Back in November 2013 (I can’t believe it was a year ago now, but it was), I reviewed my PDP (Personal Development Plan) to ensure that it was up-to-date. Well, in the last year things have moved on, and the plan needed reviewing again. My first job was to review the 2013 plan and see what I had (or hadn't achieved):
Of the eight goals on the list, I’ve fully achieved five of them, and partially achieved three. The five I’ve fully achieved are listed below:
1) Prepare an updated staff development hour session on open access, research data management the repository
I prepared this with my line manager in preparation for a session in May 2014. Whilst I wasn’t able to help run the May 2014 session, we updated it again for Open Access Week in October 2014, and this session I did run. I was able to learn more about research data management, learn how the newest version (version 5) of Turning Point works, and gain confidence in my ability to both present and discuss open access and research data management in detail with my colleagues.
2) Determine the best referencing managing software to store and organise my references (assess Zotero, Mendeley and RefWorks)
Not longer after I wrote my last PDP, I investigated a range of reference manager tools, and came to the conclusion that RefWorks was my preferred tool. I have been using RefWorks since, although admittedly somewhat sporadically…
3) Understand more about the new CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals) rules and regulations
Reading the new CILIP website, talking to colleagues and attending an online training event have all enabled me to understand the new CILIP rules and regulations in relation to both Chartership and Revalidation. You can see the proof of this in goals four and five…
4) Become a CILIP mentor with 1 or mentees
As of January 2014, I have been a CILIP mentor. I am currently mentoring two Chartership candidates, and hope that at least one of them will successfully Charter in the next six months.
5) Register for Revalidation
I have not just registered for Revalidation, but actually successfully Revalidated (as of November 2014). I’ve written more about my Revalidation experience (albeit before I discovered I was successful) at http://www.annaslibrarythoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/recording-continuing-professional.html.
And the three goals I’ve been a little less successful with:
1) Keeping my cpd23 blog up-to-date
I wasn’t doing too badly with keeping this blog up-to-date. I was trying to write at least one post a month and, on the whole, I was succeeding. Or at least until August of this year I was. Since then I’ve only written one post (in October). This has largely been due to the nature of what’s been happening at work and in my personal life (more about that in a minute).
2) Engaging more with Twitter
I have actually been using Twitter more, but primarily for keeping up-to-date. I read a lot of other people’s post, and have begun to tweet and re-tweet more often – but certainly not once a week. It’s more like once a month on average. Some weeks I go mad and tweet four or five things; other weeks I’m deadly silent.
3) Learning more about research data management
I’ve certainly learnt a fair amount about research data management, both through working with it more closely on a day-to-day basis at work, and through a range of reading I’ve done (for example, reading Graham Pryor’s book Managing Research Data). I’ve also begun the RDMRose training module, but I’m barely half way through. And whilst I have found some other training materials, I haven’t had the time to work through any of them.
So, what next? Well, there are a couple of things affecting what now appears on my updated PDP. Firstly, I have a new job. I’m still working in the same team, but I’m now Research and open Access Librarian, rather than Research Repository Support Librarian (better know as the Repository Manager). Basically it’s a promotion with our Library Research Support Team. So my responsibilities have changed a little - I now have more of a focus on research data and open access generally, and less of an exclusive focus on the research repository.
Secondly, I’m due to go on maternity leave again in January 2015. So whilst there are plenty of things I’d like to do in the next 12 months, I know I need to be fairly realistic about what I’ll actually be able to achieve. Therefore, there are only six things on my PDP this time around – most with timescales somewhere between six and fourteen months away. In some cases, I’m also relying on partnerships with others to achieve the final goal. For example, one goal is to determine how the HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) OA (Open Access) policy affects our current repository workflows, and update these accordingly. Whilst I can advise on our current workflows and whether or not the policy means they need changing, I’m unlikely to be in a position where I can oversee any changes.
I'll aim to come back and review the PDP on this blog next November at the latest - and write related posts about specific goals in the mean time...
Showing posts with label Managing Research Data. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Managing Research Data. Show all posts
Sunday, 30 November 2014
Saturday, 26 April 2014
UKSG conference blog post report
Last week I attended the UKSG conference in Harrogate as a first timer. UKSG is a three-day long conference looking at all things serials-related. In recent years this has meant a focus on research support and open access, which is why I was in attendance. As you can imagine with an intensive 3-day conference, there is a lot of information to take on board. I’ve tried to pull out some of the things that struck me as main themes at the conference, especially ones that my team and I have a specific interest in (many of these themes are therefore quite research support focused).
