Cambridge University Libraries course timetable

Publishing in journal articles is a key element of an academic career, and something researchers should familiarise themselves with early on, especially towards the start of a PhD. But knowing where to start can be a daunting prospect. When do you know when you're ready to publish in a journal? How can you even be sure whether this is the right outlet for your work? What does the publication process entail and what do you need to know about peer review? This session is designed to take you through the entire process from initial idea right up to sharing your finished publication.

By the end of this session, you will:​

• Have an overview of the publication process from start to finish
• Think about what type of academic publication is right for your research and how to pick the right journal
• Be aware of the dangers posed by predatory publishers
• Understand the peer review process and how to respond to reviewers' comments

This session will cover the basics of UK copyright law and how this impacts what you can use in your work and how you can share the results of your own research. It will introduce concepts such as third-party copyright, fair dealing and rights retention. It will provide guidance on how to seek permission to reuse content from the copyright holder in your thesis and your publications. Finally, it will explain what Creative Commons licences are and how they can be used to protect and share your work.

A course to take you through conference poster design, with tips and resources to help with the content and presentation in order to ensure you communicate your research effectively. The course will cover where to source good quality, free graphics, how to include references in your poster, and advice about how best to present it at a conference. The session will NOT involve hands-on creation of a poster.

Please note: this session may be recorded. By signing up for the session, you register your consent for recording to take place. Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions about this.

This session discusses the benefits and challenges of communicating yourself and your research in the online environment. First we look why you need an online presence, followed by setting up your academic persona. Then we explore important academic profiles to have as a researcher (such as ORCID, Google Scholar and Web of Science) and touch on author-level metrics and how to use them responsibly. Then we move onto social media, looking at the practicalities and pros and cons of online engagement through tools such as Twitter/X, Mastodon, Instagram and YouTube, before finally looking at academic networking sites like LinkedIn, ResearchGate and academia.edu.

Participants should expect to have the opportunity to critically evaluate the various options presented in this session with the overall aim of being better informed when deciding where to invest their time and efforts when building an online profile and communicating their research.

For Academic Writing Month, academic writers in all disciplines and at any stage of their writing journey are invited to our hands-on writing workshops at the University Library. This session is part workshop in which we discuss academic writing and try out some new techniques, part practical group writing session.

Here's a taste of what to expect:

• Guidance and advice from experienced academic writers, as they address some common myths and misconceptions about academic writing
• Tips for staying motivated, tackling large writing projects, and overcoming writer's block
• Liberate your writing practice by trying out some creative writing exercises
• Engage in a Pomodoro-style group writing session: see how much writing you can get done in just 25 minutes!

Writing is something all researchers do, but rarely get a chance to talk about. Academic Writing Workshops are a chance for you to do just that: to share experiences, think about trying new ideas and be inspired in your own practice.

Assessment of research has long focused on metrics as a numeric measure of research quality. Yet these metrics are flawed and often not used for their intended purpose.

In this session, we will look at guidelines for using metrics responsibly, including the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and university guidance. We will explain how common metrics, like the H index and Journal Impact Factor, are used and discuss limitations of their use. Finally, we will consider real life examples of where you can use metrics responsibly. This will include examples such as tidying up your online profiles, choosing a journal or recruitment.

By the end of this session, you will be aware of the problems of common research metrics and feel confident in using metrics responsibly.

This session will introduce participants to different methods of communicating research before moving on to a discussion around best practice and techniques when preparing a presentation. Participants will be introduced to concepts around good design, accessibility, data presentation, and accessing Creative Commons licensed materials for their work.

The session will conclude with an exploration of good delivery techniques with additional advice on what to do if it all goes wrong.

Join us for this online session to explore the fundamentals of open access publishing. We’ll explain what open access is, outline the key steps to making your research outputs openly available, and highlight the wide range of support available at Cambridge to help you publish open access. We’ll also point you to useful resources and services for further guidance. There will be time at the end for any questions you may have.

