A Week in the Life: Understanding the Business of Research and Research Support Scenarios Andrew Booth, Reader in Evidence Based Information Practice, ScHARR, University of Sheffield

Outline

• A Week in the Life

• Getting in the Skin of a Researcher

• Some Research Support Scenarios

A Week in the Life

Typical Activities• devising and conducting experiments/projects;

• processing and analysing results and data;• communicating results via published papers;• collaborating with industry/academia/NHS to apply

results of research & develop new techniques, products or practices;

• presenting to colleagues at academic conferences, and producing posters summarising research, methodology and findings;

• carrying out field work/desk work to inform research;• teaching, demonstrating or supervising students (in

academia) and training/supervising other staff;• devising or helping to draw up new research

proposals and applying for funding and grants;• working in multidisciplinary teams (in academia,

across different faculties or schools, in industry/NHS).

Monday• CLAHRC NHS/Academic Knowledge into

Practice Project Meeting• Proofreading NIHR Final Report• Read Feedback on Failed Bid• Follow up on Bid Resubmission• Travel/Booking for International ConferenceEvening• MSc Health Informatics [E-Lecture]

Tuesday• Research Sharing Meeting

• Funding Opportunities• “Twinkles” i.e. Research Intelligence

• Research Committee• European Funding• REF/REF Audit• Research vs Consultancy Trade-Off

• Canadian PhD Student Teleconference [Writing Up]

• Telemeeting re: E-learning

Wednesday

• Administration• Executive Group

• Marketing Group

• Abstract/Bio/Photo for HLG Conference

• Teaching• MSc Health Informatics [E-Lecture]

• MPH Public Health [f2f Lecture + Seminar]

Thursday

• Meeting with MSc Student [Dissertation Question]

• E-Learning Internal Strategy Meeting [cp Teaching Committee]

• Lunchtime Research Seminar

• Short Course Planning Meeting

• Feedback on Poster

Friday [Working from Home]

• Research for Patient Benefit Bid• Comments on Methodology• CV

• Interview re: Social Care Portal• Article for Health Information & Libraries

Journal / Health Libraries Group Conference• Booking Travel for National Advisory

Meeting

Saturday/Sunday

• Health Information & Libraries Journal Regular Feature [cp. Book Reviews/ Marking Resubmissions/Peer Review – Articles or Research Bids]

• Checking Currency of Lecture Slides

• Preparing Slides for Research Support Forum!

Getting in the Skin of a Researcher

Career Pathways

Research career pathway

• Professor• Senior Research Fellow• Research fellow

Pre-/non-career grade• Research Associate• Research Officer• Research Assistant

Teaching, research, & scholarship career pathway

• Professor• Reader• Senior Lecturer/Senior

Teaching Fellow (Principal Lecturer [post-1992s])

• Lecturer/Teaching Fellow (Senior Lecturer [post-1992s])

Pre-/non-career grade

• Assistant Lecturer  • Graduate Teaching Assistant,

Came in Here

Now Here

Research Involvement• Professor/Senior Research Fellow/Reader:

Multiple Projects + Strategy - Principal Investigator/ Adviser/ Project Manager

• Senior Lecturer/Research Fellow: Single Project as Principal Investigator/Project Manager

• Lecturer: Single/Multiple Projects as Team Member

------------------------------------------------------------• Research Associate: Single Project as Data

Collector• Research Assistant: Single Project Support

Qualifications/Conditions• Professor [in excess of £50,000] • Senior Research

Fellow/Reader/Senior Lecturer/Research Fellow – 10-15 years experience [£33,000 - £57,000]

• Postdoctoral Research Associate level – PhD [£26,500 - £35,000]

• Research Assistant: usually with MSc/MPhil [£22,000 - £27,500]

To further research career

• Build significant body of research publications.• Keep up to date with fellowship options.• Be aware of increasing multidisciplinary research

options.• Become increasingly involved in funding/budgeting

issues.• Gain project management experience.• Increase teaching responsibilities.• Familiarise with quality assessment procedures.• Understand broader higher education issues.• Network with colleagues both inside/outside own

institution.• Obtain extra qualifications, if appropriate.

