Showing posts with label investment in research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label investment in research. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Free and Fabulous:

Below is a list of free resources re-posted from the Librarian in Black website. This list exemplifies the growing number of resources which can be used to support research and used for research without a huge investment.

1. Free Software for Public & Staff Computers

  • Operating System (instead of Windows) – Ubuntu
  • Email/Calendar (instead of Outlook) – Google Calendar & Gmail
  • Web Browser (instead of IE) – Firefox, Google Chrome
  • Financial Software (instead of Quicken) – GNU Cash
  • Productivity Software (instead of Office) – Open Office
    • - word processing (like Word), spreadsheets (like Excel), presentations (like PowerPoint), databases (like Access), desktop publishing (like Publisher), and calculator (like, errr…, a calculator)
  • Image Editing (instead of PhotoShop) – GIMP
  • Typing Software – GNUTypist or TypeFaster Typing Tutor
  • CD writing – Brasero or InfraRecorder

2. Free Security Software Suite

3. Free Staff Scheduling Software

4. Free Team Meeting Tools

5. Free Tech Support Tools

  • Embedded chat (pop it in your intranet header) – Meebo Me chat widget
  • Voice or video chat (another way to contact tech support) – Skype, Ekiga, Sightspeed, or Tokbox
  • Screencasts on the fly (for tech support to help you!) – Jing
  • Discussion board (create a staff board re: common tech issues) – Google Groups
  • Remote Support (tech support folks can log in & control/see your computer) – LogMeIn.com, TightVNC

6. Free Audio & Video Tools

7. Free eLearning Tools

8. Free “Contact Us” Tools to Communicate with Customers

9. Free Social Network & Extended Web Presence Tools

10. Free Website Management Tools

11. Free eBooks (need to cut your eBook budget? that’s ok – there are a lot of free eBooks out there.)

12. Free Articles

13. Miscellaneous Other Free Stuff


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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Effective Investment in Research - the Irish Research eLibrary (IReL)

Many, many blogs, discussions and articles recently have been devoted to the subject of continued investment in Irish research. This week's Irish Times Innovation Magazine, for example, devotes several articles to the topic.

Part of the growing body of evidence providing support for continued funding for research in Ireland comes from the IReL Impact Survey, undertaken by the IUA libraries and the RCSI in Spring 2009. 5465 researchers responded to the survey.

IReL, the Irish Research eLibrary funded by SFI (Science Foundation Ireland) and the HEA (Higher Education Authority) includes such well-known names as Academic Press (ScienceDirect), Academic Search Premier, ACS, Blackwell Synergy, Business Source Premier, Datastream, IEEE, JSTOR, LexisNexis, Nature, Oxford University Press, SciFinder Scholar, Springer/Kluwer, Web of Knowledge, and Wiley InterScience.

Not surprisingly, given this content, 98% of researchers with a definite view agreed that IReL contributes to increased competitiveness of Irish research internationally, with one survey respondent commenting that in fact IReL is "by far the wisest and most important funding decision taken in Ireland for the third level sector. It truly enables research in Ireland."

Another survey respondent commented:

“This is a no-brainer. Having access to all the same information as our competitors means that we have caught up with and in many cases overtaken them. With the resources issue gone, it’s just a question of who has the best ideas.”

This last point is interesting. We have access to the resources now, but are we having the good ideas? Is there a correlation between the quality of information available, the input, and the quality of research being done, the output? Certainly, we believe that there is a link, but no study has ever managed to put figures on the link.

Until now.

In April 2009 a UK report from the Research Information Network (RIN) - E-journals: their use, value and impact - found that
“There is a clear correlation between levels of use of e-journals and research outcomes, with more usage linked to the number of papers published, number of PhD awards and income from research grants and contracts. This link is independent of institution size."

Professor David Nichols of the Center for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research (CIBER) at University College London summarised the report's findings in a podcast at July's RIN event The e-journals revolution: how the use of scholarly journals is shaping research:

1. Journals are the lifeblood of the UK research community.
2. The best researchers are also the best users of journals.
3. The volume of usage of ejournals is phenomenal.

The first finding matches the IReL evidence for Ireland, and the last finding is corroborated in Ireland by the detailed usage reports submitted regularly to IReL funders and IUA librarians. (In 2007, for example, over a quarter of a million articles were downloaded from just over 400 Science Direct journals across the seven Irish universities. Source: Usage of IReL Resources in 2007, Report of the Monitoring Group, October 2008, unpublished.)

Finding 2, that the best researchers are also the best users of journals, is of particular interest and merits further investigation. To that end, Phase 2 of the RIN project, to be completed in Spring 2010, is to involve interviews with approximately two hundred scientists, researchers and students.

In the meantime, Irish researchers are in no doubt as to the value of the e-resources currently available to them. Asked how a discontinuation of IReL would affect them, researchers said that it would be "a return to the stone age", "a devastating blow", "unthinkable". It is to be hoped that decision makers take note.
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Friday, April 24, 2009

Leading from the front: SFI’s Frank Gannon

Dick Ahlstrom in the Irish Times this week reminded us that even with the economy tanked and the filleting knife out for virtually every State programme, the science budget has so far remained intact. Frank Gannon, Director General of SFI since 2007, has had no small part to play in this.

"Careful lobbying by Gannon and others has helped keep the Government onside", writes Ahlstrom, "and allowed them to 'hold their nerve' through these difficult times. The highest levels of Government remain committed to the 'smart economy', believing that our engagement with scientific research will help pull us out of recession when the tide finally turns."

Gannon outlined just why we need to remain committed to the smart economy at the launch on March 25th this year of Powering the Smart Economy, SFI Strategy 2009-2013:

"While most of the focus in economic commentaries of late has, understandably, been on the short-term, it is essential that we prepare for the new global environment that will exist after this recession. We need to look closely and critically at how Ireland will then be positioned after the recovery. Ireland will have to be able to win exports by being the location from where new, essential and complex products originate. This can only happen if we give the necessary support, even in these difficult times to our high quality research and development. The realisation of the interdependent objectives set out in the strategy will deliver the basis for a prosperous and sustainable smart economy."

Link to the full Irish Times article
Link to Powering the Smart Economy, SFI Strategy 2009-2013
Link to SFI Press Release, March 25th 2009
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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

University rankings don't tell the whole story

Prof Ellen Hazelkorn, Director of Research and Enterprise at Dublin Institute of Technology and leader of the Higher Education Policy Research Unit (HEPRU), argues in this Irish Times article that too much focus on global rankings means that we risk transforming our higher education system to conform to metrics designed for other purposes.

Professor Hazelkorn looks at the various rankings, including the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities (SJT), the Times QS World University Ranking and the Taiwan Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for Research Universities, and concludes that sometimes “global rankings focus on what is easily measured rather than measuring what counts”.

Stressing that “it is the total investment that is important”, she recommends that Ireland could usefully look to Australia and to Norway for models which recognise and reward excellence wherever it occurs, developing benchmarks which reflect our societal and innovation needs and assessing performance accordingly.

Links to Rankings information
Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities (SJT)
Times QS World University Ranking
Webometrics – Ranking Web of World Universities
Wikipedia – College and University Rankings

Australia - the Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative
Norway - the Stjerno Commission

Link to the full Irish Times article
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