- The changing role of libraries
Both Stockholm University and Utrecht University Libraries were also very clear that they don’t try to bring users to the library/ website – they simply want to provide them with the tools to access the info they need. Whilst Stockholm stated that their EBSCO Delivery Service is just one tool among many, Utrecht have gone one step further and taken away their library catalogue completely. Their users use Google and Google Scholar, so this is what they’ll support. However, a warning came from the audience here: Google is a commercial service. It can be removed at any time. Bill Thompson from the BBC stated that it would be best to support open-source initiatives, which have a community behind them, instead of a corporation, as these services can’t just be removed. But can we really dictate what services our users should use in this way?
- The purpose of scholarly communication
The four original (and still relevant today) purposes of scholarly communication were to register research findings, review and clarifying findings before publication (still achieved through peer review), disseminate new knowledge and preserve a record of those findings. The Royal Society states that research today should be accessible, intelligible, assessable and usable.
- How we communicate research
Ernesto Priego took this one step further by suggesting that publishing is where content goes to die. Perhaps proving his point, his slide stating this went viral on social media almost instantly. If he’d published this point in a journal article, would anybody have noticed? Ernesto felt that research should be the beginning, not the end, of a conversation. Instead of being encouraged to publish against one another, researchers should be encouraged to read, and to talk, to each other. The aim should be for collaboration, not competition, and a culture of sharing should be developed.
- The importance of re-usability, not just open access
Even HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) recognise the importance of re-usability. Whilst not mandatory for the post-2014 REF (Research Excellence Framework), HEFCE have stated that they will give credit to institutions that enable re-use rights and text mining on the research they produce.
- New challenges in open access
The sheer size and volume of datasets (sometimes as many as 6 million data points) in the digital age
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| Enjoying the sunshine in a Harrogate park during a lunch break |
In contrast to this, almost everybody in attendance seemed to be in agreement that monographs should be made open access. But, again for the post-2014 REF, HEFCE stated that whilst monographs should be OA, the business models are too immature, and the lead times for publishing monographs are also very long – it’s already too late for the next REF. However, credit will be given to institutions that do make monographs openly available. There are already projects looking at this very issue. One example is Knowledge Unlatched, a project which is getting libraries to share the costs of making books open access. The library pays a title fee with a fixed cost, and books are then made open access with a Creative Commons licence.
As well as all of the above, there were a number of breakout sessions around article processing charges (APCs), the HEFCE Open Access policy, research data management and bibliometrics (and other things!) that left me full of ideas, questions and studies that I can take back and use in my day-to-day work. I found UKSG to be an incredibly useful, if rather intense, conference.
Wednesday, 26 February 2014
Collection Development in the Digital Age
This book has been hanging around in my house waiting to be read for a few months now. I figured it was getting ridiculous, and when it was due to be renewed for the fourth time I decided to finally bite the bullet and finish reading it.
Not that it's a particularly bad read. If you work in the area of open access, like me, it's actually pretty interesting. But there were definitely a number of chapters that seemed to have less relevance to me. And of those that did talk about open access and its related areas, I already knew most of what was being talked about. What was interesting was when the writers started to think about what the future of libraries, and library staff, might be like. A number of them felt that the librarians role was going to change, acknowledging that "the open access movement is beginning to impact on and challenge what we see as the traditional function of the librarian the journal collection and the tradtiional scholarly commuication model" (Harvell p. 63). Whilst there was no defined future for these new kinds of librarians, there was agreement that there was likely to be work supprting researchers and academics in the course of their research life cycle. Ball also felt that "our role is now being reversed: it will be to collect the outputs of our own institution's scholars and make them freely available to the world" (p. 122), rather than our previous role as "collector of everything in the world" (Ball p. 123).
Whilst all of this made for an interesting read, all I really learnt was how librarians who didn't work extremely closely with open access felt about it (pretty positively, I think, which I'm happy about).
However, Wendy Shaw's chapter on "Collection development policies for the digital age" gave ne a lot more food for thought - and taught me a lot. The chapter gives a good overview of what a collection development policy is, and how to go about writing one. Whilst I've been aware of them for many years, I've never had to write one. To be fair, I don't have to write one now - but I do believe one should exist. Our data repository is still very much in its infacny, but I believe that, in order for it to be both succesful and understood, a collection development policy should be written for it. I now have the information and knowledge to be able to back up my point, and the ability to get stuck into writing one when I'm told its a good idea, but I've just given myself another job. Now I just need the guts to say that's whats needed - or perhaps the stupidity...
