Research News

New e-Resource now available – SCOPUS database

ISS Research Support — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:15:46 +0000

Swansea University Library now has a subscription to SCOPUS.

SCOPUS is the largest abstract and citation database of both peer-reviewed research literature and quality web sources. With nearly 19,500 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide, SCOPUS offers researchers a quick, easy and comprehensive resource to support their research needs in a wide variety of subjects including science, engineering, medicine, health and life sciences, arts and humanities, social sciences, psychology, and economics.

If you are a researcher you can…

…find out who is citing you, and how many citations an article or an author has received.
…use the refine results overview to quickly see the main journals, disciplines and authors that publish in your area of interest.
…uncover important and relevant articles for your topic.

Take a look at these online tutorials to see how SCOPUS can help your research.

Available both on and off campus, you can access SCOPUS using this link to iFind Discover, the library catalogue and click on the Access this resource link (Athens username and password required)

If you need any further help using this new resource please contact your subject librarians

RCUK launches new system for recording “research impact”

ISS Research Support — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:51:37 +0000

Research Councils UK have launched the Research Outcomes System. It has been closely aligned with requirements for the REF and is designed so that researchers can input details of their research at any stage. It will be used by AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC and EPSRC and will record details such as any collaboration in the project, communication and staff development as well as impact.

Social Media for Postgraduate Researchers

ISS Research Support — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:17:16 +0000

Are you a Postgraduate? Don’t miss out on this training session held on Wednesday 23rd Nov 10-12 in PC room 3.

We’ll be looking at 3 tools in this session:

Netvibes (great for organising your online research)
Google Docs (great for collaborating with other students)
Twitter (great for networking and promoting your own research)

Led by Social Media enthusiasts this will be a hands-on training session with lots of opportunity to try out the tools and get expert advice on how these tools can help you in your studies.

This session is being run as part of the Postgraduate Research Programme – to book your place please contact skillstraining@swansea.ac.uk

RIS and Cronfa

ISS Research Support — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:13:35 +0000

RIS is Swansea University’s Research Information System. It is a central repository of research which is only available to staff. All research publications authored or co-authored by Swansea University staff can be uploaded into RIS and it will be used to generate entries for the REF, the annual list of university research etc. You can access it via http://home.swansea.ac.uk

Cronfa means store or reservoir in Welsh. This will make information for university publications available online to the wider academic community and will be searchable by tools such as Google Scholar, increasing the visibility of your research.

For more information and advice contact your college research co-ordinator or your subject librarian.

Let the light shine on your research publications!

ISS Research Support — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 12:39:14 +0000

It is Open Access week. Researchers, librarians, publishers, and research funders are all talking about Open Access. By publishing your work in an OA repostitory or OA journal, you will make it more discoverable by other researchers. The more people read your work, the more likely it is to get cited by others and potentially increase its impact.

As part of OA week, R2RC have published a new guide to publishing for research students: Optimize Your Research

Vitae events for researchers

ISS Research Support — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:01:23 +0000

Here’s a couple of events which are coming up for researchers from Vitae - the UK organisation championing the personal, professional and career development of doctoral researchers and research staff in higher education institutions and research institutes.

For the full list of future events from Vitae visit their web pages http://www.vitae.ac.uk

Careers in Academia, 13 September 2011, Birmingham, for postgraduate researchers

Advancing in Academia, 12 September 2011, Birmingham, for research staff

Review the current higher education environment

Meet with successful academics from a range of disciplines to hear how they advanced their academic career
Understand the balance required between skills, achievements and building your professional profile
Review where you are in your career, where you want to be and how to get there
Ask questions that you’ve always wanted to but weren’t sure who to ask network with fellow researchers
Develop an action plan to strategically manage your career.

GeoConvert updated with new postcode data

ISS Research Support — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:20:44 +0000

GeoConvert has been updated with information derived from the November 2010 version of the National Statistics Postcode Directory (NSPD), produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). All previous matching and conversion information has been retained within GeoConvert for continued use.

Discussions are taking place between ESRC, ONS and the Royal Mail regarding access to updated versions of National Statistics Postcode Directories released after November 2010.

GeoConvert is an online tool with functions providing

• Postcode-related information

• Matching of a range of current and historical UK geographies

• Conversion of data between geographies

and is available at http://geoconvert.mimas.ac.uk.

In addition to the information derived from the NSPD, GeoConvert also provides a direct matching of postcodes to LSOA-level Index of Multiple Deprivation 2007 information, developed by Communities and Local Government, as well as Index of Multiple Deprivation 2004 information.

GeoConvert’s functions are based on analysis of information contained in versions of the NSPD. The NSPD and its precursors contain a wealth of useful information about the changing relationships between a wide range of the different and changing geographies used within the UK (postcodes, super output areas, wards, primary care trusts, etc, amongst around 40 others). However, in their raw state, the size of these datasets, and the complexity of the methods required to identify relationships between geographies can soak up valuable time and resources, and present a considerable deterrent to their use.

The main aims of GeoConvert are to simplify and expand the use made of the information contained in the postcode directories within the UK academic community by providing a range of commonly required functions that are quick and easy to use, and are based upon robust and consistent methods.

GeoConvert is available free of charge to members of UK academic organisations. Details of how to register in order to use GeoConvert, as well as other services provided by the ESRC Census Programme are available on the Census.ac.uk website at http://census.ac.uk/Register_start.aspx.

GeoConvert has been developed by the Census Dissemination Unit (CDU), based within Mimas at the University of Manchester. The CDU is one of the units of the ESRC Census Programme.

The effect of crowdsourcing on research

ISS Research Support — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:38:08 +0000

An article in the Guardian looks at whether crowdsourcing – getting the public to contribute to research through internet technology – affects the results of that research. Crowdsourcing projects include the JISC dictionary of Scottish words contributed to by the public, the old weather project which asks the public to transcribe Royal Navy log books and Oxford University’s Galaxy Zoo which asks the public to describe astronomical images.

E-Journals and research outcomes: a new RIN report

ISS Research Support — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:36:27 +0000

The Research Information Network has produced a report looking at the connection between the use of e-journals and research outcomes. Among their findings it shows that high levels of expenditure on e-journals together with high levels of use can aid research success, although a subscription to a new journal can take about 3 years to make an impact. Spending on library budgets however, has not kept pace with other university spending.

The full report is available at: http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Ejournals_part_II_for_screen_0.pdf

HEFCE Guidance to REF Panels

ISS Research Support — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:33:53 +0000

Hefce have today also published guidance for the REF panels … ‘on developing their assessment criteria and working methods’.