In 2017, a trial of different Electronic Lab Notebook providers ran across the University to investigate the possibility of deployment (or recommendation) of a product for use at Campus, School or Departmental level. However, the results of this trial confirmed that in Cambridge, even within a single department, the diversity of research interests, workflows and individual preferences makes it practically impossible to identify a single product that would suit everyone.
As a result of the trial, a guidance page on the different ELN providers and what to think about when picking one has been created along with a discussion forum for users or prospective users to get advice.
You can find this guidance on the Gurdon Institute webpage.
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The Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives and European Research Infrastructure Consortium (CESSDA ERIC) has announced the launch of an online expert tour guide aiming to help social scientists make their research data findable, understandable, sustainably accessible and reusable. This guide is the result of eleven social sciences data archives joining forces to provide advice on data management across the research data life cycle.
The expert tour guide was created to introduce the concepts of data management and provide guidance to researchers. With this tour guide, CESSDA wants to contribute to increased professionalism in data management and to improve the value of research data. A downloadable checklist helps researchers who need to create a Data Management Plan.
Find out more and visit the online guide at the CESSDA ERIC website.
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Writing on the Unlocking Research blog, Clair Castle provides reflections on the IFLA Satellite Meeting 2017 in Warsaw, Poland. Castle attended in order to present a paper on Data Curator’s Roles and Responsibilities, which fitted nicely into the conference theme of data curation.
Speakers touched upon themes including upskilling librarians, the role of IT in data curation and discussing the evolution of the definition of ‘data curation’. The conference featured a number of fascinating talks and points of discussion, and most papers presented are available to read online.
Read the blog on Unlocking Research.
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The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released an OECD Global Science Forum and CODATA Report on Business Models for Sustainable Research Data Repositories.
This report explores the large variety of repositories responsible for providing long-term access to data. As the volumes of data and open access demands increase, financial pressures are increasing on these repositories and may threaten their long-term sustainability.
Read the report on the OECD iLibrary.
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Writing on the Scholarly Kitchen, Todd A. Carpenter discusses the current climate for marketing books and posits that enriching metadata should be seen as a marketing investment.
Since delivering a book to the reader increasingly involves online discovery but browsing online is notoriously difficult, Carpenter suggests that metadata may well be the key to supporting unintended discovery.
Find out more about how metadata can be a marketing tool on the Scholarly Kitchen blog.
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Some have responded to the replication crisis with measures including registered reports and making research data open access. This ‘replication crisis’ refers to incidents such as an infamous Science article which attempted to replicate 100 published studies only to find two thirds of these could not reproduce the “statistically significant” results of the original study. However, some scientists refuse to accept that there is a replication crisis.
Find out more about the replication crisis and the responses of the scientific community on The Wire.
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Following the Engaging Researchers in Good Data Management conference on 15 November 2017, Katie Hughes and Lucy Welch report in the Unlocking Research blog about one of the focus group discussions that took place on the day.
This focus group, led by Marta Teperek of Delft University of Technology, discussed how those working with researchers promoting good data management can effectively measure cultural change. A crucial point of discussion was how ‘cultural change’ should be defined, since defining cultural change is essential in order to devise methods to measure it.
Find out more and read the blog on Unlocking Research.
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Thursday 11 January, Online
In summer 2017, OpenAIRE and the FAIR data expert group ran a survey on the European Commission’s approach to Data Management Plans and the FAIR guidelines on data management.
On Thursday 11 January 2018, Ellen Leenarts (DANS-KNAW) and Sarah Jones (DCC) will present the results.
Find out more and register in advance via the OpenAIRE website.
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Thursday 25 January, London
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are offering researchers a one-day media training session providing the opportunity to develop practical media skills in a safe environment. This training intends to help researchers get comfortable handling media interviews and will feature small group settings run by journalists.
This training will be running once per month throughout 2018 in various locations, with the first taking place on Thursday 25 January in London. Find out more and book your place on the ESRC website.
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21-23 March, Göttingen, Germany
The deadline for abstract submissions to the Göttingen-CODATA Symposium 2018 on ‘the critical role of university research data management infrastructure in transforming data to knowledge’ has been extended. There are a number of themes, including success, sustainability and champions and engagement.
Find out more and apply by Monday 15 January 2018 via the CODATA website.
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10-11 May
Cambridge
Over two days in Cambridge, UK, the eLife Innovation Sprint intends to bring together contributors from across sectors to come together to collaboratively prototype new innovations for research communication.
The eLife Innovation Initiative has been working to improve the way researchers discover, share, consume and evaluate research by developing open-source technologies in-house and also in collaboration with the wider community. eLife hopes that the Innovation Sprint will provide space, time and access to diverse skillsets for the community to develop their ideas into prototypes, create new ideas and forge new collaborations.
Register your interest and find out more via the eLife website.
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Have your research turned into a story for the Science Festival!
As part of the University Science Festival, the Office of Scholarly Communication will be hosting a storytelling event for families with Marion Leeper, the first Bard of Cambridge. We are looking for keen researchers with interesting areas of study to join us and see their research interpreted in a whole new light.
The OSC are seeking researchers from each of the 6 Schools to join us in a new public event aimed at sharing University of Cambridge’s open research with members of the community in a unique and novel way.
To be eligible to apply to take part in this event you will:
• Be a current researcher at the University of Cambridge
• Have your research output in the Apollo repository; including, but not limited to, data, research paper, photograph.
