Category Archives: Library research support

UK Data Service events 2022

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The UK Data Service offers a variety of free events throughout the year, which may be of interest to any social sciences researchers.

See below for the events for the rest of 2022 or visit their events pages.

Regular events

Computational social science drop-ins – second Tuesday of the month
11 Oct 2022, 8 Nov 2022, 13 Dec 2022, 13.00 – 14.00
Join our monthly data drop-in to get or give some help on computational social science projects.

Safe Researcher Training
5 Oct 2022, 21 Oct 2022, 7 Nov 2022, 24 Nov 2022, 13 Dec 2022, 10.00 – 13.30
This Safe Researcher Training (SRT) course is intended for researchers who will be, or are in the process of, applying for access to controlled data in the UK Data Service Secure Lab.

Census events

An introduction to 2021 Census geography datasets
18 Oct 2022, 10.00 – 11.00
This webinar will introduce census geography datasets, cover the output geography of the latest UK census, and demonstrate practical examples of the use of census geography boundary datasets for the visualisation and analysis of census data.

Check our events pages in October for details of these upcoming events:

  • Teaching with Census 2021 data workshop, 2 November
  • Census: Developing local area profiles workshop, 9 November

Introductory Training Series: Autumn 2022

Our free introductory-level online workshops introduce different aspects of the UK Data Service to help you get the most from our service.

Dissertation projects: Introduction to secondary analysis for qualitative and quantitative data
6 October, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop will take you through the research process of a secondary analysis project, including an overview of the methodological and ethical issues.

Data in the spotlight: Large scale social surveys
11 October, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop is for anyone who wants to learn about survey data available from the UK Data Service.

Introduction to copyright: Copyright and publishing
14 October, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop will introduce attendees to the brief origins of copyright with a focus on copyright considerations in both publishing and teaching.

Introduction to copyright: Copyright issues in secondary data use
17 October, 10.00am – 11.30am
This session will give attendees a better understanding of copyright considerations when creating, using or sharing data.

How to anonymise qualitative and quantitative data
20 October, 11.00am – 12.30pm
This workshop will look at key differences between anonymisation and pseudonymisation and discuss how to responsibly use, plus share data, while protecting participants’ identities.

Data management basics: Introduction to data management and sharing
27 October, 11.00am – 12.30pm
This workshop provides an overview of how to manage, document and store research data well and how to plan good data management in research projects.

Depositing your data with ReShare
3 November, 11.00am – 12.30pm
This workshop gives participants a virtual tour of ReShare, our self-deposit repository.

Introduction to the UK Data Service
8 November, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop is for anyone who wants to learn about the vast array of resources we offer.

Finding and accessing data from the UK Data Service
10 November, 10.00am – 11.30am
This introductory workshop is intended for anyone who wants to hear about finding data from the UK Data Service and contains interactive elements throughout.

Data management basics: Ethical and legal issues in data sharing
14 November, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop focuses on the ethical and legal aspects of data management.

Getting started with secondary analysis
15 November, 10.00am – 11.30am
This introductory workshop will briefly cover the pros and cons of reusing data and the importance of learning about the origins of your data.

How to become a computational social scientist
22 November, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop covers what computational social science is, what it is good for, and the basic steps to follow in an ideal CSS research project.

Consent issues in data sharing
24 November, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop will explain the different types of consent and consider data archiving, plus future reuse in the consent process, considering one-off and process consent.

Data in the spotlight: Census and population studies
29 November, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop will introduce you to the UK Census, the data held by the UK Data Service, and how to use the web interfaces to access the data.

Data in the spotlight: Longitudinal data
1 December, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop will cover the key features of longitudinal surveys, an overview of the studies available via the UKDS, how to access the data and undertake exploratory online analysis.

Data in the spotlight: International time series databanks
6 December, 10.00am – 11.30am
This workshop will cover the international time series data held by the UKDS, the socio-economic topics covered, some key datasets, and how to access and download the data.

Data in the spotlight: Qualitative and mixed methods data
13 December, 10.00am – 11.30am
This introductory workshop is intended for anyone who wants to learn about the qualitative or mixed-methods data available from the UK Data Service.

Other events

Introduction to the Family Resources Survey (NB Booking closes on 29 September)
4 Oct 2022, 09.30 – 12.45
This half-day online workshop will guide you through all the background information needed to work confidently with data from the Family Resources Survey.

All you need to know about UK Data Service SecureLab import requests
13 Oct 2022, 10.00 – 11.00
Come to our webinar to learn how the import process works and what you should, and should not, do to ensure the import process is completed as smoothly and quickly as possible.

Introduction to machine learning (FULLY BOOKED but will be livestreamed)

24 October – 1 November 2022
Come along to this three-part webinar that has been designed to deepen your understanding of the main concepts present within machine learning.

 

Introduction to quantitative time-diary analysis

3 and 10 November 2022 (with UCL/NCRM)

This short course aims to introduce participants to time diary analysis, a multidisciplinary field which has made a sustained contribution to social science over the last 50 years.

 

Introduction to data management planning for social sciences
17 Nov 2022, 10.00 – 11.00
This webinar has been designed to provide an introduction to Data Management Plans and to help researchers overcome challenges encountered during the data lifecycle by implementing good data management planning techniques.

 

Crime Surveys User Conference 2022

7 Dec 2022, 09.30 – 16.30

The user conference brings data producers and data users together to share updates on the development of the surveys and to showcase research that is being carried out using the data.

Questionnaire for researchers on PIDs

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If you’ve got 12 minutes to spare, please help our colleagues at the University of Strathclyde in filling out this questionnaire 🙂

The aim of the questionnaire is to better understand user perceptions of persistent identifiers (PIDs). They are principally concerned with researchers outside those working in repositories, scholarly communications, etc. and are looking for research active staff to complete.

https://strath.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bCmMiz8rc6CMMMC

Findings arising from this questionnaire will be published openly and data deposited. But more importantly, it should help the community determine the ‘digital scholar’ training priorities for academic staff, which is the underlying aim of the work.

New ORCID and ORDO Integration

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As of September 2021, Figshare and ORCID have a new integration with significantly improved functionality. We’ve updated our webpage to give you all the details but here are the main points you need to know –

First you’ll need to connect your ORDO profile to your ORCID account. In order to do this, please follow these steps:

  • In your profile page in ORDO (pictured), click the CONNECT button to enable syncing with your ORCiD
  • This will take you to ORCID. Log in and click to authorise ORDO/Figshare to access your ORCiD account

You’ll then be presented with 3 options, all off by default.

FAQs

1. Push data to my ORCID

This option creates a record in your ORCID account of any items that you publish on ORDO. This will create a record using the base DOI only, versioned DOIs are omitted. The base DOI will always point to the latest version of your item. This long-requested functionality avoids the issue of significant duplicate entries within your ORCID account.

An important note, if you have a synchronisation set up from a DOI provider like Datacite and you enable this option, there is a chance you’ll get duplicate records in your ORCID account.

This feature will only kick in for items created after the integration has been performed. Any existing items in your ORDO account will not be pushed using this method. If you need to get historic items into your ORCID account and they have not been captured by the existing Datacite integration, this will need to be done manually.

2. Pull data from my ORCID to my ORDO account

This one is all about your ORDO profile and your profile only. Nothing imported here will interact with your My Data area (that’s where option 3 comes in).

This will import everything in your ORCID works section to the publications area of your ORDO profile. Unlike the previous setting, this will import everything before the integration was performed as well as anything created ongoing.

3. Create draft records from my ORCID data

After the integration has occurred, any new records created within the works section of your ORCID account will automatically create a new draft metadata record within your My Data area. As much available metadata as possible will be pulled in, and this option will also create the metadata record with the DOI of the original object.

Once a new draft item has been created from this integration, you’ll get two kinds of notifications: an email to your account email address and a notification within the platform. You can then choose to add a file for this record, such as an open access version of a publication, and any additional metadata or delete the draft record if it’s not needed.

Please note: Usually, open access versions of publications should be added to ORO rather than ORDO, however there may be reasons for adding a metadata record for a paper published elsewhere to ORDO (e.g. for gathering evidence of knowledge exchange/impact) – if you are unsure, please contact the Library Research Support team for advice.

For further information and answers to some FAQs head over to our webpage.

UKRI Open Access Policy: new requirements

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If you are publishing research articles and are funded by UKRI you need to be aware that there are changes to the Open Access policy from 1 April 2022.

The new policy requires immediate open access for research articles and conference proceedings that acknowledge UKRI funding from AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC, Innovate UK or Research England submitted for publication on or after 1 April 2022. This can be achieved by 2 routes:

    • Route one: publish the article open access in a journal or publishing platform. The version of record (final published version) must be immediately open access via its website with a Creative Commons attribution (CC BY) licence. Funds for Gold Open Access may be available from the University’s UKRI Open Access Block Grant. The Library has been taking out Journal Transitional Agreements with Jisc that include gold open access publishing in them.
    • Route two: publish the article in a subscription journal and deposit the Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) (or Version of Record, where the publisher permits) at the time of publication in an institutional or subject repository with a CC BY license. A publisher embargo period is not permitted.

The policy also requires a Data Access Statement on research articles, even where there are no data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible

It is important that any UKRI funded researchers check before article submission that the journal they are submitting to is compliant with the UKRI Open Access Policy.

The policy has also been widened to include monographs, book chapters and edited collections published on or after 1 January 2024 and requires:

  • the final version of a publication or the author’s accepted manuscript (AAM) being made open access via an online publication platform, publishers’ website, or institutional or subject repository within a maximum of 12 months of publication.
  • CC BY licence is preferred to maximise opportunities for sharing and reuse. The open access version should include, where possible, any images, illustrations, tables and other supporting content.

UKRI will be providing dedicated funding to support open access monographs, book chapters and edited collections. Funding will be via a centralised fund held by UKRI that must be applied for by authors. Publication costs for monographs, book chapters and edited collections can also continue to be included in research grant applications. UKRI will provide updated guidance by the end of 2022.

Further details can be found on the Library Research Support website and the full policy can be found here along with a list of frequently asked questions.