Reference: Fieldhouse, Maggie and Marshall, Audrey (eds.) (2012) Collection Development in the Digital Age. London: Facet
Not that it's a particularly bad read. If you work in the area of open access, like me, it's actually pretty interesting. But there were definitely a number of chapters that seemed to have less relevance to me. And of those that did talk about open access and its related areas, I already knew most of what was being talked about. What was interesting was when the writers started to think about what the future of libraries, and library staff, might be like. A number of them felt that the librarians role was going to change, acknowledging that "the open access movement is beginning to impact on and challenge what we see as the traditional function of the librarian the journal collection and the tradtiional scholarly commuication model" (Harvell p. 63). Whilst there was no defined future for these new kinds of librarians, there was agreement that there was likely to be work supprting researchers and academics in the course of their research life cycle. Ball also felt that "our role is now being reversed: it will be to collect the outputs of our own institution's scholars and make them freely available to the world" (p. 122), rather than our previous role as "collector of everything in the world" (Ball p. 123).
Whilst all of this made for an interesting read, all I really learnt was how librarians who didn't work extremely closely with open access felt about it (pretty positively, I think, which I'm happy about).
However, Wendy Shaw's chapter on "Collection development policies for the digital age" gave ne a lot more food for thought - and taught me a lot. The chapter gives a good overview of what a collection development policy is, and how to go about writing one. Whilst I've been aware of them for many years, I've never had to write one. To be fair, I don't have to write one now - but I do believe one should exist. Our data repository is still very much in its infacny, but I believe that, in order for it to be both succesful and understood, a collection development policy should be written for it. I now have the information and knowledge to be able to back up my point, and the ability to get stuck into writing one when I'm told its a good idea, but I've just given myself another job. Now I just need the guts to say that's whats needed - or perhaps the stupidity...
Reference: Fieldhouse, Maggie and Marshall, Audrey (eds.) (2012) Collection Development in the Digital Age. London: Facet
Saturday, 1 February 2014
Revalidation
After a couple of months of contemplation, I have finally gotten around to looking into the rules of Revalidation, and how to achieve this according to CILIPs new guidelines. I had been delaying this a bit because I knew that the rules were changing, and I was waiting for the guidelines to be updated enough for me to understand what I needed to do. I was also spurred on to looking at the VLE as I had a meeting with one of my mentees (I now have 2, and a full list - that took all of 2 months) and wanted to have at least a basic understanding of the new CILIP website.
In fairness, I had actually attempted to look at the CILIP VLE just before Christmas. I could get so far, but for some reason couldn't log into the portfolio section - which is where you add details of any CPD you've been doing. I tried again last week, and it worked. I had e-mailed CILIP to ask them to give me access, and the very same day (but after I had managed to log on) I got an e-mail saying they had given me access. Whether this is coincidence or why I was able to log on that day, I guess I'll never know.
So, I guess there are two strands to this. Revalidation itself, and using the VLE.
Let's talk about Revalidation first. CILIP recommend that you revalidate annually, and I Chartered in 2011, so it's time! It all seems relatively simple - and I'm keen to do it at least once before it (probably) becomes compulsory in 2015. Basically, you log 20 hours of CPD on the VLE, and then write a 250 word evaluative statement to say how your CPD corresponds to CILIP's 3 assessment criteria.
I have two main worries with all this. Firstly, I could probably complete 20 hours of CPD in about a month, and I'd like my Revalidation to span a slightly longer timescale than this! You can log more hours of course, but I don't want to get too bogged down. So for the time being I'm cherry picking the bits of CPD that fit best with the assessment criteria, in the hope that it'll cover roughly a 6 month period or so. This includes things like reading a book on research data management, attending planning meetings at work, and being on an interview panel. I also intend to include things like being a mentor. I did think about including some CPD from 2012 (from before I went on maternity leave) but that seems so long ago now that I think I'd find it hard to speak to it. So all the CPD I've picked is from Sept 2013 onwards, when I returned to work. I'm going to aim to submit this summer. My second worry is that 250 words really isn't very many at all for an evaluative statement. I'm going to have to be so succinct!
