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The Plant Sciences Library is located in the main Department building on the Downing site. This online induction will tell you all about the library, the services offered, and how to get support from the Librarian and the Biological Sciences Library Team.

This online course follows the whole process of public a monograph or other academic book, from making the initial decisions, to what to do once you have the finished book in your hands.

You’ll learn:

• key considerations when turning your thesis into a monograph
• how to choose the best publisher for you
• how Open Access monographs work
• how to write a great proposal
• what to expect from the peer review and publishing process

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

Publishing journal articles is a key element of a successful research career.

Those starting on this journey may have a lot of questions, such as:

• Where and how should I publish my research?
• How do I maximise the number of readers and citations?
• How should I respond to reviewers?

This online module covers the basic skills you need if you are preparing to publish in academic journals.

It will help you to:

• plan a publication strategy and choose the right journals for you
• avoid the snares of predatory publishers
• navigate the peer review process
• understand Open Access publishing and what it means for your publications

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

As a researcher, you will collect a lot of data. Whether that data takes the form of spreadsheets, recordings, images, bibliographies, or something entirely different, it's crucial that you manage it well throughout your projects. Doing so will help you to work more efficiently, avoid data disasters, and build your professional reputation.

In this course, you'll learn:

• how to store and backup up data
• how to organise data
• what to do with protected data (personal or commercially sensitive)
• why sharing data is important and how to do it
• how to write Data Management Plans

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

Data, Metrics, Key Performance Indicators... these terms are everywhere these days, as we increasingly seek hard data to monitor and improve the quality of many of the things we do. Research metrics can be very useful, but they also come with important caveats, so we need to be responsible in how we use these tools.

In this module, you will learn:

• the meaning of common metrics such as Journal Impact Factor and H-index
• what are the main limitations of metrics
• a better, responsible approach to using metrics

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

Being a researcher can mean juggling lots of different things. You might be wrestling with funding, or promoting your work, or finding the most up-to-date research, or even where to begin with writing up that data management plan you probably should have done a few weeks ago!

This course will introduce you to each of these concepts through a short video, a bit of reading, and a quick exercise to give you some time to explore and reflect on your own research needs. By the end of the course you will hopefully have a better idea of what your funder wants from you, how you can begin promoting your work, what techniques you can use to get that really useful research, as well as having already started writing up your data management plan.

All of our content will be self-guided but the Biological Sciences Libraries Team (email: sbslibraries@lib.cam.ac.uk) will be on hand throughout to have an online chat with you if you have any further questions or want to explore something further. If you have any technical issues or need any course content in a different format, you can contact George Cronin (Library Manager for Biological Sciences) at gmp36@cam.ac.uk who will be able to help.

Have you ever searched for articles on a topic and returned thousands of results... or none? Are you always defaulting to Google Scholar and wondering if there’s a better way of doing things? Are you starting to look into a new topic and feel overwhelmed and unsure where to start? Then this online course is for you.

We will look at the three stages of a successful literature search:

• planning a strategy and identifying the right key words
• searching using the right tools and maintaining accurate records
• evaluating results and refining search parameters

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

This short interactive module introduces you to Cambridge University Libraries and explains how to find resources for your subject. This module has a focus on the Medical and Veterinary Sciences Triposes, but will be useful for anyone who is new to Cambridge.

This short interactive module introduces you to Cambridge University Libraries and explains how to find resources for your subject. This module has a focus on the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Tripos, but will be useful for anyone who is new to Cambridge.