Creative Commons

Creative Commons licences are more flexible than traditional copyright law, and anyone can register for their original work to be licensed using one of the options below:

scottfisk.com

scottfisk.com

These licences allow for certain uses of original works, with certain conditions. This flowchart allows you to choose the right licence for your images. The icons are an easy way of working out what kind of licence an original work has.

Top tips for Researchers (from Researchers!)

Top tips for studying for research (from those who have survived it!)

  • Enjoy the PhD. It is a strenuous process, but it is also a wonderful process
  • Use your brain. The PhD is a good period to exercise your brain as much as you can and find out your limits.Write something every day
  • If you find yourself panicking and staring at a blank page, try handwriting a couple of paragraphs instead of typing
  • Congratulate yourself on achievements – remember that you don’t need to be working all of the time and in fact it makes good sense in the long run to give yourself a break
  • Use as many library resources as you can lay your hands on – electronic, going to Senate House, using the British Library reading rooms
  • Get involved in the wider research community by participating in reading groups and attending seminars – you never know what you might learn!
  • Do not expect to be treated as an undergraduate or masters student. You are not. Prove that you know how to conduct research and that you can find your ways around the problems arising regarding the research.
  • Subscribe to the PhD Comics. You will feel a lot of times that these postings are just for you
  • Have “thirsty Thursdays” and go to bars. At least I did!
  • Read the Thesis Whisperer Blog– it’s super helpful!
  • Follow #PhDchat on twitter
  • If you’re a scientist, use Research Gate.
  • Use Fig Share to make what you’re doing visible

Do you have any top tips you’d like to share? Let us know and we’ll add them to our list!

Read our interviews with other researchers about their experiences: Fiona, Laura and Nancy

Nexis

Nexis is a comprehensive newspaper database, updated daily, providing full text access to all UK national newspapers, plus regional newspapers, international news providers and a number of trade journals and magazines. Most titles have a twenty year archive. UK newspaper titles include:

  • Financial Times
  • Daily Mail / Mail on Sunday
  • Independent / Independent on Sunday
  • Guardian / Observer
  • Daily Telegraph / Sunday Telegraph
  • Daily Mirror / Sunday Mirror
  • London Evening Standard
  • The Scotsman / Scotland on Sunday

In addition, 2300 international news providers are covered including The International Herald Tribune, The New Yorker, USA Today, India Today and the Japan Times and over 500 UK regional newspapers are also covered.

You can also find::

  • Company Information
  • Industry Information
  • Country Information
  • Biographies

To search these headings select them from the menu at the top of the page.

To Access Nexis:

Select Nexis from the Databases A-Z list or select the link from your subject guides where it appears.

From the first page, click to accept the Terms and Conditions to proceed to the database.

Browsing Nexis

To see a list of all UK newspapers covered by Nexis:

  • Select the Sources tab (at the top left of the screen)
  • From the tabs beneath this select Browse Sources
  • Change Filter by country to the country you are interested in (e.g. United Kingdom).
  • Select the News folder under publication type
  • Select the Newspapers folder.
  • A list of titles will now appear, and you can search these individually or in groups.

Searching Nexis

nexis 5

To search for articles, first check that you have the Search and News tabs selected from the options in the top left of the screen.

Enter your keywords into the search box and select a time period. Using In the Headline orMajor Mentions options from the drop-down menu ensures that your hits will be more relevant. This is useful for when your search is likely to retrieve a great number of articles.

The list of results displayed gives only brief details. To view the full article, click on the highlighted title of the article.

As well as newspaper articles you can use Nexis to gather information about a company, industry, country and people.

How to find articles from a particular publication

  1. Open the News search form.
  2. Select a source from the Sources drop-down list. For example, Irish Publications.
    Note:
    • If the source you require is not included in the list, click on More sources. To select a source, refer to the Browse Sources Page for instructions.
    • If you wish to edit the list of sources, click on Edit this Source List. Then refer to the Edit Sources Page for instructions.
  3. Select a date range in Specify date. For example, Previous year.
  4. Click on Search to retrieve your results.

Find out more about Nexis here:

Using the Biographies Feature in Nexis

 

 

I can’t find a journal article what do I do now?