Personal Career Plan

• Peer-Reviewed Publications = ++ (but possible change of emphasis to health services research from health information)

• University Administration = + (Faculty Communications Group & REF Strategy Monitoring)

• Research Income = – (minus) (More Projects as Principal Investigator, currently Co-investigator)

Researchers’ Use of Academic Libraries and their Services

• Significant differences of perceptions and views between researchers and librarians

• Communication channels need to be improved. • Research community uses social networking to

exchange and share research-based information. • Role of libraries presently ill-defined. • Researchers don’t readily recognize content

on their desktop is provided through library.

Researchers’ Use of Academic Libraries and their Services A report commissioned by the Research

Information Network and the Consortium of Research Libraries

Research habits

Users "power-browse" or skim material, using "horizontal" (shallow) research. Most spend only a few minutes looking at academic journal articles and few return to them. "It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense,”

Not just "screenagers". “Strong tendency towards shallow, horizontal, flicking behaviour in digital libraries. Factors specific to the individual, personality and background are much more significant than generation."

INFORMATION BEHAVIOUR OF THE

RESEARCHER OF THE FUTURE

Researchers IL training should focus on IM not IR – 1 (Booth, 2007)

• Inappropriate to meet IL needs of researchers using instruction methods based on undergraduates;

• Researchers do not follow neat stepwise progression from state of unknowing (“information need”) to knowing that underpins most IL instruction.

• Information management, rather than information retrieval, should be focus of IL instruction for researchers.

Researchers IL training should focus on IM not IR – 2 (Booth, 2007)

• Information retrieval should focus on “area scanning”, footnote chasing and known author searching rather than keyword searching

• IL training should be “socialised” through formal collaboration …..and integration with existing research programmes or research groups.

• Training should focus on practically based outcomes e.g. production of log book or portfolio.

• Training should optimally be tailored to individual and delivered at time of need.

RIP - Library as Place

• “the library has changed from being the place for researchers to visit for help with information searching and for picking up the actual information, to being the “living room” for undergraduate students, making the researchers who visit the library feel outnumbered, and sometimes unwelcome.”

Haglund and Olsson (2008)

Rethinking the Library Web Site

• “Libraries spend huge amounts of time and money to work on the structure and content of the library Web page, while few researchers use it as a starting point for information searching. Many researchers….used the Web of their own department as a starting point, and this is where the library should establish a presence with direct links targeted to that particular group”.

Haglund and Olsson (2008).

How can you help?• Research Methodology

• Software/Freeware• Selecting Journals/ Instructions for Authors• Open Access/ Repositories / Archiving• Impact Factors, h indices• Intellectual Property & Copyright AND

IMPACT!• Presentation/Media Handling Skills• Poster Presentation Techniques• Reference Management• Teaching/Supervision Skills• Funding Information

References - 1• Booth A (2007) Researchers require

tailored information literacy training focusing on information management, not simply information retrieval. Report for Research Information Network Consultative Group on Librarianship and Information Science. http://www.rin.ac.uk/training-research-info-spec

• CIBER. Information behaviour of the researcher of the future – (A British Library/JISC Study) http://www. bl.uk/news/pdf/googlegen.pdf

References - 2

• Haglund L and Olsson P (2008). The Impact on University Libraries of Changes in Information Behavior Among Academic Researchers: A Multiple Case Study. Journal of Academic Librarianship 34 (1), 52-59

• Research Information Network (2008). Researchers’ Use of Academic Libraries and their Services A report commissioned by the Research Information Network and the Consortium of Research Libraries http://www.rin.ac.uk/researchers-use-libraries

• Tattersall A (2008) 'Blogging in an Academic Health Library Setting. Libraries for Nursing Bulletin; June 2008.