The programme for Library Research Week is now available online. You can look forward to various interesting webinars that speak to the theme, Let’s partner for research impact. The theme underscores the power of teamwork, partnerships, and shared knowledge in advancing research. It highlights the critical role of collaborations, as well as networks, in driving impactful research. The week will feature a variety of activities designed to enrich the research process and boost research impact.

Library Research Week 2025 launches on Monday, 12 May, with guest speaker Prof. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, 2024 Templeton Award winner, Professor and Chair of Research for Social Change and Transformation, Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and Reparative Quest. Professor Gobodo-Madikizela is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University, where she also holds the South African National Research Foundation Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma and the Research Chair in Historical Trauma and Transformation. In addition, Professor Gobodo-Madikizela is a celebrated author of works that include A human being died that night: A South African story of forgiveness and Memory, narrative, and forgiveness: Perspectives on the unfinished journeys of the past (co-authored with Chris van der Merwe), among others.

Her presentation, titled Intellectual life in academia and researching experience: On the irreducible nature of encounter will be an exploratory project where she reflects on her own research and on how one’s foundational ideas find new life when revisited in light of new questions, especially when the inquiry is ethically rich and motivated by intellectual honesty. Read her full abstract here.

As with our previous Library Research Weeks, each day will have a sub-theme connected to the overarching theme. Click on the themes below to view the programme for each day.

• Monday, 12 May: Launch of Library Research Week (Online and in-person by invitation only)
• Tuesday, 13 May: Let’s work together throughout the research process (Online)
• Wednesday, 14 May: Let’s collaborate to find the best research tools (Online)
• Thursday, 15 May: Let’s strengthen your research impact (Online)
• Friday, 16 May: Let’s support researcher well-being (Online)

Here is a teaser trailer for the full programme:

Book now and join us for a fascinating series of webinars that will aid you on your research journey!

Author: Kirchner van Deventer

Primo is the discovery search tool that enables you to search for books and full-text resources that the Library subscribes to, (e-books, articles, videos, etc.) from a single search box on the Library’s homepage.

Primo Research Assistant (Beta) is an AI-powered tool designed to streamline academic research by providing users with relevant sources and summaries. It allows you to search the Library’s catalogue using natural language questions. It analyses descriptions and abstracts from trusted academic resources to generate an overview of the tool’s top five ranked relevant sources to answer your question. Developed by Ex Libris, this assistant leverages generative AI to enhance your research, making it more efficient and accessible.

Research Assistant utilises a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture, combining large language model capabilities with indexed academic materials. When you submit a query, the system converts the query into a Boolean search format and then retrieves the most relevant results from Primo’s Central Discovery Index. Using AI-driven embeddings, it ranks the top results and then generates an overview based on the abstracts of the top five sources, while also providing inline citations and references.

Users can input natural language queries, making research more intuitive and it has multilingual support, which allows you to submit your queries in various languages and it will provide results in the same language as well. It can give you direct access to available full-text sources, but it is important to note that the results are not always available through Stellenbosch University and may have to be requested via Interlibrary Loans. Clients should also keep in mind that Research Assistant is still in beta development.

Below is a short demonstration of how Research Assistant works:

By integrating AI into academic research, Primo Research Assistant can greatly aid how students and scholars access and analyse information. Its ability to provide accurate, well-referenced summaries makes it a valuable asset for our staff and students.

Author: Kirchner van Deventer

We are pleased to announce that EndNote 2025 will soon be made available to all SU staff and students. It will be released on 22 April and we will make it available soon after that. WWIS will provide training on all the new features and the date for this training will be announced once it has been confirmed. You can read more about those features: EndNote 2025

NB: Please ignore the offer to upgrade to EndNote 2025 that now appears when you launch EndNote 21!

Since its inception in 2013, Library and Information Service’s annual Library Research Week has become a highly anticipated event that offers valuable sessions on a variety of research-related topics. The aim of Library Research Week is to develop the skills and knowledge of emerging researchers and postgraduate students and to equip them with practical knowledge related to aspects of the research process. We draw from a vast source of expertise at Stellenbosch University to present the webinars and we also launch each week with a prestigious launch event where past guest speakers have included Professor Jonathan Jansen, Distinguished Professor, Education Policy Studies, Dr Balindiwi Sishi, Senior Lecturer in Physiological Sciences and Professor Jimmy Volmink, Former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at SU.