Sometimes you may have found an article you think will be very useful for your research but you can’t quickly find it on Library Search. Don’t give up!

Before you do anything else register for Senate House 

1. Check the journal title on  Library Search

Not all articles will appear when you search Library Search for them by title but we may still have a subscription to the journal. Go to the Journals by Title option on Library Search. Type in the Journal title. If you were looking for this article:

Ver Straeten, C. A. (2013), Beneath it all: bedrock geology of the Catskill Mountains and implications of its weathering. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1298: 1–29. doi: 10.1111/nyas.12221

The title of the journal is Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Search for this and you go to the main page for the journal. Select the year, volume and issue to find the article. In most cases you could search within the title by author or article title.

2. Check Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a useful resource when you are trying to track down articles. As a database it won’t cover as much as our databases but it can help you find ways to access material.

Note:  Set your Google Scholar Settings to link to Senate House and RHUL – more information here.

As well as allowing you to check both RHUL libraries and Senate Hose it also brings back information from some Online Repositories.

3. Check Senate House

Although most of the time Google Scholar will tell you if Senate House has something online it is always worth double checking.  Search for the Journal Title at Senate house 

4. Inter-Library Loan

If we don’t have the journal and neither does Senate House, consider requesting an Inter-Library Loan.  This service is available to members of College.

5. Other Libraries

See if another library has it, and visit yourself: use the information on the Other Libraries page.

If in doubt, always check with your Information Consultant before spending any money online.

Using Key Note for Job Searching

Key Note is very useful for searching for companies to apply for.

To find Key Note go to the Databases A-Z page on the subject guides and go to K.

To see a list of the databases that contain company information visit the company information page in the subject guides under Management – Finding E-resources

This is how to find a list of companies in a particular area or industry.((You can also search for market reports – see this blog post)

1. Select Company Information from the main front pageKeynote

 

2. From the company information section select list builder

Keynote company information

3. Four options will appear (if you are unsure what the sub-headings mean hover over them to get a definition or see what is covered):

  • Fundamentals (Information including company type or currency the company reports in)
  • Financials ( including profit and loss, cash flow)
  • Geographic (where the company trades or their ultimate parent is based)
  • Advisors (the auditors or bankers the company uses)

4. click on one of the four options shown (Fundamentals, Financials, Geographic or Advisers).
5. Click “Search” on an option from left panel.
6. The “Enter Criteria” box will open to the right, Select/Enter your values.
7. Click “Count” to check the number of matches for your selection.
8. Click “Apply” to add the criteria
9. * Repeat for all the search options of your choice until complete
10. Click “Output” for all the fields you wish to output as columns in the data (this is done automatically where you have searched and applied the count)
11. Click “Export” to receive your spreadsheet or Click “Benchmark” to compare the performance of your selected companies.

To find  Telecommunication companies in the South East and London with a turnover of between £100,000 and £100,000,000 and a very strong credit score do the following search:

Fundamentals – Principal Activity search for Telecommunications

Financials – Turnover search for Min 1000 Max 1000000 (the search is for thousands)

Financials – Credit score Select very strong credit score

Geographic – Trading office address click on the map for your regions (you can click postcode areas or select the whole region buy clicking Add entire region) to select more than one region click back in the top left hand side of the map.

Select Benchmark to compare your list of companies with each other.

benchmark keynote

You can then sort your list by criteria under the following headings:

  • Size
  • Profitability
  • Liquidity
  • Gearing
  • Efficiency
  • Employee (including pay per employee)
  • Growth

 

 

 

 

Time Management Tools: focus booster

Faces of Time
Faces of Time. Todd Lappin. Flickr. CC-BY-NC.

As well as working as an Information Consultant for the Drama and Theatre, Media Arts, and English departments here at Royal Holloway, I had the bright idea of taking my Library and Information Science MSc part time. It has been very challenging and very interesting – and it’s nearly done! My final year of three has just begun and I’m currently making the first steps towards writing my dissertation (a study into first year arts undergraduates experience of libraries before university and how this influences the way in which they find information at higher education level, since you ask).

So I was browsing through the Library’s helpful Tools for Researchers prezi and I discovered (among other things): focus booster. http://www.focusboosterapp.com/  Focus booster is great.

What is it for?

