Wow!! I have completed the 23 Research things and my first blog on something useful!! This has been a great way to learn and pick up on some of the nifty tools and strategies to help research students or researchers. Some of the tools mentioned will also help me in my professional practice, although I am not an active researcher, this has helped me as a step in my mission as a life-long learner!
A special thank you to Kate Bunker for what I felt was making the impossible (me ever writing and publishing a blog) possible! :)
Wednesday, 24 February 2016
Thing 22 - On the Horizon & Thing 23 - Library as a Research Tool
Is there any
tool/trend/*thing* out on the horizon that you would like to share or
discuss? If not pick one of the links above and read/reflect/discuss.
As I mentioned in a previous post, perhaps we could look at:
Library as a Research Tool
The blog has highlighted a wide range of visual support material online to help researchers, along with now completing the 23 Research Things, I think we have a great pool of knowledge to also tap into and offer our researchers.
I believe that a Research Librarian or Liaison Librarians can take a more proactive approach to research support. There should be dedicated programs / workshops offered to cross-disciplinary researchers and they could presented in collaboration with the ACU Research Services Division. These workshops can be themed and can be strategically plotted around key Research cycle times - i.e. towards the beginning of the year provide sessions on
As I mentioned in a previous post, perhaps we could look at:
- 23 Research Data things
- 23 Digital Literacy things
- Copyright & Licencing awareness sessions in practical academic teaching and learning (incorporating aspects of it into our information literacy classes.
- Digital Technology 'speed dating' sessions with Librarians and academics where Librarians could meet with Faculty to show them interesting apps / programs / directly relevant to their teaching, learning or research
- Augmented reality is something that can be a tool to be explored by the Library, it would require major investment costs though. I was thinking something along the lines of a recent "trend' session I had attended at Deakin University. One of the speakers at the session - Sarah Kenderdine showed us how they were using augmented reality to enhance museum visitor experience. She termed the AR as "immersive visualisation technology". Here is a TEDTalk she had given "How will museums of the future look?"
Library as a Research Tool
The blog has highlighted a wide range of visual support material online to help researchers, along with now completing the 23 Research Things, I think we have a great pool of knowledge to also tap into and offer our researchers.
I believe that a Research Librarian or Liaison Librarians can take a more proactive approach to research support. There should be dedicated programs / workshops offered to cross-disciplinary researchers and they could presented in collaboration with the ACU Research Services Division. These workshops can be themed and can be strategically plotted around key Research cycle times - i.e. towards the beginning of the year provide sessions on
- "Beginning your research journey - highlight library services and facilities and resources", "
- Searching using Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus / Tracking key authors and papers
- Using Reference management software - advanced EndNote sessions
- Getting Published - this can be where Guest speakers from Faculty or outside can come and talk about their experiences around their research and publishing journey(s), Publishers can come and talk about choosing papers for getting published - the whole process behind this aspect
Thing 21 - Managing Video and Audio Posts
I think the tips provided in the post along with Tatum's very useful additional tips are key to achieving good audio/video managing practices.
What I would like to add is based on personal experience and personal fears of what I have faced when asked to review audio/visual material and perhaps edit it. I guess my suggestions would fit into the 'production' aspect of managing the material.
The main suggestion being - use a user-friendly program / app / format to create the material so that its easy for someone to pick up where you left off! please :) For instance, by considering licencing aspects of software such as Captivate, considering that you need a "good quality microphone" to record, acquiring these may take time and sometimes the software used is not as intuitive as you would like it to be.
What I would like to add is based on personal experience and personal fears of what I have faced when asked to review audio/visual material and perhaps edit it. I guess my suggestions would fit into the 'production' aspect of managing the material.
The main suggestion being - use a user-friendly program / app / format to create the material so that its easy for someone to pick up where you left off! please :) For instance, by considering licencing aspects of software such as Captivate, considering that you need a "good quality microphone" to record, acquiring these may take time and sometimes the software used is not as intuitive as you would like it to be.
Thing 19 - Screen Capture Tools & Thing 20 - Making and Sharing Podcasts and Videos
Top 5 tips for using a screen capture tool:
I really enjoyed reading Tatum's tips on this topic!
1) Storyboard
2) create the script before using the screencapture tool. This would cut out the necessity to record / edit / re-record.
3) Make sure you are in a quiet room, cut off from the rest of the world! It's the worst to get background noise and creating a distracting experience!
4) Beware: To our shock and surprise interfaces do change! (sarastic note :)) I may disagree a bit to Tracey's recommendation to 'describe' where you are clicking as this was the very problem why we had to change one of the LiL videos and re-do them. The interface changed, so 'click on the top right hand side' was completely useless as one of the databases had switched their search to the left after an upgrade!
5) Always attach the transcript to your screen-capture
In terms of podcasting and videosharing, I have never listened to podcasts, but have watched a lot of videos via youtube and TedTalks.
I was exploring the theme of 'digital literacy' and really liked the sense of humour of the following TED Talk on:
"What my 71-year-old mother-in-law taught me about technology - Jen Lee Reeves"
Nearly coming towards the end of the 23 Research things, I think we should embark on the "23 Digital Literacy Things" and "23 Research Data Things"!