And so, onto the VLE. Now I've had a go at using it (and been able to log in), I'm a lot less frustrated by it than I was a month ago. It's not particularly intuitive though, so it took some time for me to figure out where I wanted was. Having said that, if you can find the training videos (and they're pretty visible, thankfully) they are incredibly useful, and really will help you to figure out where things are.
So now I just need to get on with actually logging some of those CPD activities...
PS Don't you just love library acronyms?
CILIP: Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
VLE: Virtual Learning Environment
CPD: Continuing Professional Development
In fairness, I had actually attempted to look at the CILIP VLE just before Christmas. I could get so far, but for some reason couldn't log into the portfolio section - which is where you add details of any CPD you've been doing. I tried again last week, and it worked. I had e-mailed CILIP to ask them to give me access, and the very same day (but after I had managed to log on) I got an e-mail saying they had given me access. Whether this is coincidence or why I was able to log on that day, I guess I'll never know.
So, I guess there are two strands to this. Revalidation itself, and using the VLE.
Let's talk about Revalidation first. CILIP recommend that you revalidate annually, and I Chartered in 2011, so it's time! It all seems relatively simple - and I'm keen to do it at least once before it (probably) becomes compulsory in 2015. Basically, you log 20 hours of CPD on the VLE, and then write a 250 word evaluative statement to say how your CPD corresponds to CILIP's 3 assessment criteria.
I have two main worries with all this. Firstly, I could probably complete 20 hours of CPD in about a month, and I'd like my Revalidation to span a slightly longer timescale than this! You can log more hours of course, but I don't want to get too bogged down. So for the time being I'm cherry picking the bits of CPD that fit best with the assessment criteria, in the hope that it'll cover roughly a 6 month period or so. This includes things like reading a book on research data management, attending planning meetings at work, and being on an interview panel. I also intend to include things like being a mentor. I did think about including some CPD from 2012 (from before I went on maternity leave) but that seems so long ago now that I think I'd find it hard to speak to it. So all the CPD I've picked is from Sept 2013 onwards, when I returned to work. I'm going to aim to submit this summer. My second worry is that 250 words really isn't very many at all for an evaluative statement. I'm going to have to be so succinct!
And so, onto the VLE. Now I've had a go at using it (and been able to log in), I'm a lot less frustrated by it than I was a month ago. It's not particularly intuitive though, so it took some time for me to figure out where I wanted was. Having said that, if you can find the training videos (and they're pretty visible, thankfully) they are incredibly useful, and really will help you to figure out where things are.
So now I just need to get on with actually logging some of those CPD activities...
PS Don't you just love library acronyms?
CILIP: Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
VLE: Virtual Learning Environment
CPD: Continuing Professional Development
Sunday, 15 December 2013
Managing Research Data
Now that my team at work have taken on creating and maintaining the university's data repository, one of the goals on my current PDP is to learn more about research data management. More specifically, one of the actions related to this goal was to read Graham Pryor's book, helpfully entitled Managing Research Data (for the full reference see the end of this post). I figured there was a clue in the title as to how useful this book was likely to be.
Having now read the book, I can state that this book was, in fact, incredibly worthwhile reading. The book has 10 chapters, and I ended up making notes on six of them. I've written up comprehensive notes and thoughts and added these to RefWorks (see, I am making an effort to use it), but some of the most useful points and my key thoughts are below.
In her chapter on the life-cycle of data management, Higgins talked about the importance of having a collection development policy for a data repository, which I really think will be necessary for us, as we have limited storage space. The ability to refer to a collection development policy to state why we will and won't take certain types of data could be invaluable. Related to this was Ellen Collin's discussion on how certain data repositories make decisions on whether or not to collect data, and these could be considered when writing our collection development policy.
A theme running through a number of the chapters was a discussion of why some researchers aren't keen on making their data openly available (and, more broadly, objections to managing their research data in general), and in contrast, the positive reasons for doing so. All of these arguments are helpful to be aware of when discussing research data management with researchers, and go some way towards pre-empting their questions and concerns.
Finally, Sheila Corrall provides a list of questions that Witt and Carlson asked researchers when they were trying to identify potential research dataset additions for their data repository. One of our current actions at work is to talk to researchers at the university about their data and data management plans, and this set of questions could be a useful starting point for us if we're not sure where to begin these conversations.
So, overall, this has been a really helpful book - both in terms of helping me understand more about the issues surrounding managing research data as a librarian (and for libraries generally), and enabling me to come up with ideas and plans to support our current work.