Do you ever have those moments where you just don’t know where to begin? Or you’ve too many tasks and not enough time? Or too much time and you feel that you’ll never settle down and get something productive done. Focus booster allows you to set yourself short tasks in a timed period, followed by timed breaks, and is great for knuckling down and getting things done.

How does it work?

Focus booster uses ‘The Pomodoro Technique’, a time management method that “uses a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute intervals (referred to as “pomodoros”) separated by breaks and is based on the idea that frequent breaks can improve mental agility.”

As the website states:


There are five basic steps to implementing the technique:

    • decide on the task to be done
    • set the pomodoro (timer) to 25 minutes
    • work on the task until the timer rings; record the task status
    • take a short break (5 minutes)
    • every four “pomodoros” take a longer break (15-20 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KH084K8cfs

How do I get it?

You can download the app to your PC or Mac from http://www.focusboosterapp.com/download

Even better (for me, as I use a Chromebook), it’s available online: http://www.focusboosterapp.com/live

Both versions will tick to let you know a pomodoro has begun, change the timer colour to indicate how close you are to your next break, sound an alarm to let you know when time is up, and also let you adjust the time of pomodoros and breaks.

(There are whispers on Twitter that this will soon be available for iPhone and Android, so watch this space.)

Why should I use it?

Focus booster is a great psychological trick: you know you have a lot of work to get done, but the timed aspect means that you need to break your work down into manageable chunks – great, it already feels easier! Also, rather than thinking that you have the next seven hours to get something done, you have 25 minutes: long enough to focus, but not so long that you get distracted or tired.

If you’re easily distracted, this can be a great way of ensuring that short bursts of time are well spent; or if you find that you spend long periods staring down your computer screen this technique can encourage you to take regular breaks and relax rather than stress out. Personally, I find it really great for getting started; 25 minutes is just long enough not to be frightening, but I often find that I’ll get into what I’m doing, safe in the knowledge that a break is imminent, and then find that I’ve missed a break as I’ve got so into the task.

Burning the Clocks Cup Cakes
Burning the Clocks Cup Cakes. somewhereintheworldtoday. Flickr. CC-BY

 

 

Try it out – and comment below: was it useful?

What are your best techniques for managing your time and being more productive? Share in the comments below – tips are always appreciated!

Spotlight on a Researcher: Laura Christie

Please start by introducing yourself

My name is Laura Christie; I’m an Educational Development officer in the Educational Development Office. Laughs
Laura
 How long have you been at RHUL?

Just a month! Just today I have my one month review.

Are you enjoying it so far?

Yes yes, it’s been interesting coming from a different university to see the changes in how different departments are run, different universities are run, this is a much bigger university than the one I worked at before.

What is your role at RHUL?  

Well, 50% of the role is developing the Generic Skills Programme (GSP) for Postgraduate Research students (PGR) and teaching on it- I teach the academic writing courses, the other 50% is helping and teaching on the inSTIL programme which is a teacher training programme for PGR students.

What did you want to be when you were little?

I wanted to be journalist,  a war correspondent.

I wasn’t outgoing at all, and yet I wanted to be a journalist, I was shy as anything & wouldn’t talk to anyone but something about war corresponding, travelling, and being in the centre of all the action really appealed to me at the time. And then as soon as I started my English degree that all went out the window because I was so inspired by my English tutors and I just wanted to stay in university and teach English literature.

Do you have any hero (es), and why?

This is a hard question..

Ages ago I wrote a biography on the poet Alice Meynell , Alice Meynell was from the Victorian period has 8 kids and managed to be editor of different academic, poetry and fiction journals. And she was a poet herself. She had such a profusive writing career and managed to maintain a family and a household, and she had various medical issues as she got older as well, and managed to keep on top of everything- that’s pretty heroic to me!

You’ve already told us a little bit but what’s your degree/masters etc. in?

My first degree was in English Literature, and then I went straight into a Masters in Women, gender & writing so that focused on writing from 1750’s to present.

My PhD was in English Literature and actually was partially psycho analysis as well.

What advice do you wish you’d known when you were studying for your PhD? (give something wise to current students?)

I think two things.

