Customised training

Librarians and academic skills advisors can deliver customised HDR research methods workshops on:

• Orientation and introduction to library services and resources
• Developing effective search strategies, including identifying, evaluating, and accessing relevant resources
• Managing references, including choosing and using a reference manager such as EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley
• Organising research materials such as PDFs
• Setting up and using ORCiD
• Researching and writing the literature review
• Thesis writing and academic writing style: synthesising literature, writing with authority, developing voice
• Writing abstracts, research questions, and research statements
• Preparing for academic publication, including writing and strategic publishing.

A strategic publishing session presented by the Library could focus on any of the following topics and can be adapted to best meet the needs of the researchers attending: 

• Collaboration: Identify potential research collaborators, at a broad institutional level and at a specific researcher level, using benchmarking and research tools such as SciVal and InCites.  
  
• Planning: Develop a publication plan to identify relevant high-quality publication sources that can be discovered based on your target audience and publishing objectives.
  
•  Writing and submission: Strategies and practical tools for generating a writing focus, developing your voice, and tailoring your writing to the style of the publication. Tips on navigating submission, revision, and publication processes. 
• Promotion and discovery: Ways to share, promote and track your research and publications including discoverability (such as researcher profiles and social media) and open access.

• Research data landscape and principles: How research data is stored and utilized across different disciplines, how data has become a crucial part of the publishing landscape in the past ten years, and how that affects contemporary researchers.
• Research data management planning: How a strong research data management plan can help researchers safely store their data, remain aware of the ethics and uses of data, and how this aids future publication and re-use.
  
• Issues and resources for storage of data: Focuses on the necessity for storage plans and other issues of data handling during a research project, and the challenges and principles that are useful to observe regarding your data.
  
• Publishing, sharing and re-use of data: How to share, promote and track your research data outputs, including a demonstration of Figshare, the University's specialist research data repository, which allows users to publish their own research data and other non-traditional research outputs, and track metrics.
  

Social media platforms can be excellent tools for researchers to maximise their online profile and connect with a wide audience. 

Topics covered during a social media session can focus on:

• The benefits of sharing research with a wide audience
• Methods for discovering new research and networking with other researchers
• Social media platforms commonly used by researchers, including their purpose, benefits and drawbacks
• Strategies for sharing research and tracking mentions in online media (e.g. altmetrics)
• Tips and insights from RMIT researchers engaging with social media to promote their research
• Where social media can go wrong and how to manage it.

Applications for grant funding or career advancement may be supplemented with providing evidence of engagement, citations and the influence of your research. A session focused on research evidence can introduce metrics that be used to demonstrate evidence of:

• Research collaboration
• The international engagement of research
• Influence of research within a field of research institution or country (benchmarking)
• Research published in quality journals
• Mentions in online news, social media, patents and policy papers (altmetrics).

Academic skills advisors and librarians can deliver a workshop on research collaboration on any of the following topics:

• Identifying research collaborators, including the use of scholarly research databases to identify top researchers by field, institution or country to partner with on your research
• Methods for communicating your research, with a focus on co-authoring and co-presenting
• Tools for managing a collaborative research project, including writing platforms and applications to share references and research
• Navigating the peer review process
• Supervision as a collaborative process – how to communicate and work with your supervisory team.

Librarians and academic skills advisors can deliver customised workshops on the following topics.The workshops can be adapted to best meet the needs of creative practice and practice-based HDRs and researchers.

• Strategic publishing: planning, collaborating, writing, submitting, peer-review and promotion in traditional peer reviewed journals and wider outlets (NTROs) recognising the importance of collaborative writing and the collegial process to creative practice (communities of practice) 
• Writing with a creative practice research focus: strategies and practical tools for generating a writing focus, developing your voice, and tailoring your writing to the audience or publication style (e.g. NTRO statement writing)
• Support for Non-Traditional Research Outputs: assistance with the publication of NTROs through the Figshare platform, whether research data, grey literature, or other non-traditional research outputs; also assistance with data storage and collaboration via Cloudstor.
• Social media and promoting your research: social media platforms can be excellent tools for creative practice and practice-based researchers to maximise online profile and connect with a wide audience outside the academy. 
• Evidencing the impact of creative practice research: assistance providing evidence of research quality and/or research capacity; including NTROs through mentions in online news, social media, patents and policy papers (altmetrics).