Graduate School of Life Sciences course timetable

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This workshops is designed to introduce the concepts of Intelluctual Property and Commercialisation within the University. Participants will learn:

          What is IP and IPRs
          Why does it matter?
          Why do you want to protect it
          Who owns it
           
          What are the different types of IP
          Patents
          Copyright
          Design rights
          Database rights
          Know (trade secret)

         How IP can be/is protected - the importance of non-disclosure
         How can you establishe the value of IP?
         How the University's IP policy relates to postgraduate students

This session equips participants with all the fundamental skills that they need to research and begin writing their literature review. This includes building and executing effective search strategies to locate relevant materials for literature reviews, projects and other related research activities, key searching techniques, where to search, and how to keep up to date with the latest research. We will then discuss what to do with material participants find during their searching, looking at skills such as critical evaluation, structural reading and how to start writing.

This session will include live demonstrations of scientific databases to demonstrate the key principles covered in action, as well as time for participants to start developing their own key words and search strategies.

Using a reference manager is one of the best ways to look after crucial research literature, whether planning for a literature review or simply keeping track of developments in a particular discipline. This session will introduce Zotero, an open source reference manager tool.

Using live demonstrations, discussions, and troubleshooting common referencing issues, the session will give an in-depth look at how Zotero (and tools like it) can help maximise a research project workflow while also ensuring that critical resources and information are not lost at any point in the research process.

This session introduces participants to the concept of research data, all the forms that it can take as well as negotiating the management of different data depending on their type.

Topics such as effective storage, handling sensitive data, and developing best practice approaches to avoid data loss during a project will be covered. The session will also explore how to create a data management plan (DMP) and the support available, as well as providing an overview of useful tools and services both within the University of Cambridge and beyond.

In this fun and interactive session Dr Steve Cross will help you develop the ways you talk about your work, and the ways you connect with people who might be able to help you. We'll look at how networking can make your working life easier and more rewarding, and come up with some strategies that suit you and your interests.

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Metrics have become omnipresent in research assessment, but are often flawed and used irresponsibly. This session explores the guidelines in place to help researchers use metrics more responsibly, including recommendations from DORA and University guidance. We'll then look at common metrics such as journal impact factor and h-index, where they are found and how they are used in academia. Finally we will discuss some particular circumstances where researchers should aim to use metrics responsibly, such as tidying up your online profiles, choosing a journal and recruitment.

Participants should leave the session more aware of the issues with particular research metrics and of the guidance available within the University, and confident in their ability to use metrics responsibly in their academic career.

This session discusses the benefits and challenges of maintaining an online presence as a researcher. Part of two sessions on this topic, this first session looks at setting up your academic persona and using academic platforms. Starting with exploring what comes up through a quick Google search all the way through to maintaining profiles on academic sites, we will look at the pros and cons of online engagement. This will include tools such as ORCID, and networking sites such as academia.edu and ResearchGate. 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 academic presence online.

This session discusses the benefits and challenges of maintaining an online presence as a researcher. Part of two sessions on this topic, this second session looks at using social media as a researcher. We will look at the practicalities and pros and cons of online engagement through tools such as Twitter/X, Mastodon, YouTube and LinkedIn. 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 academic presence online.