One is, Well, it’s a plug for the GSP; but one is knowing about and knowing that I should because it will help in the long run, participate in these inter disciplinary type programmes. I was involved eventually during my PhD process, in helping to organise a PhD conference and that gave me the opportunity to meet with all the other PhD students, whereas before that it was very isolated. The first 2 years of my PhD were quite isolated until the University got a programme running and so participating in these sorts of programmes is really good.

The other thing is, I think I would have wanted to have realised, or be told earlier, that a PhD is only the start of an academic career, it barely even touches the start. The start is publishing, publishing is such a big thing, I wish I had known that at the beginning and I wish I had courses available to me, which weren’t at the time because it was a while before researcher training became popular. To know that during my PhD I should have been publishing, and I spent a lot of time teaching which is equally valuable and I got teacher training certificate while doing a PhD but you have go one further and you have to publish if you want an academic career, because coming out of the PhD with a teaching training cert is not enough.

 What was the hardest thing you found about studying?

I suppose it would be discipline, but I am actually quite disciplined so it’s not been an issue for me.

I guess the hardest bit is the isolation, not because I am massively social, but it helps to meet people who are going through the same things as you are, even if it’s once a month, once every couple of months just to know you’re all going through the same thing which is why having these shut up and write  sessions is a fabulous idea, giving people the opportunity to get together and informally talk about things. That was very hard being quite isolated, and it was knowing that it was only yourself pushing you forward, your supervisor can set targets but you’re doing it for yourself, you got no reason to submit something on a certain day to a supervisor, it’s just you propelling yourself forward.

 

 

Box of Broadcasts (BoB)

Have you met BoB yet? If you haven’t then you are in for a great surprise. If you regularly find yourself missing arts and cultural documentaries or any sort of television programme you can now catch up whenever you like using Box of Broadcasts (BoB).

BoB is an interactive media streaming service which is available both on and off campus anywhere within the UK. It’s a bit like BBC iPlayer but BoB can offer you much more.

BoB poster

More choice: you can ask for programmes to be recorded from over 50 free-to-air television and radio channels. : In addition to asking for recordings to be made, you can also access programmes other people have requested from an archive of thousands of programmes, which is continually growing.

More time: BBC’s iPlayer, programmes are only available for 7 days after being broadcast. If you request a recording from BoB, it will normally be available to view within 24 hours of broadcast and will then be available indefinitely.

More features: Every BoB user has a personal area on the service called ‘My BoB’ which stores any recordings requested, playlists and clips that they have created.You can also view other people’s play lists and pick up useful resources.

 

What can you do using BoB?

You can use BoB in several ways:

Record programmes:
Any student or member of staff from the Royal Holloway can request recordings of programmes, up to 3 recordings per day. Programmes can be selected from any of the 53 channels up to 7 days in advance.
You can also request recordings from the 7 day buffer where you can select programmes from the previous 7 days from any of the following channels:
BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, BBC 4, ITV 1, Channel 4, Channel 5, News 24, Parliament, Radio 3, Radio 4, Five Live.
Any requested programmes are then available in the archive and also in the requesting user’s ‘My BoB’ area.

Search for programmes in the archive:
The BoB archive allows you to access not just programmes that you have requested but also programmes that users from any subscribing institution have requested. You can also access any publically available playlists and clips. Unlike the BBC iPlayer programmes do not disappear after 7 days but remain in the archive indefinitely.

Create playlists and clips from programmes:
BoB allows users to create clips from a programmes or create a playlist of related programmes and/or clips. To add a programme to a playlist just click on the ‘Add to playlist’ link at the side of the programme. To create a clip from a programme click on the ‘Create clip’ link under the programme. All programmes, playlists or clips on BoB are given a persistent URL so their location will not change.

My BoB area:
Using your ‘My BoB’ area you can manage and access any recordings you have requested. Any programmes you have requested are listed here; if a programme has yet to be uploaded to the archive it will display a clock icon next to the title, once it is available to view the link will display as dark blue. You can delete a programme from your ‘My BoB’ area by clicking on the bin icon.

More detailed information about the service can be found on the BoB subject guide pages.
. This includes information on how to register the first time you use it.