In line with the above, we are delighted to invite you to join us for the 2025 Library Research Week, which will take place from 12–16 May, under the theme ‘Let’s Partner for Research Impact.’ The week will feature a variety of activities designed to enrich the research process and boost research impact through collaboration and partnerships. The event will kick off on 12 May 2025 from 15:30–16:30, with our distinguished guest speaker, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela. Professor Gobodo-Madikizela is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University, where she also holds the South African National Research Foundation Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma and also the Research Chair in Historical Trauma and Transformation. She is the 2020-2021 Walter Jackson Bate Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. In 2024 she was awarded the prestigious Templeton prize for her remarkable work.  In addition, Professor Gobodo-Madikizela is a celebrated author of works that include A Human Being died that night: A South African story of Forgiveness and Memory, Narrative, and Forgiveness: Perspectives on the Unfinished Journeys of the Past (co-authored with Chris van der Merwe), among others.

As with our previous Research Weeks, every day will have a sub-theme that is connected to the overall theme ‘Let’s Partner for Research Impact:’

• Monday, 12 May: Launch of Library Research Week (In-person and Online)
• Tuesday, 13 May: Let’s Work Together Throughout the Research Process (Online)
• Wednesday, 14 May: Let’s Collaborate to Find the Best Research Tools (Online)
• Thursday, 15 May: Let’s Strengthen your Research Impact (Online)
• Friday, 16 May: Let’s Support Researcher Well-being (Online)

Keep an eye out for the full programme and we look forward to seeing you there!

Whether you are an up and coming researcher or experienced, whether you are new to Stellenbosch University or an old hand, you may all find that we offer research support services that you were not aware of!

A great place to see all our research support services is our Research Services webpage:

You will find a range of available services here, including links to our #SmartResearcher workshop series, publishing support and open access, managing research data, managing references, measuring research impact, analysing data and our unique research collections. Another great source for information is our Research Process library guide:

The research process is a structured approach to conducting research, with several key phases that can help guide the researcher through their research journey. The guide is designed to revolve around steps of Plan & Design, Collect & Capture, Analyse, collaborate & create, Manage, store & preserve, Share & publish and Monitor & evaluate. This is also where you will find some recommended apps and software that could aid your research journey. These can be found under Useful tools for research.

With AI transforming our academic environment, it is also worth considering how it may impact or benefit the research process. AI can be considered an enabler of new methods, processes, management and evaluation in research (Chubb et al., 2022). However, any tools that can aid you must always be approached with a pinch of salt and ethical considerations and reliability must be taken into account. If you are unsure, just ask your librarian!

If any of these services piqued your interest, do not hesitate to contact us. Your faculty librarian and we at Research Support Services are just a click away!

Sources:

Chubb, J., Cowling, P. & Reed, D. 2022. Speeding up to keep up: exploring the use of AI in the research process, AI & Society, 37:1439-1457. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01259-0

Stewart, L. 2025. The research process: Steps, how to start & tips. ATLAS.ti. Available: https://atlasti.com/research-hub/research-process [2025, 27 Feb].

Taherdoost, H. 2024. The research process: From question to conclusion. LinkedIn, 2 Nov. Available: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/research-process-from-question-conclusion-hamed-taherdoost-n9ajc/ [2025, 27 Feb.].

Author: Kirchner van Deventer

October will be the final month during which we will present our #SmartResearcher webinars for the year. The focus of the webinars will be on how to supervisors can submit theses and dissertations on behalf of their students, important decisions around getting published, how to measure the impact of your research, and more.

These workshops are aimed at postgraduate students, emerging researchers and academic staff and the focus will be on the research process. The sessions vary in length depending on the subject matter, but cover a wide range of subjects related to the postgraduate research journey.

