Research Impact

Professor Mark Reed, Director of Engagement & Impact at Newcastle University, has analyzed impact case studies from around the world, and proposes ten types of research impact considering benefits and innovation in a real-world context:

  • Understanding and awareness – meaning your research helped people understand an issue better than they had before
  • Attitudinal – your research helped lead to a change in attitudes
  • Economic – your research contributed to cost savings, or costs avoided; or increases in revenue, profits or funding

  • Environmental – benefits arising from your research aid genetic diversity, habitat conservation and ecosystems

  • Health and well-being – your research led to better outcomes for individuals or groups

  • Policy – your research contributed to new or amended guidelines or laws

  • Other forms of decision-making and behavioural impacts

  • Cultural – changes in prevailing values, attitudes and beliefs

  • Other social impacts –such as access to education or improvement in human rights

  • Capacity or preparedness – research that helps individuals and groups better cope with changes that might otherwise have a negative impact.

Professor Reed’s book, The Research Impact Handbook, is highly recommended – even required reading – if you’d like to learn more about each of these areas, and how to understand the potential outcomes of your research in each area.

Literature Review

SEARCH RELEVANT PAPERS

  1. Define your topic. Do you have central question you want to answer?

  2. Narrow down what you want to research. Can you focus more deeply, rather than skimming the surface of your topic?

  3. Structure your topic into key concepts ( themes) to make it easier to search and look up information

  4. Use your learning material to identify key authors or theories that relate to the themes and make them your starting point

  5. Do your learning material suggest any further reading? If so, track it down

  6. Use an online library and open repositories to locate academic opinion and theory

  7. Use search engine for scientific literature (academic research database):

  • Scopus is one of the two big commercial, bibliographic databases that cover scholarly literature from almost any discipline. Beside searching for research articles, Scopus also provides academic journal rankings, author profiles, and an h-index calculator.

  • Web of Science also known as Web of Knowledge is the second big bibliographic database. Usually, academic institutions provide either access to Web of Science or Scopus on their campus network for free

  • For education sciences, ERIC is the number one destination. ERIC stands for Education Resources Information Center, and is a database that specifically hosts education-related literature.

  • IEEE Xplore is the leading academic database in the field of engineering and computer science. It’s not only journal articles, but also conference papers, standards and books that can be search for.

  • ScienceDirect is the gateway to the millions of academic articles published by Elsevier. 2,500 journals and more than 40,000 e-books can be searched via a single interface.

  • The DOAJ is very special academic database since all the articles indexed are open access and can be accessed freely of charge.

  • Google Scholar is the clear number one when it comes to academic search engines.

  • Microsoft Academic takes a different approach and generates for each paper that is indexed an overview page that allows to easily explore top citing articles and references of the article

  • CORE is an academic search engine dedicated to open access research papers.

  • Science.gov is a fantastic resource as it bundles and offers free access to search results from more than 15 U.S. federal agencies. There is no need any more to query all those resources separately!

  • Semantic Scholar is the new kid on the block. It’s mission is to provide more relevant and impactful search results using AI powered algorithms that find hidden connections and links between research topics.

ORGANIZE YOUR OWN LIBRARY Use the browser extension to import automatically your paper into your digital library, then:

  1. Organise your literature using a scientific content manager (Mendeley, Zotero, Paperpile): store any paper copies in folders and files, grouped into themes

  2. Read and annotate the literature you have sourced

  3. Establish a criteria including a code system to tag only relevant literature

  4. Tag only the relevant literature using the key themes you have identified

Collaborative Annotation

Protocol for collective research with consistency and flexibility

Compare NVivo, MAXQDA and ATLAS.ti to code transcripts from teams or zoom

Source: caqdasblog

1.Working collaboratively

There are various software tools and cloud-based applications to support individual research such as ATLAS.ti; Dedoose; MAXqda; NVivo and NVivo 9 Server; QDA Miner; and Transana… However, the big challenge is to find a good platform for collective research.

A few solutions proposed by teams are: 1. Merging software projects and the completed work, after working individually.

2. Working in serial and exporting work

3. Synchronous working by multiple users

Annotate PDFs Collaboratively Using Google Drive

  • Upload a PDF to your Google Drive (New>File upload, or click-and-drag the PDF into your Google Drive).

  • Click the PDF to preview it.

  • (Optional) Click the share button in the upper right to add other people, or get a link to share.