Reference: Pryor, G. (ed). (2013). Managing Research Data. London: Facet Publishing.
Having now read the book, I can state that this book was, in fact, incredibly worthwhile reading. The book has 10 chapters, and I ended up making notes on six of them. I've written up comprehensive notes and thoughts and added these to RefWorks (see, I am making an effort to use it), but some of the most useful points and my key thoughts are below.
In her chapter on the life-cycle of data management, Higgins talked about the importance of having a collection development policy for a data repository, which I really think will be necessary for us, as we have limited storage space. The ability to refer to a collection development policy to state why we will and won't take certain types of data could be invaluable. Related to this was Ellen Collin's discussion on how certain data repositories make decisions on whether or not to collect data, and these could be considered when writing our collection development policy.
A theme running through a number of the chapters was a discussion of why some researchers aren't keen on making their data openly available (and, more broadly, objections to managing their research data in general), and in contrast, the positive reasons for doing so. All of these arguments are helpful to be aware of when discussing research data management with researchers, and go some way towards pre-empting their questions and concerns.
Finally, Sheila Corrall provides a list of questions that Witt and Carlson asked researchers when they were trying to identify potential research dataset additions for their data repository. One of our current actions at work is to talk to researchers at the university about their data and data management plans, and this set of questions could be a useful starting point for us if we're not sure where to begin these conversations.
So, overall, this has been a really helpful book - both in terms of helping me understand more about the issues surrounding managing research data as a librarian (and for libraries generally), and enabling me to come up with ideas and plans to support our current work.
Reference: Pryor, G. (ed). (2013). Managing Research Data. London: Facet Publishing.
Saturday, 23 November 2013
Actually reviewing my personal development plan
A month and a bit after I wrote about it, I have finally got around to reviewing my PDP (for those who don't know, that's a Personal Development Plan). My old one was written in Oct 2011, so the actions were rather out of date.
It hasn't actually taken me too long to come up with a new PDP. Having been back at work for three months now, there are a number of fairly obvious things I need to do to develop myself - not least of which is learn more about research data management (for some reason, this is the thing that springs to mind first - probably because it's the thing I feel I know least about, and the thing that keeps sneaking up on me on my to-do list at work).
Overall, I've managed to come up with eight new PDP goals. Admittedly, three of these are very similar to previous actions, but I believe they are still incredibly valid. And eight goals might see a lot, especially when some have more than one action attached, but I have given myself a year to achieve them all.
I've also already made a start on a couple of the goals - namely learning more about research data management, looking at referencing management software, and keeping this blog up-to-date. But more about each of those separately at a later date, perhaps after I've made a little more headway!
It hasn't actually taken me too long to come up with a new PDP. Having been back at work for three months now, there are a number of fairly obvious things I need to do to develop myself - not least of which is learn more about research data management (for some reason, this is the thing that springs to mind first - probably because it's the thing I feel I know least about, and the thing that keeps sneaking up on me on my to-do list at work).
Overall, I've managed to come up with eight new PDP goals. Admittedly, three of these are very similar to previous actions, but I believe they are still incredibly valid. And eight goals might see a lot, especially when some have more than one action attached, but I have given myself a year to achieve them all.
I've also already made a start on a couple of the goals - namely learning more about research data management, looking at referencing management software, and keeping this blog up-to-date. But more about each of those separately at a later date, perhaps after I've made a little more headway!
Saturday, 19 October 2013
Reviewing my Personal Development Plan
If you've been a reader of this blog for a while, you may remember (if you have a really good memory) a post I wrote back in October 2011, two years ago. It was the final post I wrote as part of the 23 Things course (the reason, in fact, that this blog exists in the first place). In that Oct 2011 post, I talked about a Personal Development Plan (PDP) I had put together, and how and when I hoped to achieve the goals on that PDP.
Then, in December 2011 I wrote a brief update post, stating that I hadn't yet achieved any of those goals - but that according to my timescale, I wasn't yet due to, so that was OK.
A lot has happened since then. Not least of which is the fact that I spent from Aug 2012- Sept 2013 on maternity leave, and didn't really think about work all that much during that period. However, now I've been back at work for a month or two, and I'm starting to think about this sort of thing again. So I've gone back and had a look at that original PDP...
