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Welcome to the Carnegie Research Commons

March 31, 2022 / Kirchner van Deventer / 0 Comments

The Carnegie Research Commons is a space that master’s and doctoral students, researchers and academics can call their own. With 35 individual workstations, four seminar rooms and a peaceful relaxation area, clients from any faculty can come and work in a space that is conducive for focused research. It is also the quietest area in the library! You need to book a seat or a seminar room, however, there is no limit to how many time-slots you can book. Please just remember to cancel your booking if you are going to leave early, or if you can’t come anymore.

There are two dedicated librarians in the Research Commons who can assist you with your studies. The type of support includes support for Mendeley Reference Manager, referencing in general, MS Word document formatting, basic literature searches, literature reviews, and much more. And if they can’t answer your question, then they will definitely know who can. These services aren’t only for students in the Research Commons, but any master’s or doctoral student, researcher or academic of Stellenbosch University. We can assist you remotely via MS Teams, e-mail, or over the phone. Our desktop computers at the various workstations have all the latest software, that are available to SU students, installed. This includes analytical programmes like SPSS and ATLAS.ti and they also have the latest Microsoft Office Suite.

Our seminar rooms are perfect for videoconferencing, group work and any virtual or in-person meetings. If you are in need of a break, there is a lovely relaxation area with some leisure reading material available. Or you can grab a book from the library’s extensive collection and read it there.

Here is a brief video that shows the Research Commons’ layout: Carnegie Research Commons

For any queries, you can contact Kirchner van Deventer, Head: Carnegie Research Commons, at kvd@sun.ac.za.

We hope to see you soon!

Data visualisation workshops in 2022

March 30, 2022 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

Data visualisation is an important part of the research process. Although spreadsheets and data tables will always be present in research, new types of visualisations are emerging to make information more accessible than before.

This year the offering of workshops offered by the Library on data visualisation will include the following:

Overview of software for effective data analysis and data visualisation – Book for webinar of 5 April
Principles of data visualisation – Book for webinar of 13 April
Introduction to Tableau Public and RawGraphs for data visualisation – Book for webinar of 20 April
Data Visualisation with Microsoft PowerBI – Book for webinar of 4 May

Researchers and students are also welcome to make use of the consultation service available on this topic.

Please contact Marié Roux for more information.

Did you know about the SU ORCID integration?

March 25, 2022 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

You might already have an ORCID ID, since it is compulsory to add your ID to any NRF application and use it when you publish a new article. But did you know that Stellenbosch University has an integration with ORCID? We would like to encourage you to connect your ORCID ID to your Stellenbosch University identity. Please follow this link and follow the steps below.

First sign in to the SU portal
You will be directed to the “Manage your researcher identities” page
Click on the “Connect” button under ORCID
If you already have an ORCID ID you will be able to sign in and authorise SU to view and update your ORCID profile
If you don’t have an ID yet, click on “Register now”, complete the form and authorise SU to view and update your profile, all in one step!
We encourage you to use your sun.ac.za email address to register.

It would be ideal to close the gap between how many researchers at Stellenbosch University have IDs versus how many have connected their IDs to the integration. See the graph below illustrating how many IDs were created and how many IDs were connected between 2013-2021.

If you need any assistance with creating and/or connecting your ORCID iD, please contact:

Marié Roux / Kirchner van Deventer / Your faculty librarian

Read the ORCID library guide

Get help on all aspects of the Research Process

July 21, 2021 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

Do you know about this helpful Library Guide that assists you with all the aspects of the research process? It follows all the steps involved with conducting research, from the planning phase, data collection, the writing process, archiving, publishing, and measuring your impact. Where the Library is not involved, you will be referred to the correct information elsewhere on campus.

Please contact us if you need further assistance with any of these steps.

