Why you should manage your research data

JISC is publishing a new guide: “How and why you should manage your research data: a guide for researchers.An introduction to engaging with research data management processes.”
JISC is the UK higher, further education and skills sectors’ not-for-profit organisation for digital services and solutions.
This guide provides an introduction to engaging with research data management processes and is dedicated to researchers and research data management support staff.

As for JISC, most of the activities involved are: naming files so you can find them quickly; keeping track of different versions, and deleting those not needed; backing up valuable data and controlling who has access to your data.

Apart from this very interesting and useful guide, JISC recommends the following training programmes available online, mostly originating from Jisc funding:

• Mantra – a free online course designed for researchers or others who manage digital data as part of a research project
• TraD – includes a blended learning course for those in (or expecting to be in) research data management support roles
• RDMRose – an open educational resource for information professionals on research data management

How do scholars share articles?

Sharing of scholarly articles is widespread and increasing. The Beyond Downloads project (Elsevier) looks at scholars’ sharing behavior and what download counts are missing to better measure the reach —and impact — of a library’s resources.

This is an example of the answer to the question:

Find out more responses from 1,000 faculty members, researchers and PhD/master’s students.

Forrester Playbooks provide integrated reports

Forrester’s Playbook framework organizes Forrester research content and services with a lifecycle approach.

Each Playbook comprises an Executive Overview and 12 reports with integrated tools and templates. In addition to the core research, the Playbook experience can be customized with global data, peer communities, and analyst engagements:

• Data-driven insights into changing behaviors
• Collaboration with peers at other companies who are facing or have faced similar challenges.
• Time with analysts through structured workshops, one-on-one advisory sessions, or deeper consulting support.

See here the list of available Playbooks

How does a playbook work? (video)

Example of a Playbook

Here is useful information on how to get access to Forrester (Library website)

Atlas: Elsevier’s new virtual journal

 Atlas is a new virtual journal launched by Elsevier that publishes articles with a social impact, chosen from across science, social sciences, technology and health.

With the slogan “Research for a better world”, it aims at showing the value of science and scientific publishing in ways that resonate with global challenges. Researchers are well placed to explain concepts, but journalists can bring the crucial attention needed to integrate science into society. Each month Atlas will showcase research that can (or already has) significantly impact people’s lives around the world. Atlas articles will fall into four broad categories: people, planet, resources, and technology.

Each article is chosen by an external advisory board that includes representatives of some of the world’s most renowned non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They choose from a shortlist of articles suggested by the Publishers of Elsevier’s 1,800+ journals. The key criterion for selection is the social impact of the research. Then, Atlas’s science writers summarize the research in an easy-to-understand story. The selected articles will also be made freely available on ScienceDirect, which the library subscribes to.

Twitter profile of the month

@researchwhisper shepherds you through the arcane world of academic research, funding, + building that track-record.

The account is supported by the The Research Whisperer blog, which is dedicated to the topic of doing research in academia. The authors Jonathan O’Donnell (@jod999) and Tseen Khoo (@tseenster) talk about finding funding, research culture, and building academic track-records.

Can you change your research communication practice in a few years? @tseenster did. http://t.co/irkrnWVUxG #ecrchat #phdchat

— Research Whisperer (@researchwhisper) May 11, 2015

My Research Dashboard

If you want to find out at a glance how your work is performing, then you might be interested in testing “MyResearchDashboard“, a tool created by Elsevier. It enables you to know how your work is being viewed, cited and shared.

This tool helps you get early indicators of how and where your work has the most impact and with which audiences, within a few weeks after its publication. You can track this impact over time and cross all your publications (Elsevier and non-Elsevier publications) and see the number of views and citations each of them has received.

You can access real-time metrics and also metrics dating back 10 years. You can also monitor how your publications are being shared on Mendeley. You will also gain insight into how your work is being compared to other publications.

My Research Dashboard connects Scopus, ScienceDirect and Mendeley. Scopus is an abstract and citation database that represents 5,000 publishers. ScienceDirect is home to almost 16% of the world’s peer-reviewed content and Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that helps you organize your documents, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research in your field.

Register here to My Research Dashboard. The Library will be happy to help you register.

Ethics in research

A post written by Sarah Tanksalvala on Thomson Reuters EndNote blog deals with the concept of ethical research. Here are a few insights.

Everyone knows plagiarism is wrong, but whatever your academic discipline, the concept of “ethical research” roams into a lot of gray areas.

For example, did you know that the number of participants, or the way you ask someone for an interview, can determine whether your research is ethical or not? Or that the scientific method is an ethical issue?

Dubious research practices can be damaging to both participants and academia, and it’s also one of the fastest ways possible to damage your reputation. When planning any research study, there are a number of things you’ll need to take into account.

Method matters

Regardless of the study, the most fundamental aspect of ethical research – unless there’s a technology failure – is sticking to the scientific method.

