Welcome! We are very excited to welcome you to Cranfield, and we are looking forward to supporting you throughout your research degree. We are always happy to help you – all you need to do is ask!

If you haven’t already found the Research Students module on Canvas, please take a look as it’s a great starting point to learn about the support that is available to you.

This post highlights how the Library Services staff can help you in your first few months.

Talk to your Research Support Librarian

We hope that you have already attended the Library induction sessions and met your Research Support Librarian. If you missed any of the sessions, or wish to review the content, you can watch the recordings in the ‘welcome and induction’ section of the Research Students’ Canvas module.

Once you’ve attended our induction sessions you should know the basics of how to find the information you need for your research, some effective search techniques, and have an idea of the range of resources available. If you would like more help and information, you can request an individual appointment with your librarian. This could cover choosing your keywords and specialised resources. We can talk more about how we can help you with publishing your research, research data management, and skills training you may find useful.

Find out who your Research Support Librarian is and how to contact them.

Learn how to manage your research data

Good management of research data (‘research data management’, or RDM) is vital to underpin research excellence and integrity, enabling reuse and collaboration, and broadening the impact of your research. It is important that you follow best practices in storing and sharing your data, and that you are aware of your funder’s requirements in order to meet them.

We have created a research data management online course. It provides everything you need to know to get started with managing your research data – from a general introduction through to explaining how to write a data management plan and use our data repository, CORD. We recommend that you work through the ‘RDM 1: Introduction’ training within your first few months. You must write a DMP (data management plan) for your project before starting data collection and you may use CORD towards the end of your research.

Our RDM guidance provides information about writing a DMP, using CORD, RDM in bids and proposals, and several other relevant areas. Researcher study skills – data management provides videos that cover several areas relevant to managing your research data.

If you prefer, we also offer RDM face-to-face via workshops and webinars that you can sign up for via DATES.

And if you have any questions, please get in touch: researchdata@cranfield.ac.uk.

Next steps

When you are ready, we can provide you with advice and support to help you:

• undertake and write your literature review
• manage your references
• understand the legal aspects of undertaking research (including data protection and copyright)

And later on, as your research progresses, don’t forget that we can provide extensive advice on how to make your research and data open access.

You can also sign up for upcoming Research and Academic Skills Development events on our web page. Here is a flavour of the type of events we offer:

• English language support
• academic writing skills
• critical thinking
• reference management software
• keeping up to date with the literature
• choosing the right journal for your paper
• building your academic profile

Visit the page for new students on our website.

Image by Štefan Štefančík on Unsplash