... and was relatively happily surprised. Sure, there are some actions I've totally failed to complete, but others that I've actually completed, and even moved on from a little. Here they are, in order, with how far I've progressed:
1) Prepare a staff development hour session for library staff on open access and the repository using Prezi. Due to complete by Jan 2012.
The preparation for this was actually completed on target, in Jan 2012. However the actual sessions were delivered between Jan and March 2012. I did also write a blog post specifically about this at the time, just after I ran the first session. Things have moved on a little since I created that Prezi, and I suspect I will be creating something similar, but updated, in the not too distant future.
2) Keep my cpd23 blog up-to-date. Review Feb 2012.
I've had partial success here. I was doing relatively well with this up until July 2012, usually managing to post at least once a month, and often more than this. Then I went on maternity leave and the blog died something of a death, there being no posts between August 2012 and Sept 2013. In some ways I feel I have a valid excuse for this (and certainly didn't have enough work-related things to talk about), but now I'm back I'd like to keep the blog going!
3) To engage more with Twitter. Review Feb 2012.
Nope. Utterly failed here. Again, I was doing OK up until July 2012 (although I was posting more like once a month than once a week, which is what I had specified). Since then, I've tweeted once. Apparently that was 117 days and it wasn't even work related. I do still read Twitter posts, so perhaps I need to make more of an effort with this one.
4) Engage more with the LISNPN site. Review Mar 2012.
Sorry, failed again. I haven't actually looked at the LISNPN site in a very long time. This was clearly one of those 'seemed like a good idea at the time' actions which I was, in all honesty, probably never going to do. Perhaps one action to remove, I'm afraid.
5) Create a screencast of uploading an item to the repository using Jing. Due April 2012.
Yes! Something I've done! [And even blogged about a little - although I've just discovered it's still appearing as a draft... I'll update it to make it clear when it was written, then post it after this post and link to it!] Back to the issue at hand: Although the screencast wasn't completed until Aug 2012, and I didn't actually use Jing for it. I used Camtasia as that's the software we have at work, and it does offer a little more functionality than Jing. (Having said that, I did help another collleague use Jing for their screencast).
My colleague and I put together a screencast of uploading an item to the repository back in August 2012. To be fair, this then had to be updated by my colleague after I went on maternity leave becasue we updated the way the UWE Research Repository looks. His work, and the result, can be seen on the UWE Library YouTube channel. But I did show him how to use Camtasia! And we have actually just completed a shorter, one-minute, Quick Deposit guide. When that appears on the YouTube channel I'll probably blog about it...
6) Become a CILIP Mentor. Due May 2012.
Again, achieved. Although very late - and still in its very early stages. I made the decision not to become a mentor before I went on maternity leave, not knowing how much time or effort I'd be able to put in during the year. Looking back, I wish I had become a mentor at the time - it would have been a great way to keep in touch with the profession whilst being away from the workplace, and to give something useful back to people who needed a bit of my time. But then, seeing into the future is tough.
However, I have now sent off the form to CILIP (as of last week), officially stating I want to be a mentor. Whilst this means I don't, as yet, have any official mentees, I do have an informal arrangement in place with a colleague who is studying for their MSc. I've been helping out for a while now, since (I think) early in 2012. And I'm really enjoying being able to help - and hopefully the mentee is gaining something from this relationship too!
7) Use Zotero to store and organise my references. Due June 2012.
Nope. Not even looked at Zotero. I had intended to use this to add any references that might be useful to any Revalidation I chose to do, so it's not actually been much of an issue yet. I haven't read anything that might be valid to Revalidation... and as the criteria are changing now anyway, who knows if I'll need this or not? I have a suspicion it might still be useful though, especially as I'm currently reading Managing Research Data (edited by Graham Pryor), and have a few other books and articles on my reading list...
So, all in all, 4 of 7 actions completed or partially completed. And another one or two which I definitely want to work on. My next action, should, I suspect, be to go away and update my PDP. I can already think of a few additions: Learn more about the new Chartership regulations (I'll need to know these if I'm mentoring Chartership candidates); Register for Revalidation (when I know what the new regulations are, I'm allowed and have done enough CPD hours).
I suspect there'll be an update in the (hopefully not too distant) future...
Then, in December 2011 I wrote a brief update post, stating that I hadn't yet achieved any of those goals - but that according to my timescale, I wasn't yet due to, so that was OK.
