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Skills, Skills, Skills: How Northumbria Supports Researchers
- 1. Skills Skills Skills How Northumbria Supports Researchers Michelle Walker November 2015
- 9. Skills Plus
- 10. 60-70% conversion from bookings to attendance 90% + agreed or strongly agreed “I now feel more confident about the topic” 70-80% attendance is PGR Students 20-30% are Staff and ECRs 14 average number of attendances per session in November 2015
- 11. 223 262 250 202 440 228 311 182 228 Nov-11 Mar-12 Nov-12 Mar-13 Nov-13 Mar-14 Nov-14 Mar-15 Nov-15 Attendance RDW Attendance Nov 2011–Nov 2015
- 12. Research and collaboration using web tools and social media “Very friendly, well presented and extremely informative.” Mindmapping for researchers “It’s a great tool that can be used in many areas of my job from teaching, planning, researching etc.” Keeping-up-to-date with new research “Clear demonstration of how to set up feeds; lots of real-time examples. Thanks!” Searching for your literature review “It was all very clear. Lots of useful hints and tips.”
- 13. Reference support • EndNote 2 hour workshops only for PGR and Staff • Introduction monthly • Advanced bi or tri monthly • Crucially outside of RDW to avoid staff and customer overload! • One to ones available also • Online support via Skills plus and webpages
- 14. Researcher skills development 2014-15 Faculty RDW Attendance Bespoke Training Attendance Individual consult- ations EndNote work- shops Total Attendances AD&SS 162 61 8 32 263 E&E 238 54 2 33 327 H&LS 211 0 17 46 274 B&L 90 83 2 18 193 Other staff or deps /not known 19 RBS:28 Grad. School Induction: 148 11 0 206 Total 720 374 40 129 1263
- 15. Skills for All Researchers
- 20. Northumbria University - Research Support: The Essentials June 2015
- 21. Partner session - Developing Partnerships with Industry “Good examples of existing and developed partnerships” From an external attendee “We found it invaluable to talk to researchers face to face” From a researcher “I came away with all my questions about EndNote answered and I found out about library databases I might use” From internal staff “Professionally organised and executed – everything I needed was ready and communicated well.”
- 22. Breakdown of Attendance July 2015 PGR students Staff Staff doctorate ECR Breakdown of Attendance July 2014 PGR students Staff Research staff other PGs 172 322 112 227 Jul-14 Jul-15 Bookings Attendances
- 25. Collaboration
- 28. Publicity • Quality design to the programme leaflet • Attention to detail • having a marketing timeline • Using multiple streams - email, social media, QR codes, wipeboards
- 31. • Northumbria University’s Vision • Research Compass • Research Skills including social media videos • Researcher Development Programme • Information for researchers • ALISS Quarterly bitesize article Email: as.researchskills@northumbria.ac.uk Useful links
Editor's Notes
- Skills, Skills, Skills: How Northumbria supports researchers Skills for researchers Skills for all researchers Skills for Librarians This session will cover the variety of methods used to deliver skills, the benefits for researchers from this coordinated approach to research skills and the ongoing advantages for research support staff in being aware of the support, services and training offered across the university. There will also be insight into the practical side of developing and running such programmes including preparation, marketing, logistics and evaluation.
- A research-rich, business-focused, professional university with a global reputation for academic excellence…between 2013 and 2018 we will: Build global reputation, market position and revenue streams Grow high quality research and use it to drive excellence in all of our activities Maximise student and stakeholder satisfaction Strengthen operational efficiency and effectiveness, and foster a culture of continuous improvement We are the top 50 for research power in the latest REF http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01925/Northumbria_1925196b.jpg
- We have spent time articulating what we can offer to the research community at the university. We created the research compass to articulate how the Library can support research at each stage of the process. This was presented at the university’s research conference and we have received positive feedback about this It has resulted in a change in the mindset of academic staff into the Library being a service for researchers too, rather than just for students. They didn’t realised the Library could do so much to support them.
- Northumbria University Library has a well-established training programme and bank of online resources for post graduate researchers and academic staff. All of this provision aims to support the development of knowledge, core competencies and transferable skills as identified in the Seven Pillars and maps to Vitae’s Researcher Development Framework (RDF). We will firstly concentrate on the main event our - researcher development weeks
- Induction / new researchers Our webpages are focussed on information for… researchers and we adapt and update these regularly. We have good relationships with the Graduate School and so we are part of the induction process for new students. We are able to very briefly highlight key areas such as research zones, Researcher development week, Skills Plus (our online training repository, ORCID and the Institutional repository, NRL) We provide a leaflet on the Library services and resources specifically for research. This is used for inductions, publicity stands, meetings etc. We offer one to one sessions for all new PGR students at Induction - the take up is modest but those that do really appreciate the help.