“If you don’t like the data, you may change your hypothesis or better yet, design a better experiment,” says Richard Hichwa (professor and senior associate vice president for research, the University of Iowa). “The thought process of ‘the hypothesis and data don’t match, so I can tweak it to make it match,’ that’s a shady perspective.”

This is important for more than reasons of academic honesty, though. If the next steps of your research involve human participants, you need to know exactly what value you’ll get from the experiment and if it warrants the risks to your participants. If your original studies were flawed or tweaked, you won’t know this.

Use your subjects wisely

If there’s no risk to a participant (such as with a survey), you have more flexibility in the number of people you choose to participate.

When you are conducting research that involves human subjects, participation must be purely voluntary, and you must avoid using language which pushes the participant to do things they might not want to do.

Even asking for an interview can be problematic if you phrase your request in a way that makes them feel obligated or pressured, such as, “I’d really appreciate it if I could interview you.”, especially when dealing with vulnerable populations. Even after they accept, you must maintain this standard of voluntary participation, so subjects know they are not obligated to go any further.

It is also crucial that you maintain the privacy and confidentiality of your subjects unless they voluntarily – and without any pressure – give you permission to record or identify them in some way.

Read more here

Research Apps for your mobile device

With the growing use of mobile devices in both daily and academic life, databases and other online resources are increasingly providing mobile access or developing applications to support their platforms.

Two recent examples of this are:

• Emerald
• Ebsco

Emerald  is a leading publisher of journals and books in the business and management domains.
Few month ago, Emerald has released a free application for iPad and iPhone which provides access to 100 000 journal articles, available from the app store.

Here’s how:

Emerald

Open the app store and search for ‘Emerald’
Select and download the free app

 Once downloaded, open the application.

You will be met with the home page, as below

 You can search for articles using the simple search field. 

Your results will be displayed in the form of icons depicting each article title.

NB:  If you are connected to the HEC Wifi network you will also be able to get the PDF full text for each article.

The “Read Full-Text” icon will take you to an article summary page (redirected via your browser) with the option to view the article in full, PDF format in the tool bar on the right hand side of the screen.

 

 

 

The app also allows you to :

•  browse journals by title, by tapping the ‘Browse Journals icon’ to view all available journals alphabetically (as shown below)

 

 

EBSCO

EBSCO uses a platform via your browser to offer mobile access to articles

To gain access, go to the HEC Library website –> Electronic Resources –> Databases A-Z
Scroll down alphabetically to find an EBSCO database, for example Business Source Complete, and touch Access EBSCO databases on your mobile device

 

 

Tap the EBSCOhost Mobile application is tailor-made for the smaller screens of mobile devices icon

 Select one or several databases on the list by ticking the relevant boxes on the left hand side, before selecting ‘continue’

Perform your search as you would normally, providing key words in the search boxes and drop down menus

 

From the list of results, you can get access to an article summary, or to the full text by tapping ‘PDF full text’

 

 

The article will appear on your screen, as below

 

 

 

For further information on any of the above, do not hesitate to contact the library 😉

Finding the right title

Professor Patrick Dunleavy of LSE highlights the importance of choosing a good title for your work, in his recent article ‘’Why do academics choose useless titles for articles and chapters? Four steps to getting a better title’’

Dunleavy highlights the importance of an informative title, in order to maximize both readership and impact of your article. 

He  questions the ‘professional obligation’ of academics to be ‘deliberately and carefully obscure,’ and the perceived ‘reckless’ nature of including arguments and findings within the article title itself.

In a tongue in cheek fashion, he ironically explains a six point plan ‘how to design a completely uninformative title,’ satiring the stereotypical approach of choosing a title that echoes every other article, obscurities, and vague interrogation amongst others, before providing four steps to creating better titles. Critically comparing alternatives, ensuring key words are present and picked up in a sub-title or sub-heading, and proposing a full narrative title are just a few suggestions.

Why is this relevant?

Keywords in the article title, which are recognized within search algorithms on platforms such as Google Scholar, will allow greater visibility of works as they appear higher up in relevant search results.

Furthermore, a catchy title will not only inspire fellow researchers to delve further into your work, but will also resonate with a certain amount of memory recall;  be it to come back to the article to read later, or to cite in their own papers.

Increasing readership and prominence of work not only validates its credibility, but also furthers research in the same area.

Dunleavy, Patrick. Why do academics choose useless titles for articles and chapters? Four steps to getting a better title. Impact of Social Sciences (Blog), February 5, 2014.

New service on offer: Multi-Source search of HEC classified journals

 Which journals classified by HEC (A, B +, B or C) dealt with the subjects “Earnings Management” or “Financial Distress” the most over the last 10 years?

Which journals have published the most authors from HEC Paris?

If you want the answers to this type of question, ask the library for the answer!

We have implemented a multi source search of all journals ranked by HEC, across a wide range of research fields. The results will be presented in the form of an excel file containing the relevant algorithm results from Ebsco and will be sortable by many fields (name of journal, author, letter from HEC ranking …).

In addition, each article posted contains links to the full text, with remote access

Contact us for more details.