Signposting What We Do

The Idea

Everyone uses a 'Research Cycle' or a 'Research Compass' or 'Circle-Shaped-Research-Thing' to place their services in context. It works well as a visual description of an iterative process.

This was something that I noticed when I attended a knowledge-sharing event last year. Lots of university libraries are using this visual device to lay out the different services that they offer. Examples from elsewhere include The Research Lifecycle from Bournemouth University, the Research Data Management cycle from the London School of Economics, and the Skills Plus Compass at Northumbria University, all pictured above.

Conceptual Design

Our aim was to create an overview of the Research Cycle that was representative of the resources and services that our team offered. It was important to us that we didn't include any guidance, services, or training that were not part of our expertise or remit. We didn't include any information on seeking funding, costing research budgets, or negotiating the use of research space, for example. For that reason the Research Cycle is not reflective of a typical research journey from start to finish. It simply informs researchers, at whatever stage of their career they happen to be at, which Learning and Research Services are available to them.

For the sake of simplicity, we grouped together key points under five major headings. After some back and forth with the good people in our marketing team we had a lovely graphical representation from which to start working.

Creation of Content

We decided on a list of topics that were grouped together under each heading. Choosing which heading to place some the topics under was more difficult than you might first expect. For example information on Literature Reviewing could easily be featured under Think & Plan, just as much as Gather & Analyse. After creating a list, we set to work writing up concise simple language introductions and overviews of each topic. The idea being that we could include display on the university pages a paragraph of two on each topic. When my colleague collated everything that we had written, she had a document 11,000 words long!

Instead of University webpages, we settled on using LibGuides for a number of reasons. We wouldn't be limited in terms of style, length, or editorial content; they could be updated quite easily; and they were adaptable and customisation for our needs. The text was added to different LibGuides, and then we set to work prettying up the whole thing with images and videos to make it exciting and easier to read.

Incorporating Training

Lots of Libraries have a calendar of events supporting a dedicated research skills development programme.

Another observation from the knowledge-sharing event last year - we were lacking a comprehensive training programme for the development of research skills. Part of our Research Cycle project was to always use it to showcase the training that we do, and to build on that good work.

Each component in the Research Cycle was interrogated for training opportunities. From this, I was able to create a list of 17 possible training events that I would be comfortable offering. The size and breadth of this list really surprised me. Two years ago I created a 'menu of sessions' for my previous post and was only able to list four training options. It looks like all that CPD has paid off!

Future Developments

The Research Cycle was well-received by our academic colleagues, and in particular by postgraduate research students. I'm hoping that we don't let it become stagnant, and that we continue to update the information and add to it. I've learned that sometimes it's okay to be ambitious. Your plans will change, but that's okay! If I had attempted something like this on my own I probably would have approached it in a very haphazard way. Instead, our systematic categorisation of Library resources and services into headings that make sense to some of our core users proved to be a much more efficient approach to anything I could have managed.

This was also an opportunity to take stock of what it is that I actually do. Until I saw it written down this way, I had no idea I was involved in so much. It's helped me to feel a little bit more confident about my own experience and skills, as well as my place in the scheme of things.