Developing a plan for communicating your research

May 20, 2021 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

The following steps might be a good way to improve your online visibility as a researcher and assist you with communicating about your research:

Create and maintain online profiles (e.g. Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Academia).
Use persistent identifiers (e.g. ORCID, Researcher ID in Publons, DOIs) to disambiguate yourself as an author or to link to your work.
Publish in Open Access journals or choose Open Access options.
Use Creative Commons licenses for your work for re-use.
Self-archive pre- or post-prints to institutional repositories (SUNScholar).
Publish your data to data repositories (SUNScholarData).
Make social media engagement about your research a regular habit (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)
Engage your audience in meaningful conversations about the topics that you are interested in.
Connect with other researchers by means of academic network tools (ResearchGate, Mendeley, etc)
Appeal to various audiences via multiple publication types (academic articles, news items, blog posts, magazine articles)

It will be important to check in on your goals often, at least once in six months, or when you have published a new article.

Get help:
Marié Roux
Faculty Librarians
Research Commons Librarians

Sources:
Library guide: Research Impact & Scholarly Profiles, University of California, Berkeley Library
Library guide: The Research Process: Improve your impact, Stellenbosch University

Tips on how to improve the visibility of your research

May 4, 2021 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

During a workshop held at the 2016 ARMA conference, a Kudos team led a workshop to consider what researchers can do to increase the visibility of their research. Some great ideas emerged from this workshop. Below a visual version of the key points which came out of the discussion. Read more about it on this Kudos blog post.

Play the Research Data Management Adventure Game

April 16, 2021 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

The Library recently launched a Research Data Management Adventure Game. It is a text-based role-playing interactive serious game based on an academic research project’s data management challenges. The game takes the form of an online choose-your-own-adventure format in which game players take a simulated research project through the processes below whilst encountering data management challenges along the way.

The game focus on the following learning outcomes:

Data management planning
Designing participant information sheets and consent forms
Choosing appropriate equipment for research projects
Acquiring suitable third-party research data
Organising research data
Storing research data appropriately
Analysing and documenting research data
Preparing research data for archiving
Publishing research data

The game was developed as part of a collaboration between the University of Bath Library and Stellenbosch University’s Library and Information Service.

Try it out here and let us know what you think! See also more about the game on the SUNScholarData library guide.

Contact Samuel Simango if you need any assistance with Research Data Management.

ORCID – Add your biography to distinguish yourself

February 25, 2021 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

When you create or update your ORCID record, it is quite important to remember to add a short biography too. This might help to distinguish yourself from other researchers with the same name. See below a nice guide that ORCID created to assist you.

How to complete your ORCID record

November 27, 2020 / Marié Roux / 0 Comments

You have created your ORCID iD, but now what ? Which steps do you need to follow to keep your record up to date?

The following two videos might assist and guide you through this process. (See also the specific timings for each step below):

ORCID video

Contents of this video (2:10 minutes)

What is ORCID?
Who are integrating with ORCID? (00:15)
Examples of integrations (0:27)
Benefits of using an ORCID iD (00:39)
Where to use your iD (00:52)
How to create and connect your iD to SU identity (01:05)
Demonstration (01:18)
How to populate your record (01:44)
Help (01:59)

Populate your ORCID record

Contents of this video (about 13 minutes):

Add a biography (00:23)
Add your employment (00:53)
Add your education (01:29)
Add invited positions and distinctions (01:49)
Add membership and service (02:42)
Add funding (3:46)
How to add your works (publications and other works) (06:08)
Add works via Google Scholar (10:11)
How to add aliases, keywords, websites, social media links (12:05)

More help

International Open Access Week 2020

October 23, 2020 / Kirchner van Deventer / 0 Comments

International Open Access Week is an annual event aimed at promoting the Open Access movement’s principles and practices of free and easily accessible research outputs. This year’s theme is Open with purpose: Taking action to build structural equity and inclusion and it is being held this week (19-25 October) worldwide. It is an opportunity for the wider community to coordinate and take action to make openness the default for research:

“We need to examine who these spaces and systems are designed for, who is missing, who is excluded by the business models we use, and whose interests are prioritized. As we work together to rebuild these structures, we need to commit to moving from conversations to concrete commitments and to hold one another accountable for making real progress.” – Nick Shockey

In line with this theme, Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service has chosen to focus on Open Data (a sub-component within the broader context of Open Research) and to also showcase SUNScholarData. SUNScholarData is SU’s digital repository for research data and it was developed in line with the recognition that research data should be open, transparent and easily accessible.

For more information on Open Access initiatives at Stellenbosch University, you can view the video below:

Library Research News