I really enjoyed reading Tatum's tips on this topic!
1) Storyboard
2) create the script before using the screencapture tool. This would cut out the necessity to record / edit / re-record.
3) Make sure you are in a quiet room, cut off from the rest of the world! It's the worst to get background noise and creating a distracting experience!
4) Beware: To our shock and surprise interfaces do change! (sarastic note :)) I may disagree a bit to Tracey's recommendation to 'describe' where you are clicking as this was the very problem why we had to change one of the LiL videos and re-do them. The interface changed, so 'click on the top right hand side' was completely useless as one of the databases had switched their search to the left after an upgrade!
5) Always attach the transcript to your screen-capture
In terms of podcasting and videosharing, I have never listened to podcasts, but have watched a lot of videos via youtube and TedTalks.
I was exploring the theme of 'digital literacy' and really liked the sense of humour of the following TED Talk on:
"What my 71-year-old mother-in-law taught me about technology - Jen Lee Reeves"
Nearly coming towards the end of the 23 Research things, I think we should embark on the "23 Digital Literacy Things" and "23 Research Data Things"!
Thing 17 & 18- Visualisation Tools & Text Mining Tools
Think about the role of data in your research, and what formats
you’re expected to present it in. Will any of these tools be useful
This is something new that I have come across. Of course I knew about the importance of data visualisation in research, but getting an insight into the various data visualisation tools is central to be able to choose the most appropriate one.
Data visualisation can be in many formats, some of the most common formats include graphs, and interactive graphs. For the mathematically disoriented, I always prefer interative visualisations :)
Recently, infographics have gained momentum in terms of presenting data in a fun and consice manner. Hence, Visual.ly is a fantastic option.
It was very informative to see there are publicly available data visualisation generators, I am certainly going to promote these to our researchers when I have the chance!
I really liked the post on text mining tools. I explored using 'Voyant Tools' and loved the simplicity of the interface! I may even incorporate using this in some of my formal presentations. I think its a great tool for emphasising aspects of your research project when presenting to an audience. It enables the viewers to get the main gist of a message beautifully in what I call the "key message / key word jumble"! As an experiment, I put in the mission statement of ACU and had to edit it to remove the most recurring generic words i.e. 'the, of, etc..' I found that Hannah Shelly had the same experience as I did which was reassuring!
This is something new that I have come across. Of course I knew about the importance of data visualisation in research, but getting an insight into the various data visualisation tools is central to be able to choose the most appropriate one.
Data visualisation can be in many formats, some of the most common formats include graphs, and interactive graphs. For the mathematically disoriented, I always prefer interative visualisations :)
Recently, infographics have gained momentum in terms of presenting data in a fun and consice manner. Hence, Visual.ly is a fantastic option.
It was very informative to see there are publicly available data visualisation generators, I am certainly going to promote these to our researchers when I have the chance!
I really liked the post on text mining tools. I explored using 'Voyant Tools' and loved the simplicity of the interface! I may even incorporate using this in some of my formal presentations. I think its a great tool for emphasising aspects of your research project when presenting to an audience. It enables the viewers to get the main gist of a message beautifully in what I call the "key message / key word jumble"! As an experiment, I put in the mission statement of ACU and had to edit it to remove the most recurring generic words i.e. 'the, of, etc..' I found that Hannah Shelly had the same experience as I did which was reassuring!
Monday, 22 February 2016
Thing 16 - Mapping Tools
The best context I could put my understanding of 'geotagging' is when you upload photos on facebook and it asks you where the picture was taken and you put in the geographical pinpoint reference to that photo. When you later review the locations where you took photographs, it becomes an interesting visual display of places you have been to and the photos that made them memorable.
I have used Google Maps and Google Earth tools. I have also looked at using the "Map my Walk" app on the iphone to see what routes I have taken on my daily (ahem!) walks :)
I have used Google Maps and Google Earth tools. I have also looked at using the "Map my Walk" app on the iphone to see what routes I have taken on my daily (ahem!) walks :)
Thing 15 - Managing Research Data
As mentioned in the post, this is the most critical aspect of a research project. I agree with Tatum's view on the fact that a lot about this aspect is determined by what the researcher sees as 'future' use of the data, this would in turn determine how and where research data is stored.
Due to privacy and security reasons, I know that institutions increasingly encourage researchers to store their research and research data in Institutional repositories. I believe that this is very good practice, but researchers can also control what aspects of their research data management is available for viewing by institutional members i.e. the research papers, but the data although stored in the instituional repository, can be secure-accessed only. i.e. only certain people can have access to data .
Although a tiny bit dated, the tutorials on Mantra are useful to look at. Also, would consider looking at additional tips or advice given through other University / Institutions about research data management.
Due to privacy and security reasons, I know that institutions increasingly encourage researchers to store their research and research data in Institutional repositories. I believe that this is very good practice, but researchers can also control what aspects of their research data management is available for viewing by institutional members i.e. the research papers, but the data although stored in the instituional repository, can be secure-accessed only. i.e. only certain people can have access to data .
Although a tiny bit dated, the tutorials on Mantra are useful to look at. Also, would consider looking at additional tips or advice given through other University / Institutions about research data management.
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