For more details on how to apply before 6pm 31st January visit the OSC website.
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A competition has been launched by The University of Cambridge, SPARC Europe and Jisc to elicit new and imaginative ideas for engaging researchers in the practices of good Research Data Management (RDM). This builds on the Engaging Researchers in Good Data Management Conference that took place at the University of Cambridge in November 2017. One submission will be chosen as the winner and up to £1750 awarded to bring it to life.
Find out more and apply by noon, Wednesday 31 January via the Cambridge Research Data Management website.
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The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) is seeking a Research Data Management Officer who will be instrumental in determining and implementing the ICR’s Research Data Management (RDM) policy. The ICR’s Research Strategy features increased emphasis on Big Data and the role represents a unique opportunity to work on this rapidly developing and transformative technology.
The main purpose of the RDM Officer is to help scientists to manage their research data through the lifecycle from creation to long-term curation. The successful candidate will work directly with the ICR’s researchers to capture their functional requirements, to put into place the systems and processes to meet those requirements, and to ensure the data is held securely and safely.
Find out more and apply by 11.55pm on Sunday 14 January via the ICR website.
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The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) at the University of Edinburgh are advertising for a Research Data Specialist who will take the lead in the DCC’s programme of skills development. There will also be the opportunity for the successful candidate to work on other DCC projects which in recent months have included consultancy for universities in the UK and Malaysia, for funders such as the ERC and Wellcome Trust and for UK national research facilities.
Find out more and apply by 5pm on Monday 15 January via the DCC website.
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King’s College London is seeking a researcher to work on a new EU project investigating the use of participatory software platforms for community engagement and crowdsourcing around digital archives and data, with the aim of creating digital spaces for reflection and dialogue to support peace education and reconciliation in societies emerging from conflict.
The project will use data analytics to investigate how user communities interact with and respond to the platform, and to evaluate its impact. More broadly, the project aims to address the potential applications of data in a development context, and to build sustainable partnerships and capacity in digital content technologies with industry and university partners in the region.
Find out more and apply by Monday 15 January via the King’s College London website.
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The Priddy Library at the University of Maryland is seeking a Data Services & Management Subject Specialist Librarian. The successful candidate will lead the development and provision of the Data Management and Visualization Lab. Working closely with faculty, students, and staff, the Librarian will build relationships in order to support research and teaching with a focus on promoting and providing data services for finding, manipulating, analyzing, visualizing and managing data.
Find out more and apply by Tuesday 16 January via the University of Maryland website.
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The University of Cambridge has created a new role of Chief Operating Officer, a member of Cambridge University Library's Senior Leadership Team. The Chief Operating Officer will provide strategic leadership and oversight for core operations supporting the business, efficiency and effectiveness of the library service.
The post-holder will lead a wide portfolio across Planning and Governance, HR, Finance, Communications and Marketing, Building Services and Commercial Enterprise. The role requires substantial equivalent experience working in a complex organisational environment and will be responsible for coordination and collaboration across other parts of the University, including Schools and Colleges.
Find out more and apply by Sunday 21 January via the University of Cambridge website.
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The Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, are seeking a dynamic academic as a Lecturer or Senior Lecturer in Statistics and Data Science. The appointee will undertake undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in statistics and data science, including in the applied statistics programmes. They will promote learning among students with a wide range of mathematical backgrounds. They will undertake supervision of postgraduate research students, seek external research funding, and maintain a research programme of international standard.
The appointee will also contribute to building on the University's engagement with public and private sector stakeholders in statistics and data science, including through externally funded research.
Find out more and apply by Wednesday 31 January 2018 via the Victoria University of Wellington website.
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The University of Massachusetts Medical School are seeking a Research and Scholarly Communication Manager to lead and support Library staff in developing and implementing innovative and effective services that advocate new models of scholarly communication in the sciences.
This position is responsible for planning, setting goals, setting priorities, and designing and monitoring workflow of the department. The Research and Scholarly Communication Manager builds partnerships and coordinates activities with the Office of Research.
Find out more and apply (no deadline) via the University of Massachusetts Medical School website.
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The University of Cincinnati Libraries is advertising for Data Visualization Specialist to develop a distinctive program of support in data visualization that enables innovations in both teaching and research. The Specialist will manage the Libraries’ new Visualization Laboratory, a groundbreaking collaborative space with a large multi-screen visualization wall.
The Specialist joins the Researcher Services team, a cross-disciplinary group engaging faculty and students in the areas of data management and analysis, scholarly communications, GIS, and bio/informatics. This is a full-time position at a two-year appointment.
Find out more and apply (no deadline) via the University of Cincinnati website.
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The Wellcome Trust is inviting applications for research enrichment funding. This funding enables current Wellcome grant holders to increase the impact of their work in regards to public engagement, open research and diversity and inclusion. Three types of funding are available:
- Public engagement – support for engaging the public with the applicant’s research, worth up to £250,000 or five per cent of the main Wellcome grant;
- Open research – support for developing innovative ways to make the applicant’s research open, accessible and reusable, worth up to £50,000;
- Diversity and inclusion – support for identifying and tackling barriers to diversity and inclusion in the applicant’s work, worth up to £20,000.
Current Wellcome-funded lead applicant grant holders and new applicants may apply. Applicants must be funded through an eligible Wellcome funding scheme, which excludes all Masters and PhD level funding.
Find out more and apply by Monday 5 February via the Wellcome Trust website.
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