Increasing the visibility of your research output through self-archiving Stellenbosch University’s institutional policy on the self-archiving of research output is curated by the Library and Information Service. Complying with this policy, which asks researchers to deposit copies of their research output in SUNScholar, our institutional repository, can greatly increase the visibility and impact of research output. This workshop will teach participants more about the policy and how to comply with the policy in order to improve access to and visibility of their research outputs. Date: Tuesday, 1 October Time: 14:00 – 15:30 Register Here

Making important decisions about publishing your research This hands-on session covers important factors to help you decide where to publish your research. Making the right choices can increase readership and citations, diminish publication lag and ensure that your publication is eligible for government subsidy. Date: Thursday, 3 October Time: 10:00 – 13:00 Register Here

Enhancing your research impact through open access publishing This workshop will introduce attendees to the principles of Open Access and how it can benefit the impact of their research. Open access publishing is a model of scholarly communication that provides unrestricted and free access to scholarly research outputs, such as articles, papers, and data. In open access publishing, the content is made available online to the public without financial, legal, or technical barriers. Date: Tuesday, 8 October Time: 14:00 – 15:00 Register Here

Managing your unique author identity with ORCID ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers. This workshop will explain what ORCID is, how to register and populate your profiles. Date: Wednesday, 9 October Time: 14:00 – 15:00 Register Here

Maximise your research impact This workshop will show how to improve your impact as a researcher. The following two sessions will be presented: Increase the visibility of your research (1 hour) Participants will learn to: ·         Find and navigate social research networks (ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Mendeley, etc.) ·         Develop research profiles ·         Understand how to increase your visibility as a researcher ·         Understand the role of science communication and social media Tracking your citations (1 hour) Participants will learn about: ·         The different citation metrics and altmetrics and where to find it ·         Awareness on methods to increase citations ·         Responsible use of metrics Date: Tuesday, 15 October Time: 14:00 – 16:00 Register Here

Submitting a thesis /dissertation to SUNScholar This library training opportunity for academic staff is designed to provide practical guidance to academic staff who are now required to submit theses/dissertations on behalf of their students. Date: Wednesday, 16 October Time: 14:00 – 15:00 Register Here

EndNote for reference management EndNote 21 offers various services, including reference management, organising and annotation of PDF documents and collaboration. In this session, we will show you how to download and install EndNote and how to set up your account. Date: Wednesday, 23 October Time: 14:00 – 16:00 Register Here

As you may know, we switched over to EndNote as our officially supported reference management software at the start of 2024. The uptake has been impressive and our clients seem very satisfied with the software. But there are always questions and some of them get asked more frequently than others and, as EndNote can be quite a complex programme to work with when compared to Mendeley or Zotero, we’ll try and answer some of these questions here. This will be a “work in progress” as new questions continually pop up. So we’ll add a link to our EndNote LibGuide to this post so you can check back in to see if any new questions were added.

How is EndNote different from Mendeley and/or Zotero?

The core functions of all three programmes are essentially the same, to simplify in-text citations and generate a reference list for your research paper, assignment or thesis/dissertation. But there are some significant differences that we cannot go into here. Considering technical support, while Mendeley and Zotero are open source free-to-use platforms, EndNote is subscription-based and with the subscription, we get an immense amount of technical support and access to instructional resources that are of greater quality than that of Mendeley or Zotero. To read more about these differences, click here.

Is EndNote available to anyone at SU?

Yes, we have an institutional subscription, which means that any student or staff member at SU can get EndNote. However, we still discourage undergraduates from using reference managers, since they first need to learn how to reference and cite properly before they can make optimal use of reference managers.

I have been using Mendeley/Zotero to reference in my thesis, must I switch to EndNote?

No, you do not have to switch over to EndNote, especially if you are in the advanced stages of your thesis/dissertation. It can be a tedious and distracting exercise to switch over to EndNote at the later stages, so we recommend that you rather finish your current research project before switching over.

I have installed EndNote on my Mac device and clicked on it to run, but nothing seems to be happening

Unlike EndNote for Windows, EndNote Mac does not prompt you to create a new library the first time you launch the software and you need to do it manually. To learn more on how to do that, check Step 15 in the installation instructions here.

I have many folders in Mendeley, is there a way they can be replicated in EndNote?

Unfortunately, there is no way to replicate these folders and you will have to manually reorganise your references once you have imported your Mendeley library to EndNote.

Can I share my EndNote library or folders with colleagues?

Yes, you can either share your entire library, or specific folders (called Groups in EndNote) with colleagues. More about sharing with EndNote can be viewed in these PDFs:

Windows

EndNote 21 Library Sharing

MacOS

EndNote 21 Library Sharing

Can I use EndNote without internet access

Yes absolutely. EndNote works perfectly well without internet access. The online library serves more as a backup of your data.

How do I import references into EndNote

You can learn more about importing references here:

Windows

Adding a new reference

MacOS

Adding a new reference

How do I manage and edit citations in EndNote?