Spotlight on a Researcher: Fiona Redding

fiona

Please start by introducing yourself      

My name is Fiona Redding. I started at Royal Holloway in 2007 on a BA English Literature programme, graduating in 2010. After my BA, I started working at the College as an Alumni Relations Officer. I am now the Change Communications Officer, and have just completed my Masters in Modern Philosophy.

How long have you been at Royal Holloway?

This September marked the beginning of my seventh year at Royal Holloway!

What is your role here?

Creating a cohesive and beneficial staff culture is critical if we are to succeed as a university in the long term – you cannot underestimate the importance of gaining acceptance of proposed changes amongst your colleagues across the College. My role involves writing communications strategies for the major change projects we have going on, including the Governance Review, the Masterplan, and staff engagement more broadly.

What did you want to be when you were little?

I really wanted to be a figure skater. Unfortunately I was completely lacking in the co-ordination and grace to achieve such a goal!

Do you have any hero (es), and why?

I really admire my Dad. He could easily have gone to university and trained to be a doctor, but when circumstances prevented him from doing that, he found other ways to develop professionally. That kind of flexibility, not being disheartened if the route you wanted to take isn’t an option, and ultimately succeeding in spite of these obstacles, are all traits I really admire.

What’s your degree/masters etc. in? Could you explain a bit about a MRes?

My Masters is in Modern Philosophy. My tutor was Andrew Bowie in the Politics, International Relations and Philosophy Department. He tutored me for a final year course and I got on with him really well, so he was the obvious choice when it came to applying to a supervisor for my Masters.

The difference with an MRes is that you are working pretty much independently the whole way through your course, so you have to create opportunities to interact with other researchers. I was studying part time over two years, so I had possibly even less interaction than one might expect on a Masters programme. As well as optional tutorials given by Andrew and Neil Gascoigne, another Philosophy Lecturer, I attended a reading group, seminar programmes, anything that brought me into contact with people working in my area of interest.

The whole way through, I was working towards completing a 35,000 word dissertation, on a topic of my choosing. There was a short 5,000 word essay mid-way through the course – to check you are on the right track – but apart from that there was everything to play for on the dissertation.

What advice do you wish you’d known when you were studying for your MRes?

The best piece of advice I can give you is to write something every day. That doesn’t have to mean a 5,000 exegesis closely related to your dissertation; it could be 500 words. The key point is that you are engaging your brain. For me, that came through writing a blog: philosophymasters.wordpress.com (link)

What was the hardest thing you found about studying?

I’ve alluded to the independent study, which can be tough at times, particularly when you just need to talk things through with someone whilst writing a key paragraph, or talking more broadly about your argument to ensure you have an overarching theme. But this can be overcome. Of course, your supervisor is also a key part of the feedback process as well.

 

 

Spotlight on a Researcher: Nancy Pontika

Nancy is the Library’s resident expert on all things Open Access, as part of the Library Liaison team she has been previously interviewed about her role which involves being the Information Consultant for Physics, Research and Open Access. Read the Nancy’s previous interviewpontikaBW

Here, I’ve asked her a few quick questions about her PhD in Library and Information Science with a speciality on Information Science.

What was the hardest thing you found about studying?

I had my PhD at Simmons College, Boston, USA. The PhDs there are four years and at the end of your third year our program had comprehensive exams. That period it was the hardest and most boring. I had to read about 200 books and 1,000 articles in 3 months. It was impossible of course, so I was just scanning the text and I was keeping track of names and dates, most important ideas, influences, etc. I find memorising difficult; it is not one of my virtues. I also find studying boring in extremely quiet places. During my PhD I read many many many articles and books in a “quiet” pub. I could not concentrate otherwise- I needed this small level of noise. So, for example, here at Royal Holloway you would never see me at the “silent area” of the Bedford Library, I would probably be somewhere on the entry level floor, by the cafe.

What advice do you wish you’d known when you were studying for your PhD?

You need to chase people a lot. You need to chase your research participants for the interviews, your supervisors to read your versions and provide feedback, the institutional review board to approve your research. And the only way to do that is self-motivation. What motivates each one of us varies, but new PhD students need to find that motivation and be stubborn to keep going with the program. The PhD is not like an undergraduate or a master degree. There is no order, there is no stability, there is no routine in what students do.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Open Access, check out the library pages on Open Access

More interviews coming soon of researchers across the campus!