All Office of Scholarly Communication courses

Join the OSC for an exciting opportunity to hear a preview of Dr Danny Kingsley's keynote for the upcoming CONUL2017 conference. Feedback on both the talk and the topic are encouraged!

Emerging from the Chrysalis - Transforming Libraries for the Future

Access to information has changed immeasurably in the past decade, bringing the traditional role of the academic library into question. Rather than a doomsday scenario, this situation offers huge potential for information professionals to situate the library at the heart of research support. 'Scholarly communication' is the umbrella term for the information exchange between research communities, research funders, the publishing industry and the general public. This talk will discuss the establishment of the Office of Scholarly Communication at Cambridge University, how it is now embedded within multiple administrative areas of the University and how it works collaboratively with the research community to identify areas that need expertise, support and services. By taking an open and transparent approach to this work, the Office of Scholarly Communication has had an impact not only within the institution, but nationally and internationally. This has not been without challenges, including working within a strict university governance system and managing unstable funding sources. However this work is now more important than ever at a time when academic publishers are investing substantially in research management and analytics businesses. Libraries that embrace the management of the unique work created within their own institution may find themselves central to the research institution of the future. The alternative could be obsolescence.

Cambridge is in a strong position to determine its own ambitious vision for a more open, accessible and inclusive approach to the sharing and use of research to help drive innovation and discovery and help address global challenges: for health, for climate, for equality and diversity. With changing societal attitudes and technological advances in communication tools, now is the time to consider which strategies we want to adopt to maximise the reach and impact of Cambridge research including through new and open forms of scholarly communication.

Libraries play a crucial role in the scholarly communication landscape, with librarians being well-placed to understand both the needs of the researchers we support and the challenges in providing access to materials. We hope you will want to take part and help shape the options for Cambridge.

These workshops are designed to create a space to think ahead, taking a long view, and explore what the future of scholarly communications will look like locally and globally. They follow on from similar workshops involving leaders in research, publishing and libraries at Cambridge earlier this year. We will have an opportunity to review and comment on some of the outputs of the previous workshops.

If you have recently started receiving peer reviews, or would like to become a reviewer, this is an unmissable chance to pick up tips and best practices for responding to reviews, being noticed as a reviewer, getting your review done, and getting credit for your work

The Office of Scholarly Communication invites you to an essential introduction to Peer Review.

You'll learn...

• how to make the most of the peer review process
• how to increase the chance of being asked to review
• how to get ready to review and be recognized for your work
• how to write the feedback you wish you'd received.

If you have recently started peer reviewing, or are ready to get involved, this is an unmissable chance to pick up tips and best practices from PLOS, publishers of the world's largest multi-disciplinary peer-reviewed journal.

The Office of Scholarly Communication invites you to join PLOS for an essential introduction to Peer Review.

You'll learn...

• the 3 questions you should always ask yourself when you're asked to do a review
• how to get ready to review and be recognized for your work
• how to read a manuscript with peer review in mind
• how to write the feedback you wish you'd received.

Stay on after the workshop to chat to PLOS staff and editors and enjoy light refreshments.

So much choice, so little time!

With the growth in both traditional and online publishers choosing the best place to share their work is becoming an increasingly complex decision for researchers. The first in our Librarian Toolkit series on helping researchers publish will cover topics such as writing tools to use, picking the right format for publication, factors to consider when choosing a journal and how to use impact factors and other metrics.

FAIR data are those that are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Sounds simple enough, but what do each of these terms mean in a practical sense and how can your researchers tell if their research data is FAIR?

The Research Data Team at the Office of Scholarly Communication join forces with FOSTER Open Science to offer this workshop to help you get to grips with the key principles and consider how you can help your researchers make their data FAIRer.

Once you have completed How FAIR is that research data?: an online course (for research support staff including librarians and administrators in all disciplines) we invite you to attend this workshop session with the Research Data Team from the Office of Scholarly Communication to discuss your experiences in assessing the FAIRness of your data, including any problems you encountered. We will also discuss guidelines on how to best support researchers in making their data FAIR.

FAIR data are those that are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Sounds simple enough, but what do each of these terms mean in a practical sense and how can you tell if your own research data is FAIR?

The Research Data Team at the Office of Scholarly Communication join forces with FOSTER Open Science to offer a practical workshop to help you get to grips with the key principles and consider how you can start to make your own data FAIRer.

Once you have completed How FAIR is your research data? An online course (for researchers and postgraduate students in all disciplines) we invite you to attend this workshop session with the Research Data Team from the Office of Scholarly Communication to discuss your experiences in assessing the FAIRness of your data, including any problems you encountered. You are welcome to bring examples of your data to this session to further develop your skills, or try your hand at FAIRifying more example datasets from Apollo.

Helene Brinken (University of Gottingen, FOSTER) will guide you through workflows, tools and resources to help you embed open research into your research practices.

This session will take place in 1S4 Computer Room, Faculty of Education.

More information to follow.

Following the workshop, you are invited to stay for our event Reproducibility in action: improving research in the life and social sciences.

'Dear esteemed author…'

So-called predatory publishers regularly approach researchers via email to solicit manuscripts and conference papers. With the emphasis on publishing as a measure of academic success still strong it can be easy to give in to temptation and flattery but this can do more harm than good to a future career.

This session will look at the problem of predatory publishers using case studies. Attendees will be given tips on how to spot a predatory publisher or conference and the best advice to offer if one of their researchers has been approached.

Are your students confused by copyright? Do you struggle to find the answers to their questions? You are not alone!

This final session of our Librarian Toolkit series on helping researchers to publish, this workshop will deal with common copyright questions which arise during the publication process. From including copyrighted work in a thesis to sharing published work on social networks copyright is a complex minefield and it can be hard to know where to start when giving advice.

This session for librarians will equip attendees with knowledge about third party copyright, making work available open access and how researchers can share their work legally online.