You can learn more about importing references here:

Windows

Managing citations

MacOS

Managing citations

For any enquiries please contact Kirchner van Deventer.

It’s safe to say that Google has monopolised the online search engine industry, so much so that these days if we want to look something up on the internet, we say we are going to “Google” it. Along with Google Scholar, this dominance makes it easy to forget that there are alternatives to Google that might offer alternative and useful results. In this post, we will give you a brief overview of some of these engines to give a try.

Wolfram|Alpha

Wolfram|Alpha is a computational knowledge engine developed by Wolfram Research. It’s designed to answer factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data rather than providing a list of web pages or documents that might contain the answer, which is how traditional search engines like Google operate. Wolfram Alpha can handle a wide range of queries across various domains, including mathematics, statistics, physics, engineering, astronomy, and many others. It’s particularly useful for computations, generating graphs, analyzing data, solving equations, and providing answers to complex factual questions.

DuckDuckGo

DuckDuckGo is a privacy-focused search engine that emphasises protecting users’ privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalised search results. Unlike many other search engines, DuckDuckGo does not track users’ search histories or personalise search results based on past behaviours. It offers a clean interface and aims to provide neutral, unbiased search results.

In addition to standard web search, DuckDuckGo also includes features like “Instant Answers,” which are derived from various sources such as Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha, and other structured data repositories. These instant answers aim to provide quick, factual information directly on the search results page.

Overall, DuckDuckGo has gained popularity among users who prioritise privacy and transparency in their online searches. For research purposes, this can be especially useful as the results you received are objective and unfiltered.

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is an open-access search engine that primarily indexes academic resources and provides free access to millions of scholarly documents, such as articles, theses, books, and conference papers. It’s operated by Bielefeld University Library in Germany.

BASE gathers content from various academic repositories, digital libraries, and publishers worldwide. It aims to facilitate access to scientific information by offering a centralized search platform that retrieves results from multiple sources. Users can search for academic content across disciplines, making it a valuable tool for researchers, students, and anyone interested in scholarly literature.

Key features of BASE include:

1. Open Access Focus: It primarily indexes open-access content, ensuring that much of the scholarly material it searches is freely available to the public.
2. Comprehensive Coverage: It includes a wide range of academic sources, covering various disciplines and types of scholarly output.
3. Search and Discovery: BASE provides advanced search capabilities to help users find relevant academic resources efficiently.
4. Integration with Libraries: It offers integration with library systems and other academic platforms, allowing users to access full-text documents where available.

Overall, BASE plays a significant role in the open-access movement by providing a powerful tool for discovering and accessing scholarly literature globally.

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

CORE (COnnecting REpositories) provides a comprehensive bibliographic database of the world’s scholarly literature, collecting and indexing research from repositories and journals. It is considered the world’s largest collection of full text open access research papers. CORE is a not-for-profit service dedicated to the open access mission and one of the signatories of the Principles of Open Scholarly Infrastructures POSI.

So, in conclusion, remember that there are alternatives to Google and Google Scholar that can enrich the information you retrieve from the World Wide Web!

Note: ChatGPT was used to generate some, but not all, of this article’s content.

As a postgraduate student or researcher, you are probably following some pre-defined process in conducting your research. At the library, we have a library guide that focuses specifically on the research process and its various steps.

Our guide is built on the above research life cycle, starting at the plan and design phase, moving to collecting and capturing data, then analysis, collaboration and creating visual accompaniments to your research , managing, storing and preserving your research, how to share and publish it and finally how to monitor and evaluate the impact and spread of your research. Each of these phases is comprehensively covered in the Research Process library guide. Some of the sections will redirect you to other helpful library guides that we have set up to assist you in your research journey and there are dedicated librarians who can assist you in all the different steps in the process.

For the planning and designing of your research, you can always reach out to your faculty librarian who is there to help you get started and to assist you along the way. You can find out who your faculty librarian is by consulting your discipline’s library guide here.

We also have dedicated librarians who can assist you in the following aspects. You will find their contact details and other useful information on the below guides:

• Research data management
• Research impact
• Open access publishing

Also, if you need any guidance on the research process, who to reach out to, technical formatting of your thesis/dissertation and/or referencing and reference management, you can reach out to the Research Commons staff, Kirchner van Deventer or Letlao Seloma.