  • Click on the annotate icon in the upper right to start adding notes. Highlight text or illustrations throughout the document to comment on them.
  • The ability to annotate PDFs, or at least open in a PDF reader that will, without having to download the file, annotate, and upload.

Google, Asana, Trello

2.Ways to collaborate in NVivo

Many projects involve multiple researchers working together—NVivo provides two ways to approach collaboration:

  • Share projects using NVivo Server—this is the best solution for team work since everyone in your team can work on the same project at the same time. They can code, annotate and link source content and have immediate access to the changes made by other team members.

  • Work in copies of a standalone project and merge them into a master project at appropriate intervals—making use of user profiles to track changes.

While teams offer higher productivity and a richer perspective, they also present a number of management challenges. Early in a project it is important to determine the approach your team will take to:

  • Collecting and organizing data

  • Creating and cataloguing themes and topics (the node structure)

  • Coding the data

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3.Managing Teamwork

Whether you work with NVivo Server or collaborate in a standalone project you might want to consider the following:

  • Appoint a team leader who will keep the team on track and make final coding decisions.

  • Have regular team meetings to discuss interpretations, address issues and assign tasks—record the outcomes in a memo.

  • Have each team member keep a memo to record their progress, including any hunches, suggestions or questions—you could also do this in a single ‘teamwork journal’.

  • Early on, have multiple team members code the same collection of sources, then compare coding (using coding stripes or a Coding Comparison query)—this can help ensure a consistent approach.

  • To start with, make a node hierarchy for each team member. After team discussion, you can refine, merge and reorganize.

  • Aim for a clear node structure and use descriptions (in node properties) to make the purpose of a node clear for all team members.

  • To help team members understand the meaning of nodes, create a codebook that lists the nodes and their descriptions—refer to Export a codebook for more information.

  • As the project progresses, see which nodes have been created or modified and by which team member—do this in Node List View or by running a Node Summary report.

  • While a common node structure is important for efficiency and reliability— it should remain flexible so that new insights and exciting ideas are not lost.

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4. Coding together

If multiple researchers are coding the same data, you may be interested in the consistency of their coding. NVivo provides a number of ways to check consistency or coder reliability:

  • Run a Coding Comparison Query to determine the percentage of agreement and disagreement between coders.

  • Display coding stripes for users—you can open a data source and see the coding done by each researcher.

  • Filter the content of a node to see only the references coded by selected researchers

Remember that inconsistency in coding is not necessarily negative— it may prompt productive debate and deeper insights into the data.

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Related topics

videos

NVIVO

https://youtu.be/fYG4enIoAeQ

ATLAS.TI

td-net toolbox

The methods and tools offered by the td-net toolbox specifically focus on jointly developing projects, conducting research and exploring ways to impact in heterogeneous groups. They are intended to help shape collaboration between experts and stakeholders from science and practice in systematic and traceable ways.

Methods and tools for co-producing knowledge

This web portal offers a point of entry to widespread methods and tools for collaboration between experts and stakeholders from science and practice for tackling real-world, context-sensitive societal challenges.

When targeted at tackling societal challenges, inter- and transdisciplinary research involves varying points of view, interests or political goals. Ways of how research can be societally relevant need to be identified. Specific tools that help to deal with these challenges and shape collaboration between experts and stakeholders from science and practice in systematic and traceable ways are therefore needed.

The resources provided in this portal are contributed by experts from the international community of transdisciplinarians and related academic fields.

Explore methods and tools for co-producing knowledge

You can search for methods using process phases, key issues, the list of methods compiled in our own toolbox or related toolboxes:

https://naturalsciences.ch/topics/co-producing_knowledge/methods/td-net_toolbox

Science Shop Toolbox

The Science Shop Toolbox helps Science Shops provide independent, participatory research support in response to concerns experienced by civil society. The toolbox provides information on how to build strong and meaningful partnerships between community-based and university-based researchers. It offers a set of documents and a database that bring together relevant information on Science Shop procedures, processes and guidelines. The toolbox can empower new Science Shops in developing professional standards and enable existing Science Shops in refining and improving their practices through updated professional know-how. It also facilitates the exchange of good practices across different countries, incorporating the experiences and needs of new and potential European partners.

Science Shops as a way of transferring knowledge are innovative and effective and have a positive impact both on research and on civil society.