The Library Research Support Team will be running two briefing sessions in Microsoft Teams (please note these will not be recorded):

10-11am Tuesday 5th April 2022. Book here.

3:30-4:30pm Thursday 7th April 2022. Book here.

For help and advice, please contact library-research-support@open.ac.uk.

 

Speed Data-ing

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Join us for our Speed Data-ing event next Monday in honour of Love Data Week

Speed Data-ing

Speed Data-ing: Mon, 7 March 2022, 12:00 – 12:45

 Five different speakers will have five minutes to present an interesting aspect of data management or sharing to the audience, followed by a Q&A panel session at the end.

Confirmed speakers:

  • Sarah Vicary (Associate Head of School, Nations, WELS)
  • Alessio Antonini (Research Associate, KMI)
  • Jacob Obodai (Research Student, FASS)
  • Gareth Davies (Research Impact Evidence Manager, RES)
  • Isabel Chadwick (Research Support Librarian, Library)

Here are a few examples of what will be covered:

  • data collection
  • impact data
  • different approaches to data management

Book your place on Eventbrite

UK Data Service training opportunities

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The UK Data Service provides access to a wide range of social science data for reuse. To help you get the most from our service, they run free introductory level online workshops every spring and autumn to introduce different aspects of the Service.

The UKDS training events in spring 2022 are listed below and you can also browse the events pages for a full list of what is available:

UKDSTraining

New Subscription to Overton!

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The OU Library now has a subscription to Overton!

Our mission is to help users find, understand, and measure their influence on government policy – Overton.

Overton is the world’s largest searchable policy database. It includes access to over 5 million policy documents and guidelines from over 29,000 organisations in over 185 countries which then link them to the research, people and other policy documents that they quote or reference.

It can be accessed via the Library database A-Z list Databases | Library Services | Open University.

To save searches, tag or bookmark items you will need to create an account. For further information or help please contact us here. 

HAPPY LOVE DATA WEEK

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Love Data Week is an international celebration of data, with the goal of raising awareness and building a community to engage on topics such as research data management, sharing, preservation, reuse, dissemination, and library-based research data services.

This year’s events are based loosely on the theme “Data is for everyone.” The hashtag is #LoveData22.

The OU Library are hosting some fun activities and events to commemorate Love Data Week (14-18 February 2022).

1. ORDO Treasure Hunt (ongoing for the duration of Love Data Week)

To take part you need to answer a range of questions using ORDO to find the answers. Once all the clues have been solved you will be able to access a surprise. Follow this link to start the hunt.

2. Upload competition (for the duration of Love Data Week)

This competition opened shortly after midnight today (14 February 2022). It will close at midnight on Friday 18 February 2022. For your entry to be valid, all data must be uploaded and published on The Open University’s Open Research Data Online (ORDO) repository between Monday 14 February 2022 and Friday 18 February 2022. All entries are free. Competition winners will receive their prizes by post.

3. POSTPONED due to the UCU strike. The Speed Data-ing webinar will now take place on the 7th March 12-12.45pm. Click the link for more details and how to sign up.

Researchers and research staff will give 5 minute quickfire presentations on their research projects and data, followed by a Q&A session at the end.

Creating a mailbox alert for new items in ORO

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If you wish to be kept up to date on new items being added to ORO you can do so by pushing an RSS alert into your Outlook Mailbox. (If you don’t use Outlook you can use services like Blogtrottr to transform RSS alerts into email alerts.)

  1. Identify the set of items you want to be alerted on. You can choose to be alerted on all new items by department or a subset of items by faculty, or any way you can conduct an advanced search in ORO.
  2. Go to ORO Advanced Search and enter your search terms. In this example I have selected Item Type : Thesis AND Computing and Communications
  3. Image of ORO Advanced search page with thesis and Computing and Communications selected.Select “Search”. From the ORO results page go to the Subscribe to these results page. Right click on the RSS 2.0 icon and select “Copy Link Address”.
    Image of ORO Subscribe to these results pane.
  4. Now go to your Inbox in Outlook and navigate to the RSS Subscriptions subfolder.
  5. Image of RSS subscriptions subfolder in MS Outlook.Right Click on “RSS Subscriptions” and select “Add a new RSS feed”. The New RSS Feed dialog box will pop up and you can paste the url you copied from ORO. Click “Add”.
  6. This should return any relevant results and update in real time for new items added to ORO.

Image of populated ORO results in email folder in Outlook.

PDF Version of instructions: Creating a Mailbox Alert for new Items in ORO [PDF]

NEW OU Digital Archive Exhibition: PhD Pioneers

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Have you ever wondered who the first OU PhD graduates were?

Today, the OU Digital Archive – in collaboration with the Graduate School – has launched a fantastic new exhibition that features the stories and experiences of twelve of the OU’s first PhD graduates from 1973-79.

It focuses on video interviews taken in 2021, mixed with photos and TV footage from the 1970s, that illustrates the often exciting, ground-breaking activities, and sometimes emotional reflections, of this outstanding group of OU PhD alumni.

It really is a truly fascinating and insightful exhibition, so please do go check it out: Exhibition: PhD Pioneers