- Researcher Development Week programme: http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/skillsdev-resdev Researcher development week (RDW) is our flag ship programme and has run in November and March since 2010 and has grown from strength to strength during this time. I led this from the beginning and we deliberately chose to run week long intensive blocks to create a buzz and an identifiable brand. And we have done that - It is a well known LIBRARY training event in the academic calendar and a good proportion of 1st year Post graduate researchers attend. Over this time the sessions have constantly evolved and been updated through our evaluation processes . Sessions have been retired and new ones born. We make no assumptions about Information Literacy. Some research students have not grasped the basics of a search strategy, some are very experienced. Therefore each of our sessions has to confirm the basics, but then also challenge a researchers personal limits and push the attendees a stage further on their own personal journey. It is a difficult balance but we strive to improve sessions every time they are run through peer observation and user feedback. We spend a significant portion of time in creating and running these 2 weeks and they are our main mechanism for reaching PGR students face to face.
- The week comprises of workshops of 1.5 hours and bitesize briefings of 45mins. We run workshops on Searching for your Literature review, Measuring research performance, Keeping up to Date, research and collaboration with web tools and social media, Open Access and Copyright We create a small number of leaflets to advertise the programme (in previous years we have also created posters but these were stopped to reduce costs and we have not noted any dip in attendances). Our primary method of advertising is via specific email lists to all PGR students and all academic staff. We send 2 emails - 1, 3 or 4 weeks before and another a week before asking people to book and attaching a link to the PDF. We also advertise on our webpages and via social media, but from our analysis we can see the biggest spike in bookings is always after an email is sent. We previously booked people in via email and manually created attendance lists, but it was very time consuming so we introduced LibCal booking system and it largely looks after itself with very little work required by us.
- Our most popular sessions are the Planning and Searching for your literature review sessions and so we have taken steps to create a online package to support those unable to attend such as part time or distance PGRs. It also allows those champing at the bit to start accessing support if they want to get moving because PhDs can arrive at any time although the majority arrive in September and January. A pre-requisite of attending is to work through Introduction to literature searching for your literature review online package which is available on Skills Plus. This covers an overview of literature reviews, and introduces key search techniques and resources. We have also piloting twilight sessions and we now have a regular later 5pm slot for literature review for each RDW. We will obviously see people on an individual basis outside of RDW sessions, but as a first line of enquiry they are also referred to the online package so we can focus our time with them.
- We create presentations in Powerpoint and prezi, but we also have handouts and other learning objects such as videos or camtasias. These are all housed in Skills Plus. www.northumbria.ac.uk/researchskills We highlight these to researchers when we first meet them but also remind people at RDW that they can go back and look at these 24/7 Our materials regularly make it into the monthly top 10 most viewed items on Skills Plus. We review all materials after every week/event but also we create new guides or convert into different formats depending on feedback from staff and students. The most recent guides developed have been an Altmetrics handout to complement and support 2 sessions on social media and research impact and we have used an iPad and sound recorder to record a member of academic staff talking about his experiences of using social media to support his PhD. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/nuskillsplus and Skills Plus http://nuweb2.northumbria.ac.uk/library/skillsplus/sublist.html?socialmedia. My colleague, Suzie Kitchin, has written an article published in ALISS quarterly on this and I have provided a link at the end of the presentation Title: Good things come in small packages - developing online bitesize learning objects for researchers http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/21375/3/ALISS_Quartlerly_article_(1).pdf
- Evaluation and evidence - Facts and Figures over the years Our conversion from bookings to actual attendance is around 60-70% over the last few RDWs The response rate on our online questionnaire is between 40-60% And the satisfaction rate is always 90% plus of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “I now feel more confident about the topic”. Typically our main audience is PhD students 70-80% but we do have a healthy number of staff and ECRs attending (we have recently begun to try to count these separately as there is a need to evidence to show we are supporting ECRs).
