Researcher@Library Blog

London Review of Books (Trial ends 10th April 2019)

The London Review of Books is published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in detail – from art and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy, fiction and poetry. LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. It incorporates high quality essays about literature, law, politics and society, and science, by leading scholars, public intellectuals and authors. As well as book reviews and reportage, each issue also contains poems, reviews of exhibitions and movies, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary. This trial will cover 5 issues, commencing with issue 41.03, ending with issue 41.07, ending on 10th April 2019.

The database is accessible through the link above, and the Library Catalogue, and from the E-Resources@the University of Melbourne blog where you can also leave comments about the database. Subscribe to Researcher@Library blog to never miss an announcement, training and resources!

Last chance to apply for the Digital Studio graduate internship program: academics and graduate research students

In semester one the Digital Studio will host 10 new graduate internships valued at $2,000 each. The internships bring together graduate students, postdocs and academics from across the Faculty of Arts to work together on digital research projects. Creating an environment for the investigation and trialling of digital concepts and methodologies, the internships provide support to academics, as well as upskilling and mentoring an emerging community of digital humanists.

Applications for the 2019 internship program will close on 24 February 2019.

The program invites applications and EOIs both from students who want to expand their coding and data management skills, with training and mentoring from the Digital Studio; or academic staff working in the humanities and social sciences who have a suitable digital project, or amassed research materials that would benefit from structured cleaning, coding, expanding or visualisation of their dataset.

More information on the program can be found here.

Objects of Fame – Exhibition at Grainger Museum

Melbourne produced two international stars of classical music – Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger – in the decades surrounding Federation. Adopting a name in honour of her home town, Nellie Melba made her professional debut in 1887 and became hailed as the greatest opera singer of her time. Percy Grainger was a child prodigy who forged a career of pianistic brilliance and musical innovation as the new century unfolded. Each conquered the world’s great stages, enjoyed royal approbation and public fascination. The musical talents of Melba and Grainger, who had both family and professional connections, were matched only by the fame they engendered.

Presented by Grainger Museum and Arts Centre Melbourne, Objects of Fame showcases these two extraordinary Australians. This exhibition also offers opportunities to consider fame in the context of today’s technology-focused culture that allows performers to become ‘famous’ in ways that Grainger and Melba could never have conceived.

The exhibition opens until the end of March to the public, details as follow:

Date and time: 21 September 2018 – 31 March 2019

Location: Grainger Museum, Gate 13, Royal Parade, University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010.

Find out more information on the exhibition and how to get there. Information about other events at the museums can be found on the Grainger Museum site.

New to the University of Melbourne Library? The New Users’ Guide is here!

Welcome to the Library from unilibrary on Vimeo.

If you are new to the University of Melbourne and the library, here is some UoM Library 101 for you! The new New Users’ Library Guide has been revised and compiled by the dedicated team of librarians to assist you with your study, research and career at the University. From finding the libraries, accessing databases or borrowing from the massive collections, to IT questions relating to setting up your account, printing and booking rooms, the guide provides detailed information, resources and contact to make your experience at Melbourne the most well supported.

Access the guide on the LibGuides system and subscribe to Researcher@Library blog for more tips and resources to assist your research!

Achieving policy impact: a guide for Early-Career Researchers

Infographic created by Stacey McCormack (@McCormackSA)

Early-career researchers (ECRs) face tremendous challenges and additional burden in demonstrating the “impact” of their research in the policy sphere, while coping with key challenges that are often unique to ECRs: job insecurity, extreme mobility, and reputation and professional networks that are still in development. This blog post by Megan Evans and Chris Cvitanovic on the London School of Economics and Political Sciences (LSE) Impact Blog suggests the various ways ECRs can better understand and influence policymaking in practice, through:

understanding your motives, articulate your impacts
identifying who is involved with policy processes, and why
building and maintaining your public profile
using social media
networking, and
seeking learning and development opportunities

Subscribe to Researcher@Library blog for more tips and resources to assist your research!

iThenticate at the University of Melbourne – a new text-matching tool for research staff and graduate researchers.

iThenticate is a text-matching tool that enables researchers and graduate researchers to compare their traditional research writing drafts with an extensive database of research literature. Using iThenticate throughout the writing process can help to identify and address potential instances of problematic matching text and weak writing practices.