A Science Shop (is a unit that) provides independent participatory research support in response to concerns expressed by civil society. CSO members can participate as a researcher themselves, or the CSOs perform the whole research, with some methodological support from researchers. Through Science Shops, CSOs have a direct say on the course of the research (or ‘the research agenda’) and are allowed full access to and use of the results.

Source: https://www.livingknowledge.org/fileadmin/Dateien-Living-Knowledge/Dokumente_Dateien/Toolbox/LK_B_Sparks_Handbook_Extract_Guidelines_Pop-up_Science_Shop.pdf

The toolbox offers a database of downloadable documents with hyperlinks to other documents in the database. These offer relevant documentation on Science Shop procedures, processes and guidelines, grouped in the following categories:

  • A. community-based research methods

  • B. Science Shop administration

  • C. public awareness

  • D. preparing a Science Shop project

  • E. carrying out a Science Shop project

  • F. writing/publication of a Science Shop project.

The tools and documents under A and C can also be useful for researchers and educators, while those under B, D, E and F are specifically for science centres. Because Science Shops do not have one typical structure, specific needs will vary depending on local situations (e.g., sources of funding, time horizons).

Currently, some of the toolbox links are not functional, and the listed tools are not summarized. As part of the relaunch of the Living Knowledge website, the toolbox may be revised. Some of the tools in the database can be used to facilitate RRI, whereas others, such as Science Shop administration tools, may have little to no direct influence on RRI.

Living Knowledge: the International Science Shop Network.

http://www.livingknowledge.org/resources/toolbox/

This toolbox service will empower new Science Shops and people working in community based research in developing professional standards and enable existing Science Shops to refine and improve their practice through professional know-how. The database brings together relevant documentation on Science Shop procedures, processes and guidelines. Please send us a message, if you wish to contribute to the toolbox.

Visit also our Library including a list of good reads related to Science Shops, videos and project reports

Content

1 – Organisational Elements of Science Shops a. General b. Organisational Forms c. Financing a Science Shop d. Staffing a Science Shop e. Training and Mentoring for Science Shops 2 – Implementing a Science Shop Project – Methodological Elements a. Preparation b. Implementation c. Evaluation & Reporting d. Financing a project e. Case studies / examples 3 – Manuals, Tools, Guides a. Community Based Research b. Other Participatory Methods & Formats 4 – Working in / with Higher Education a. Working with students b. Working with academic staff c. Working with stakeholders d. Policy and curricula development e. Teaching and training resources for Higher Education staff 5 – Science Shops and the Policy Context a. EU / Swafs b. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) & Science Shops 6 – Communication and Public Awareness a. Communication b. Networks

Wheel of Open Science practices

refer to a set of research actions as part of an Open Science workflow, covering preparation, discovery, analysis, writing, publication, outreach and assessment. 

These examples of open science practices were prepared for and collected at several workshops in 2016, with researchers, funders, publishers, citizen scientists, librarians, university administrators, tool and platform developers, government officials, and other stakeholders in scholarly communication. 

Practices are also available as fileset with separate images, and editable powerpoint slides.

This ‘Wheel of Open Science’ visualization is also available as editable pptx. All items are collected in the Figshare collection ‘Open Science practices’. 

A link to a Google sheet listing a larger collection of research practices (including all these open science practices) is provided.

 

The Wheel of Open Science practices is also available as interactive animation, developed by Bianca Kramer & Jeroen Bosman / This work is part of the project ‘Innovations in Scholarly Communication’ 

https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4628014.v2

Public Engagement

This public engagement evaluation guide is designed for anyone, regardless of prior experience with public engagement or evaluation, who leads projects intended to engage with general audiences about science, social science, engineering and technology and the social, ethical and political issues that new research in these areas raises. It is also intended to help project managers evaluate individual projects. Besides detailing the evaluation process, it discusses important topics, such as what evaluation is about and how evaluation can help strengthen funding applications.

 

UK National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE), Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), and Research Councils UK

 

Fast Track Impact

A common standard for evaluating public engagement with research: new paper by @profmarkreed with @NCCPE, @EngageQM & Dialogue Matters http://ingentaconnect.com/contentone/ioep/rfa/2018/00000002/00000001/art00013;jsessionid=whix95j1u9pw.x-ic-live-01

https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/do-engagement/evaluating-public-engagement

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/publications/evaluationguide-pdf/