- November RDWs are always busier due to higher intake of new students in September November 2013 had a big intake of phD students and a spike in attendance. March 2015 had a very low attendance at Coach Lane (our other campus) November 2015 had a reduced number of sessions due to staff sickness so attendance would not have been as high But a very good consistent attendance which is the envy of many! We produce short reports for library management and graduate school each November and March and then a summary of the year.
- Feedback! So after RDW we send out electronic questionnaires to all attendees and gather this feedback, plus we gather comments from any peer observers and from each deliverer (as we can have 3 or 4 sessions of the same) We have a feedback meeting where all deliverers discuss the week in general and decide upon improvements or changes. The developer of each session has already looked over all feedback and constructs a summary to feedback to the meeting and highlights positive and negative comments. They also then say what they will change or develop for the next RDW. This is all documented.
- We separate EndNote training from RDW Logistically it’s a lot to timetable and it creates many queries afterwards so the workload would be too intense. Also we do things differently in that we offer monthly sessions throughout the year, rather week long intensive blocks so it makes sense to treat these separately We have online supporting materials including helpguides and videos to support, so people can take self-directed learning if they choose We offer one to ones so we can help with complex queries. We are now providing support for other referencing software such as Mendeley
- Researcher skills development 2014-15 Throughout 2014-15 the University Library’s Research Skills team delivered a wide range of research skills workshops and bitesize briefings. The major delivery took place during the Researcher Development Weeks (RDW) in November and March and the event, Research Support: The Essentials, which was also supported by Research and Business Services and the Graduate School. We have worked with faculties to embed researcher training into their research programmes as they do offer their own specific programmes to a greater or lesser degree.
- The difficulty with researchers is that there are very few compulsory elements to touch base with researchers on their journey Induction is very short at Northumbria. And the Viva, ethics training of which the Library does not deliver. So we felt we were not reaching all the researchers we would like to This section will chart the last 2 years of the researcher event a collaborative work with other internal and external stakeholders
- The researcher development framework (RDF) by Vitae. Unlike Undergraduates there are levels you can map the competences of the seven pillars onto and interventions with assignments to measure understanding, lecturers to engage with. A researcher has a personal journey and each person requires different skills at different times – The RDF is applicable to a researcher at any stage of their research career. And that is why a holistic event was a good idea - we could then address all areas of the RDF in some shape or form and researchers could see more clearly how the RDF mapped onto the provision given by different internal departments. It also then had the potential to reach researchers at different stages of their careers by offering funding and data management and ‘traditional’ library ‘stuff’ an ECR might be interested in 1 workshop, but reading further try booking a couple more. Or a supervisor might direct their students to sessions on funding in readiness for a career in research. Previously they might have thought the RDW - is not for me and deleted the email. We purposely linked the RDF domains in both the publicity and the presentations. All our training from the Library maps to the RDF and we demonstrate this to attendees. We can see clear linkages to certain areas - but not all. And there are areas in which our internal colleagues in Research and Business Service (RBS) and HR have expertise
- So we decided to try something new in 2014. Something we had not done before And the Researcher Development Event was born Previously we were joined up in that we, as departments (HR, graduate school & RBS) , tried to avoid training clashes and we did have some discussions about overlap of content but we had not formally worked together as departments to create an event. We decided to aim at this event at Early career researchers (Post Phds) and staff undertaking research. PGRs could attend but previous feedback had suggested the timings of November and March in term time meant a low attendance by staff and it was this audience which was core to all of us. We settled on June/July – after the deadline for marking but before congregations, so staff should generally be around and be available.
- So now rather than just a Library event, it was a University research event. And we were creating a holistic view and approach to researcher development We brought together all aspects of the research lifecycle from starting your research, getting funding, accumulating and managing information, storing data, analysing your findings and Communicating and publishing your work. And as from the remembering the RDF in previous slides and the highlighted sections we now touched on virtually every area in the space of a week and we were (hopefully) catering for researchers at all levels and stages.
