, more clarity and don’t make this compulsory’ is the take home message from a recent workshop held with Cambridge researchers on the question of Open Research. The recent session, called “An Open Future? How Cambridge is Responding to Challenges in the Open Landscape” was with a group of new Cambridge lecturers at a seminar organized by Pathways in Higher Education Practice. This event offered us an opportunity to go beyond the usual information we provide in our training workshops*. This session provided a unique opportunity to speak with researchers from various disciplines further along in their career who already had a basic knowledge of Open Access and Research Data sharing…
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Developing the staff of the future: training librarians in 2017
2017 was an exciting year for training our library community. As well as continuing to cover the basics of research support, the OSC was able to introduce new topics and new methods of delivery to ensure that Cambridge library staff have all the information they need to support the research community. In this blog post our Research Support Skills Coordinator Claire Sewell reflects on the successes of the past year and her plans to make 2018 even better. This time last year I was reflecting on my first full year in my role, having started in November 2015. After more than two years in the role some things have remained…
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Plans for scholarly communication professional development
Well now there is a plan. The second meeting of the Scholarly Communication Professional Development Group was held on 9 October in the Jisc offices in London. This followed on from the first meeting in June about which there is a blog. The attendance list is again at the end of this blog. The group has agreed we need to look at four main areas: Addressing the need for inclusion of scholarly communication in academic library degree courses Mapping scholarly communication competencies against training provision options Creating a self assessment tool to help individuals decide if scholarly communication is for them Costing out ‘on the job training’ as an option…
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What I wish I’d known at the start – setting up an RDM service
In August, Dr Marta Teperek began her new role at Delft University in the Netherlands. In her usual style of doing things properly and thoroughly, she has contributed this blog reflecting on the lessons learned in the process of setting up Cambridge University’s highly successful Research Data Facility. On 27-28 June 2017 I attended the Jisc’s Research Data Network meeting at the University of York. I was one of several people invited to talk about experiences of setting up RDM services in a workshop organised by Stephen Grace from London South Bank University and Sarah Jones from the Digital Curation Centre. The purpose of the workshop was to share lessons…
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Planning scholarly communication training in the UK
In June 2017 a group of people (see end for attendees) met in London to discuss the issues around scholarly communication training delivery in the UK. Representatives from RLUK, UKSG, SCONUL, UKCoRR, Vitae, Jisc and some universities had a workshop to nut through the problem. Possibly because of the nature of the attendees of the group, the discussion was very library-centric, but this does not preclude the need for training outside the library sector. This blog is a summary of the discussion from that day. Background The decision to hold a meeting like this came out of the a library skills workshop run at UKSG recently. In ensuing discussions, it was agreed…
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Where did they come from? Educational background of people in scholarly communication
Scholarly communication roles are becoming more commonplace in academic libraries around the world but who is actually filling these roles? The Office of Scholarly Communication in Cambridge recently conducted a survey to find out a bit more about who makes up the scholarly communication workforce and this blog post is the first in a series sharing the results. The survey was advertised in October 2016 via several mailing lists targeting an audience of library staff who worked in scholarly communication. For the purposes of the survey we defined this as: The process by which academics, scholars and researchers share and publish their research findings with the wider academic community and…
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2016 – that was the year that was
In January last year we published a blog post ‘2015 that was the year that was‘ which not only helped us take stock about what we have achieved, but also was very well received. So we have decided to do it again. For those who are more visually oriented, the slides ‘The OSC a lightning Tour‘ might be useful. Now starting its third year of operation, the Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) has expanded to a team of 15, managing a wide variety of projects. The OSC has developed a set of strategic goals to support its mission: “The OSC works in a transparent and rigorous manner to provide recognised leadership…
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Further developing the library profession in 2016
In this blog post, Claire Sewell, the OSC’s Research Support Skills Coordinator reflects on a busy year for the professional development of Cambridge library staff. Librarians are always learning and 2016 was a bumper year for training in the Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC). The OSC has taken an active role in professional development since its foundation but things have stepped up since the dedicated training role of Research Support Skills Coordinator was established at the end of 2015. The OSC runs two parallel professional development schemes for library staff: the Supporting Researchers in the 21st Century programme (a continuous programme of training aimed at all staff) and the Research Support Ambassador…
