The Research Information Network (RIN) has written a guide giving practical information to help researchers use social media in their work and examines why it might be useful.

Read the guide here.

Another excellent resource for researchers covering many facets is Vitae, an organisation developed to support researchers and their career development. The Digital Researcher blog on the Vitae pages might be a useful resource for those interested in Social Media.

Elizabeth Andrews
Subject Librarian

If we are unlucky enough to encounter more heavy snow this year, one possible option (if your manager is agreeable) is to work from home.  Remote desktop allows you to connect from your home PC to your office PC and access all of the software and tools that you are accustomed to using at work from the warmth of your living room.

A bit of forward planning is required though – you will need to set up your work PC to receive a remote desktop connection and also do a bit of setup on your home PC.  The setup of the work PC requires you to be logged on at work, so can’t be undertaken when you are already snowed in.

 

Take a few moments now to set yourself up and save yourself a bit of hassle if/when the weather turns..

 

See our instructions at http://www.is.stir.ac.uk/offcampus/remotedesktop.php

 

Information Centre

There is a lot of discussion about how social media can used in research and education. Here are some examples from the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The RSC have a Twitterfeed, a YouTube channel they are on FaceBook, Flickr and LinkedIn. Here is a link to more information about how they use these social media outlets: http://www.rsc.org/aboutus/social.asp

Elizabeth Andrews

Subject Librarian

Information Services is running a very short survey to get your feedback on our mStir app and to find out which IT services you are using on your mobile phone.  To see mStir, point your smartphone browser at m.stir.ac.uk

The survey should only take a couple of minutes to complete and is available from

www.is.stir.ac.uk/mob

There will be an Information Services Open User Forum on Friday 2 December 2011 at 1.00pm, room 2B87, Cottrell Building, Stirling Campus.All are welcome. IT and Library representatives in Academic Schools and Administrative Departments, along with Students’ Union representatives are especially encouraged to attend.

 

Professor Douglas Brodie, School of Arts and Humanities will Chair the Forum. The agenda will include Windows 7 – Soliciting Feedback on the Implementation Project; Succeed – Soliciting Feedback on the Implementation Project; and Standardised Referencing Styles. Please send any further items for the agenda to IS Office (isoffice@stir.ac.uk) before the meeting, and if possible, by noon on Thursday 1 December 2011.

 

Please find below the link to the agenda and previous minutes:

 

http://www.is.stir.ac.uk/aboutis/groups/index.php

Do you use other academic libraries? Would you like to? Can you get what you need? The Higher Education library community wants to provide the best possible service to students, researchers and staff who, for all sorts of reasons, wish to access other academic and specialist libraries.

 

 

Please help us develop the services and access you need by completing this short online survey – it should take 5-6 minutes.

 

You can access the survey here:  http://www.sero.co.uk/sconul_access.html

 

*WIN VOUCHERS* Prize Draw for SIX winners of £30 Amazon vouchers – optionally provide your email address at the end of the survey to be entered in to the random draw

You can now use Scopus to find articles and other sources for your research and coursework. Scopus is described as “the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources” (http://www.info.sciverse.com/scopus/). Scopus can search across or within 4 main subject areas: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Health Sciences and Social Sciences and Humanities.

Access Scopus from the University Portal‘s A-Z list of on-line resources.

Scopus includes lots of different tools and applications:

• search for authors and their citations
• use the Journal Analyzer to compare journals when considering submitting your work
• search across 45.5 million records!

Here is a list of tutorials to get you started: http://help.scopus.com/flare/Content/tutorials/sc_menu.html

For more information see the about Scopus page: http://www.info.sciverse.com/scopus/about/

Click here to download the PDF user guide.

For help with using Scopus, please contact the Information Centre.

Elizabeth Andrews

Subject Librarian

The Stirling campus library is now on extended opening hours until 16 December.  Full details below:

 

Extended Exam Hours
From 14 November 2011 – 16 December 2011 inclusive

Studying or researching Science? Let us know what you think of BioOne.

You can access BioOne via the Portal‘s A-Z list of online resources.

Here is more information from the providers:

For more details and to give us feedback, please contact Lisa Haddow or Elizabeth Andrews.

Elizabeth Andrews

Subject Librarian