ResearchGate for Postgraduate Researchers

There's been quite a buzz around ResearchGate over the past 2 years. A few researchers have asked us about it and we've been talking about it among ourselves in ILS. The site's tagline is: 'For Scientists. Access scientific knowledge, and make your research visible' and it is designed to function like LinkedIn but tailored to a scholarly community with additional support for publication lists, data sharing, professional networking, information seeking, and for keeping up with others at an institution or within a specific discipline. This blogger has written a decent overview of the site as well as pros and cons.

ResearchGate bills itself as a 'free' service but, as with all web-based services of its type, it's not really free but happily uses the data you supply it to build its business. As with any 'free' web-based service, make sure you're comfortable with the terms under which you're giving your personal information to the site's owners.

In addition, look carefully at the privacy and notification options when you're signing up. You may inadvertently give ResearchGate permission to send emails to everyone in your contact list and even to contact co-authors on your publications to say that you 'recommend' that they sign up for ResearchGate as well. As you know, a 'recommendation' from one researcher to another can carry a great deal of weight and may seem inappropriate in some situations.

After considering these cautionary words, if you do decide to create a profile and begin using the site, it's another useful way to shape your digital presence, make contacts, share data, keep on top of your reading and network with your peers. If you're interested in other ways to do these same things, consider coming along to an ILS drop in workshop on Publishing and Promoting your Research. We'll be offering them again in Autumn term.

Access to NVivo

We're currently trying to resolve an issue with the NVivo installation on the YSJ Virtual Desktop (VDI) and you will not be able to access it on the VDI for the time being. Our apologies for the downtime. Please send an email to ils@yorksj.ac.uk if this downtime has an impact on your research. If you have a local copy of the software and are notified that the license is expiring, please also contact ils@yorksj.ac.uk to get it updated.

RefWorks - new help tool available

When it comes to storing and using the references you have found, we know many of you are using RefWorks.  As this is the main bibliographic referencing tool to which YSJ subscribes, it is one for which we offer the widest range of support.  We'll be offering the chance to attend bookable group tutorials from the beginning of the next academic year.  In the meantime, please feel free to contact your Academic Liaison Librarian for one-to-one advice.

Further to this, we have developed a step by step guide to setting up and beginning to use a RefWorks account.  This was done in response to a request from a Senior Lecturer in the Children, Young People and Education department (Faculty of Education and Theology).  He wanted an online tool which he could integrate into his teaching and we thought it would help to have this available to everyone.  So, here is the 10 Days of RefWorks programme.  Some of the information will be very familiar to you already, but the bits that cover the mechanics of using the tool may be useful to you if you want to explore it yourself. Also, if you teach any modules, you may want to use it with your own students.