Researcher need: IS supporting research

Sheila Cannell

The University supports research

“The mission of the University is the creation dissemination and curation of knowledge. As a world-leading centre of academic excellence we aim to:

• Enhance our position as one of the world’s leading research and teaching universities and to measure our performance against the highest international standards”

IS supports research in many ways, e.g.

• Research computing • Library materials• Help, support, skills training• Administrative support• etc etc etc

…but do we put the researcher first

… or do we put the University need and our services before the researcher need

…put another way…

• Do we know what the researcher needs?• Do we understand the researcher workflow?• Do we understand the differences in disciplines?• Can we express this in researcher language/workflow

rather than in our language/workflow?

Research Library Group research information management

programme

– We will provide you dedicated space on a server.– We’ll help you structure space to organize your notes, datasets,

others’ publications, presentations…– We’ll help you load it if you like.– We’ll back up your work.– We’ll ensure you can access your data remotely, no matter where you

are.– We’ll provide tools for group work and version control at the file level.– We’ll help you manage your research, tracking who is involved in

which grant, which research is funded by which grant, and purchasing grant-funded equipment

– We’ll help you negotiate publication rights.– We’ll help you comply with NIH and other requirements.– We’ll see that your work is disseminated broadly, quickly, and openly

and that you get maximum impact for you and your university.– We’ll do the authority work to ensure you are credited for all your

work, despite the various forms of your name used in indicating authorship.

– We’ll keep your personal bibliography up-to-date.– We’ll provide you with a customizable personal web page.– We’ll include you in the campus expertise database and facilitate

inclusion in disciplinary expert databases.– We’ll preserve your outputs in the institutional repository and facilitate

inclusion in disciplinary repositories.– We’ll see that you can take your work with you if you leave this

institution

– We will provide you dedicated space on a server. Yes, distributed responsibility

– We’ll help you structure space to organize your notes, datasets, others’ publications, presentations… We provide tools and advice

– We’ll help you load it if you like. We’ll help you if you ask– We’ll back up your work. Yes if you put it in the right place– We’ll ensure you can access your data remotely, no matter

where you are. Yes but not completely– We’ll provide tools for group work and version control at the

file level.Some provided probably not enough– We’ll help you manage your research, tracking who is involved

in which grant, which research is funded by which grant, and purchasing grant-funded equipment No

– We’ll help you negotiate publication rights. We advise if you ask– We’ll help you comply with NIH and other requirements. We advise if you

ask– We’ll see that your work is disseminated broadly, quickly, and openly and

that you get maximum impact for you and your university. Yes but we need to do more and tell you more

– We’ll do the authority work to ensure you are credited for all your work, despite the various forms of your name used in indicating authorship. No

– We’ll keep your personal bibliography up-to-date. We give you the tools– We’ll provide you with a customizable personal web page. No– We’ll include you in the campus expertise database and facilitate inclusion

in disciplinary expert databases. For those who elect to give their info to ERI

– We’ll preserve your outputs in the institutional repository and facilitate inclusion in disciplinary repositories. Yes for research outputs but not data

– We’ll see that you can take your work with you if you leave this institution Up to you

So, what should we be doing?

• ERMIS • Researcher focussed management system giving researchers what they

want?• Pooling knowledge of researcher workflow

– There’s a lot of knowledge in IS (ALDs, user support, liasion librarians)• Think about IS projects (website, service catalogue) in terms of research

workflow• Thinking about how we communicate with researchers; developing a

strategy for this, which will vary by discipline• Consider changing roles of staff to support the needs• Meet with information specialists working in Schools/with research groups• Critically examine developing VREs for implementation• Support for specialised groups (eg research pools, international

researchers)• How are we to manage research data• Helping with the recruitment cycle

Where is the locus for discussing these issues?

• ERI?• Vice-Principal for Research?• ERMIS Group?• But where is the support for the researcher expressed in

the terms which the researcher needs?