The use of iThenticate by researchers and graduate researchers has been endorsed by the University of Melbourne Research Ethics and Integrity Strategy Committee.

iThenticate is the leading technology in the area of detecting text similarity in research and many scholarly journal publishers use iThenticate to check manuscript submissions before publication. Documents submitted to iThenticate are not stored and searchable in any comparison database. iThenticate allows research groups to use the tool collectively by permitting users to choose to share their similarity reports with other users. It is important to note that while iThenticate can identify areas of writing that match text from existing literature, further assessment by the author, supervisor, or other experts in the field is also required to ensure the originality of the work before submission and/or publication.

What does it mean for Graduate Researchers at UoM?

All Graduate Researchers will have iThenticate accounts created for them from the week beginning 4 February 2019 and will receive an activation email from noreply@ithenticate.com with login instructions. For all enquiries relating to iThenticate, please submit a request for assistance in ServiceNow via Student Services (staff can submit their enquiries via Staff Services).

iThenticate users are advised to read the following resources produced by the University of Melbourne:

For more information regarding this, please read the announcement from Research Integrity at UoM or contact Mr. Tom Wright, Research Integrity Officer.

Thesis Reveal: Does open access publishing limit other publishing options?

Are you a graduate researcher conflicting over whether to publish your research on open access or through a commercial form of scholarly publishing? This particular PhD thesis will give you some insights to prove that you may not have to decide between the two.

The thesis, ‘Beyond black and white: Aborigines, Asian-Australians and the national imaginary’ is our second most downloaded open access thesis in Minerva Access (University of Melbourne’s Institutional Repository). The thesis examines how Aboriginality, ‘Asianness’ and whiteness have been imagined in the Federation from 1901 to present.

As well as the thesis being placed on open access, the author, Peta Stephenson’s research has been published as a book. Her book, ‘The outsiders within: telling Australia’s Indigenous-Asian story‘ was written based on her thesis and was published by the UNSW press.

Making your thesis open access does not necessarily limit your options of publishing in other platforms; therefore, consider how you can maximise your research impact.

Learn more about this thesis and read the University of Melbourne’s LibGuide on publishing your thesis as a book.

Applying for a grant?

Image from Skitterphoto on Pixabay

The University Library has developed a suite of discipline-specific guides to

assist researchers with using free and subscription tools to determine impact

and engagement metrics of their research outputs such as journal articles.

Go to the Research Impact guide and select the relevant discipline to get

started.

Thesis Reveal: The benefits and impact of Open Access

Are you a graduate researcher considering publishing your thesis on open access? This particular Masters Research thesis might help make up your mind.

The thesis, ‘The challenges of teaching physical education: juxtaposing the experiences of physical education teachers in Kenya and Victoria (Australia)’ is our most downloaded open access thesis in Minerva Access (University of Melbourne’s Institutional Repository). The thesis compares the experiences of Kenyan and Victorian secondary school Physical Education teachers.

Since the thesis was placed on open access in 2011, it has been downloaded 54,444 times across multiple different countries including Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Kenya and Australia. By publishing this thesis on open access, the author, Michael N. Wanyama has gained significant exposure for his work and reached a broad audience. Historically a print thesis sitting on a library shelf may have only been viewed by a handful of people.

If you are making this decision, you can consider the long-term benefits and impact your thesis might have by publishing on open access.

Learn more about this amazing thesis, or about the basics and benefits of Open Access. The University of Melbourne Copyright office also has helpful information regarding making your thesis open access. Happy researching and subscribe to Researcher@Library blog for more tips and resources to assist your research!

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