By the end of this session, you will have a clearer understanding of:

• What open access means and the benefits of publishing openly
• The different open access options available at Cambridge
• Where to find further help and support

This online session will introduce researchers from all disciplines to the different areas that they should be aware of when working with personal or sensitive data from human participants in their research.

The areas that will be included in this session are:

• GDPR
• Ethics
• Data Safeguards
• Informed consent
• Storage
• Sharing
• Archiving

There will be time for Q&A at the end for any specific questions.

By the end of this session you should:

• Have a better understanding of the areas that need to be considered when working with personal data
• Know where to get more help on any of the areas covered in this session

A course specifically for NHS staff.

Attendees will learn how to search databases (such as CINAHL or Medline) accessed with an Athens login via the NHS Knowledge & Library Hub. The session will cover how to define & refine your search question, apply effective search techniques and how to save searches and references. This course is delivered at an introductory/refresher level, and assumes you have had no prior training in how to search databases.

All attendees are required to have an NHS Athens login.

Please email librarytraining@medschl.cam.ac.uk to be added to the class. The session will take place via Teams and participants will be sent a link prior to the session.

University of Cambridge staff and students wanting to learn similar material should book onto the Introduction to Literature Searching (for University) course instead.

This online webinar will introduce researchers to key departments they should be aware of throughout the Research Data Lifecycle. This session will help researchers to understand that the data they produce in their research needs to be correctly handled and protected to comply with university policies. There will be information on where they can get more help when they need it.

The topics and speakers that will be introduced in this session are:

• Research Data Management - Kim Clugston, Research Data Coordinator, Office of Scholarly Communication
• Information and Cyber Security - Vijay Samtani, Chief Information Security Officer, UIS
• Research Ethics - Sinead Healy, Senior Research Governance and Ethics Coordinator, Research Strategy Office
• Data Protection - James Knapton, Head of Data Protection and Information Compliance, Governance and Compliance Division
• Travel - Tammy Au, Head of International Support Service, Academic Division
• Export Control - Persia Saemian, Research Integrity and Governance Coordinator, Research Office
• Research Contracts - Pamela Nunez, Senior Contracts Manager, Research Office

There will be time for any questions at the end of the session.

By the end of this session, you will better understand:

• the areas that you need to consider when working with research data
• the key sources of support at the University to help you with your research data

Fair attribution for technicians through either co-authorship or direct acknowledgement in research publications is a key component of the ‘visibility’ and ‘recognition’ areas of the Technician Commitment, of which the University of Cambridge was a founding signatory in 2017.

However, there is currently no policy or standard practice for acknowledging the role of technicians, equipment and facilities in the University or the wider sector. Technicians experience a great disparity in their recognition and visibility in scholarly outputs.

This interactive workshop will introduce you to the scholarly communications process as well as tools such as CRediT and ORCID, and facilitate conversation amongst peers.

Getting to grips with a new area of research or finding secondary literature to answer a research question can be a daunting task. This session is here to guide you, enhancing your literature search by introducing key resources and strategies that you can use for finding materials, illustrating a range of techniques for searching, and discussing how to stay up to date with research in your field. In the session, as well as looking at the Cambridge University Libraries' online catalogue iDiscover, we also introduce some of the databases that can be most useful to researchers in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences carrying out literature searches.

By the end of this session, you should be able to:

• Plan a strategy for finding literature on your research topic
• Discover a range of resources available for your literature search
• Make the most of the resources available using a range of techniques and tools
• Stay up to date with research in your field
• Build a list of relevant literature related to your research topic

You've passed your viva. If your examiners requested any corrections, those have been submitted and approved.

You now need to deposit a physical copy and an electronic copy of your thesis to the Library. In this session, we will focus on depositing the electronic copy of your thesis, for inclusion in Apollo, the University's Repository.

We will cover:

• What to include in your electronic copy
• What not to include in your electronic copy
• The access levels that are available and guidance on which to choose
• Third party copyright considerations
• Sensitive information considerations
• Funder requirements

We will finish with a live demonstration of depositing a thesis using Symplectic Elements