- Logistically the library had processes and systems already in place for dealing with publicity, bookings and management of the RDW. All this production line and timescales swung into action to manage the event. And since it was such a success in 2014 we repeated this in 2015. (we also slightly changed the name for 2015) It wasn’t quite as difficult second time around as we had already a rough timetable of sessions and agreement on the name. The first time with such a long lead in time getting the principles agreed, it left very little time or money to create brand new sparkling content, so rather than give up, we reused and repeated, cloned what we already had. The showcase was brand new, the Q&As on Endnote and Open Access were new. The data management briefing and the RBS workshops reused and repackaged content from a much longer workshops. The library sessions were updated but essentially repeated from March
- Something new I wanted to do was to bring the departments and services physically came together - so we created a showcase. An event during the week with stands and demonstrations (and free lunch) for staff and researchers to attend to meet key internal contacts such as the Library, IT services, RBS and the Graduate School. We also invited externals such as Adept scientific (Endnote) and Ethos at the British Library in 2014 And in 2015 EndNote and the Digital Curation Centre attended the showcase and ran sessions. The student branch of the IEEE also attended This event had a number of benefits - people made connections. Internal departments make connections The physicality of being in the same room and just talking rather than having a meeting and an agenda was invaluable for staff and researchers. You could see people asking questions and having some of it answered but then being guided to another stand and saying ‘Rob can help you with the other part of your query’ and researchers seeing the linkages Researchers networked with each other across departments and it was good to see a little bit of community amongst generally quite isolated groups. .
- Feedback The externals gathered great feedback and we got good feedback from the attendees at the Showcase
- And the event has gone from strength to strength Breakdown of Attendance We did change our categories during the course of the year to reflect new priorities and measurements we wanted to record. But roughly July 2014 and July 2015 roughly equal staff and PhD students attended Despite offering 18 sessions in 2015 compared to 15 in 2014 we more than doubled our attendances.
- You have to have motivation and invest in such an event. It takes a lot of planning to get something off the ground across several departments It was blood, sweat and tears… and diplomacy in 2013/14 This was my marathon and I ran every step doggedly. We had various hiccups and set backs: Lost rooms - unscheduled building works in the library meant we had to relocate to another venue in 2014 outside of the library and across 2 buildings. From our feedback, For 2015 we strongly pushed and got all the sessions and the space scheduled in the Library. Our partners wanted to be based there too and our hunch was justified the feedback was very positive and all felt it had a great atmosphere to have the sessions and the showcase in one area. Securing funding for the free lunch for the showcase in 2014 was difficult, in 2015 the event had a track record so it was a little easier to get this!
- What I and my colleagues learnt and improved along the way.
- Collaboration and understanding For ourselves in the library and colleagues in HR, Graduate schools and RBS: Through working together and having to understand each others materials, we benefitted by a better understanding of each others work Involvement in research conference This has gone onto create knowledge and a better referral system for researchers to find the ‘right’ people We have continued our collaboration activities and created 2 new jointly run sessions with RBS called ‘introduction to research for staff’ and ‘Introduction to research for ECRs’
- Tenacity and for the greater good Setting up the event we were ultra careful that although we suggested it, organised a good portion of it, that we were still working collaboratively and consulted our colleagues. We were in this for the long haul not short term glory. So we even adjusted the order of the departments in different places on publicity so the Library was not always first!
- Continuous Improvement and development of sessions and materials - always raising the bar higher Research skills improved New processes devised We have a system of developers and deliverers. We share these roles and so I was developer on 2 sessions, but I was experienced enough to deliver approx 6 sessions We were aiming for experience in knowledge and continued development of the materials, but also peer observation and new insights. We would allow staff to peer observe a session and the next time would be the opportunity to deliver the session themselves. This increased confidence in enquiries for those who joined the team from other areas. New insight into developing the sessions because we took evaluation very seriously and would adapt and tweak sessions each time. It also meant we could be flexible in our timetabling (especially for plans for faculty engagement) and to kept professional development alive, rather than ploughing the same furrow. We are developing relationships with several academics and asking their feedback and also any real life examples of impact to use as case studies to use in teaching as a method of giving our teaching some extra bite. Research Skills Improved Speaking with more staff and researchers makes us better at understanding what researchers want and also pitching it at the right level. Not completing a PhD overselves means we have to build up this knowledge. We have had to create what we do from scratch - nothing like this was in place before so we have improved and grown too.
- Publicity, Marketing ourselves properly and having an eye for detail
- Planning & Teamwork We have done this for years and over that time have got a very detailed checklist which covers literally everything from creation of the timetable to publicity to writing the report at the end. This is just a snapshot of 2 pages, but for a team of at one point of several people working together with different working patterns it was the best way to order these in time critical order and divide up the tasks and everyone had specific work to do to contribute to the overall event.
- Professionalism and dedication We have been praised for our thoroughness and professionalism and our reputation for the RDW is known around the university as a successful event. Our personal professional development - myself and colleagues have writtn articles, presented at conferences and events about what we are doing.