When I had arrived there I got a warm welcome by Sara who looked so very well after me.
In the picture to the left you can see some figures for Griffith University.
The first item on the agenda for that day was me attending a workshop called "Build and leverage your research profile". It began with an introduction about why it is important to have a good research(er) profile and which platforms do offer such a profile. Afterwards we could set up profiles ourselves. Since I already have a profile on ResearchGate and Academia.edu I thought to set up one on Google Scholar. Then I found out that I already had one, that means Google must have set it up itself. This profile actually contains more publications than I had put into ResearchGate and it showed that I have 53 citations! You can imagine that I was rather pleased.
But I also realised that I need to get me an ORCID iD very soon. As should everyone who is publishing and doing research. For those of you who don't know about ORCID, have a look at their website: http://orcid.org/
Since the workshop finished earlier than scheduled, Sara took me to the Red Zone. Griffith's Red Zones (there are three at different campuses) provide exciting interactive learning experiences to the public. Through hands-on technology and massive projection displays, you can expand your knowledge and explore the university's expertise in science, health, business and the arts.
For example, you can play in an augmented reality sandbox, that means you can create rivers,
mountains and valleys and see what happens when you make it rain.
The library offers more workshops to higher degree researchers (doing a master or PhD). Look at this brochure for more information: https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/805045/HDR-sem2-2016-web.pdf
Afterwards I got a tour of the library that has lots of front line desks for all sorts of student support, not only for library support. There are social study spaces on the ground floor floor, quiet study spaces on the first floor and silent study spaces on the second floor. The library has quite recently removed lots of books (they hired an enterprise to do that) and refurbished the spaces with many nice armchairs, sofas, study cells and other study places. It looked very nice, that means not fancy but very usable. I loved that.
The next meeting was with Craig, the manager of Scholarly Resources Services. He is in charge of acquisitions/collection development, vendor services, research content services (Open Access and institutional repository - if I don't remember wrongly), and interlibrary loan. He told me that they mainly use PDA as their acquisition method (that means they don't by just in case!) and they focus on electronic resources. Discipline librarians are not much involved in the collection development, they mainly work with the collections when doing the annual subscription review together with the staff from Scholarly Resources Services. Craig has developed/written a Scholarly Resource Strategy (you could also call it a Collection Development Strategy) and I got the document. It's is just fantastic and I suggest we are using this as a starting point for a new Collection Development Policy/Strategy at our library at NTNU!!!
Btw, his position is NOT under the Library and Learning Services, but under the Information Management section (where - among others - also Content and Discovery services, digitisation services and the information policy officer belong). Both sections are under the Pro Vice Chancellor for Information Services, as are the university's eResearch services, information technology services and IT solutions).
For more information about the organisational chart of the Information Services of the university: https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/579294/ins-org-chart-15-7-2016.pdf
Another meeting was with Andrew from the eResearch Services section. This section assists the Griffith research community to undertake research with the goal of maximising research outcomes through the provision of information management and IT expertise and related resources and infrastructure. Services include:
- Research application development and support
- Research computation, analysis and visualisation
- Research data management and storage
- Data capture and study participant management
- Media production services
At the end of the day I had a meeting with discipline librarians (from Sciences, Health, Law and Education) and with Lucy, the Library Services Manager for Sciences who is the manager for the support of and services for staff and students within the Sciences.
The library has a range of specialists who help with academic or library related issues and are grouped by subject areas. The specialist teams include: Librarians, Learning Advisers, Digital Capability advisers and Information Literacy Librarians. There are four groups of specialists:
- Arts, Education and Law specialists
- Business specialists
- Health specialists
- Science specialists
The Information Literacy Support includes:
- Research and referencing consultations (individual and small group consultations with a librarian face-to-face or online). Appointments are necessary and consultations usually last 20 minutes.
- EndNote consultations (individual consultations with a librarian in the use of EndNote to help manage your research and bibliographies). Appointments are necessary consultations usually last 20 minutes.
1. For undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students
Library and Learning Services staff work collaboratively with Learning and Teaching staff in each Academic Group to identify priorities for customised information literacy support.
Requests for workshops are sent to Academic Groups each semester. During the year any 'ad hoc' requests for information literacy classes can be sent to the particular Library Services Manager. These requests will be met where staff are available.
2. For higher degree research candidates
Library and Learning Services staff work collaboratively with Information Services staff, Learning and Teaching staff and the Griffith Graduate Research School to identify priorities for customised information literacy classes to support Higher Degree Research candidates.
During the year, staff can request 'ad hoc' information literacy classes for higher degree research programmes by contacting the relevant Library Services Manager. Higher Degree Research candidates can book an individual research consultation with their Discipline Librarian.
Griffith University also offers lots of self-help resources, like Strategies for academic success (time management, group work strategies, concept mapping etc.) or Numeracy & Math or Referencing.
Look here for all resources:
https://www.griffith.edu.au/library/workshops-training/self-help-resources
And here you have the organisational chart for the Library and Learning Services:
https://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/583836/LLS-org-chart-15-7-2016.pdf
Altogether a real intense and very informative day. So much to learn and absorb. Thanks to all the colleagues I met there!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment