Have you booked your place on the Research Bite seminars?

Research Bites 2015

The Library is two weeks in to the Research Bites series and the sessions  are going well.  Attendees have visited us from across the University including PhD Students, Teaching Fellows and Researchers. Research Bites are aimed at PhD and Early Career Researchers but everyone can find something useful in the programme.   A full programme is available from the Library website and reminders are posted in Aston Aspects every week. 

So far we have looked at Refined Literature Searching focussing on the search facilities available in the key research databases in the University including Proquest, Scopus and Web of Science.   Highlights include looking at improving recall and precision of searches, the use of controlled vocabulary, proximity searching and cited reference searching.  The attendees talked a little about their experiences and the group tried to resolve some of the problems they had encountered.  The discussions are not recorded but the presentation is available to listen and view now 

The second Research Bite looked at finding and using Grey Literature.  The focus was on the benefits and challenges you face when using this type of literature in research.  This was the first time that we covered this topic in our programme.  Although, the seminar did have fewer attendees and the discussion wasn't as vibrant it has caused us to think about incorporating the information in to our web LibGuides.   The presentation is available to listen and view now.

We look forward to seeing you at our next Research Bite on Wednesday which will look at EndNote and how you can use this software to find, collate and organise your references for your PhD or research paper and insert them automatically using Cite while you Write.

If you have comments about the programme or suggestions for seminars in the future please comment below.