A lot has happened since then. Not least of which is the fact that I spent from Aug 2012- Sept 2013 on maternity leave, and didn't really think about work all that much during that period. However, now I've been back at work for a month or two, and I'm starting to think about this sort of thing again. So I've gone back and had a look at that original PDP...
... and was relatively happily surprised. Sure, there are some actions I've totally failed to complete, but others that I've actually completed, and even moved on from a little. Here they are, in order, with how far I've progressed:
1) Prepare a staff development hour session for library staff on open access and the repository using Prezi. Due to complete by Jan 2012.
The preparation for this was actually completed on target, in Jan 2012. However the actual sessions were delivered between Jan and March 2012. I did also write a blog post specifically about this at the time, just after I ran the first session. Things have moved on a little since I created that Prezi, and I suspect I will be creating something similar, but updated, in the not too distant future.
2) Keep my cpd23 blog up-to-date. Review Feb 2012.
I've had partial success here. I was doing relatively well with this up until July 2012, usually managing to post at least once a month, and often more than this. Then I went on maternity leave and the blog died something of a death, there being no posts between August 2012 and Sept 2013. In some ways I feel I have a valid excuse for this (and certainly didn't have enough work-related things to talk about), but now I'm back I'd like to keep the blog going!
3) To engage more with Twitter. Review Feb 2012.
Nope. Utterly failed here. Again, I was doing OK up until July 2012 (although I was posting more like once a month than once a week, which is what I had specified). Since then, I've tweeted once. Apparently that was 117 days and it wasn't even work related. I do still read Twitter posts, so perhaps I need to make more of an effort with this one.
4) Engage more with the LISNPN site. Review Mar 2012.
Sorry, failed again. I haven't actually looked at the LISNPN site in a very long time. This was clearly one of those 'seemed like a good idea at the time' actions which I was, in all honesty, probably never going to do. Perhaps one action to remove, I'm afraid.
5) Create a screencast of uploading an item to the repository using Jing. Due April 2012.
Yes! Something I've done! [And even blogged about a little - although I've just discovered it's still appearing as a draft... I'll update it to make it clear when it was written, then post it after this post and link to it!] Back to the issue at hand: Although the screencast wasn't completed until Aug 2012, and I didn't actually use Jing for it. I used Camtasia as that's the software we have at work, and it does offer a little more functionality than Jing. (Having said that, I did help another collleague use Jing for their screencast).
My colleague and I put together a screencast of uploading an item to the repository back in August 2012. To be fair, this then had to be updated by my colleague after I went on maternity leave becasue we updated the way the UWE Research Repository looks. His work, and the result, can be seen on the UWE Library YouTube channel. But I did show him how to use Camtasia! And we have actually just completed a shorter, one-minute, Quick Deposit guide. When that appears on the YouTube channel I'll probably blog about it...
6) Become a CILIP Mentor. Due May 2012.
Again, achieved. Although very late - and still in its very early stages. I made the decision not to become a mentor before I went on maternity leave, not knowing how much time or effort I'd be able to put in during the year. Looking back, I wish I had become a mentor at the time - it would have been a great way to keep in touch with the profession whilst being away from the workplace, and to give something useful back to people who needed a bit of my time. But then, seeing into the future is tough.
However, I have now sent off the form to CILIP (as of last week), officially stating I want to be a mentor. Whilst this means I don't, as yet, have any official mentees, I do have an informal arrangement in place with a colleague who is studying for their MSc. I've been helping out for a while now, since (I think) early in 2012. And I'm really enjoying being able to help - and hopefully the mentee is gaining something from this relationship too!
7) Use Zotero to store and organise my references. Due June 2012.
Nope. Not even looked at Zotero. I had intended to use this to add any references that might be useful to any Revalidation I chose to do, so it's not actually been much of an issue yet. I haven't read anything that might be valid to Revalidation... and as the criteria are changing now anyway, who knows if I'll need this or not? I have a suspicion it might still be useful though, especially as I'm currently reading Managing Research Data (edited by Graham Pryor), and have a few other books and articles on my reading list...
So, all in all, 4 of 7 actions completed or partially completed. And another one or two which I definitely want to work on. My next action, should, I suspect, be to go away and update my PDP. I can already think of a few additions: Learn more about the new Chartership regulations (I'll need to know these if I'm mentoring Chartership candidates); Register for Revalidation (when I know what the new regulations are, I'm allowed and have done enough CPD hours).
I suspect there'll be an update in the (hopefully not too distant) future...
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