UKSG 2025 - Breakout - Supporting postgraduate research students in scholarly communications and open research.pdf
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Beth Montague-Hellen, Francis Crick Institute PGRs are some of the most excited and driven researchers, eager to engage with open access and open research. However, they are also incredibly influenced by the environment in which they find themselves, particularly by their research supervisor’s own behaviours and opinions around open research. Their status as students often limits their access to tools and support available to employed researchers. Equally, their status as researchers can lead to the assumption that they already understand the research and publishing landscape. What can libraries do to support PGRs in becoming ethical and open researchers? Are the one-shot training courses, often voluntary, enough? This talk will discuss barriers and strategies around support for PGRs as they embark on their research careers.
UKSG 2025 - Breakout - Supporting postgraduate research students in scholarly communications and open research.pdf
- 1. Supporting PGRs in Scholarly Communications Dr Beth Montague-Hellen Head of Library & Information Services Francis Crick Institute @drbeth.bsky.social
- 2. Why should you listen to me, anyway? As a PGR and a Postdoc researcher As a scholarly comms librarian
- 3. PGRs – Who are they? • Greater range of ages than UGs • Large range of experiences and backgrounds • Technically students, but may be closer to research assistants • Sometimes already staff members as well • Often very enthusiastic about open research • Beholden and influenced by supervisors/PIs • Embedded in lab and subject culture
- 4. Different requirements, same research Staff author PGR author OA REF requirements Yes No OA funder requirements Yes (dependent on funder) Yes (dependent on funded) Institutional OA requirements Yes Maybe Institutional RDM requirements Yes Maybe Access to institutional repositories (and expectation to deposit) Yes Maybe
- 5. Different situations, different subjects Biosciences Sociology History # authors Small to very large Usually small, may be single author Usually single author Collaborations Common, often international Infrequent Very infrequent Funding Often grants available or UKRI/Wellcome block grants Smaller grants, may be no funds for gold Rare, but may be AHRC or small grant funded Data sharing Subject norms expect it particularly with sequence or structure data Less frequently expected, understanding that Qual doesn’t often get shared Rare, and no subject norms expecting it
- 6. A Nottingham University Green OA case study • Decision made to automatically create user profiles from HR record • PGRs are not staff and don’t have an HR record • PGRs cannot access the system themselves
- 7. A Nottingham University Green OA case study Biosciences PGR • May be Gold anyway • May have a pre- print already • Likely has an internal co-author who has to deposit anyway Sociology PGR • May be Gold anyway • May have a co- author or PI who can deposit History PGR • Unlikely to be Gold • Unlikely to have a co-author who can deposit • Beg the library to help…if they’re that invested
- 8. Making assumptions about who the audience is leads to boring training and sub-par support
- 9. Who has power over open research culture?
- 12. Common ways of delivering OA training Initial training (compulsory/optional) One off sessions (optional) Online training (optional)
- 13. What are we trying to teach? • The open philosophy? • Why open is good for you • Why it’s good for the world • Building advocates & champions • How to comply with mandates? • Funder requirements • REF requirements • What to do and when
- 14. PGR knowledge graph Time Learning Research General teaching Concepts Overviews Who to go to Specific teaching On-demand knowledge
- 15. Bite sized chunks work well • Copyright • Choosing journals • Green vs Gold • Open data • Preprints • New models and platforms • Policy
- 16. PGRs are not traditional students, but they are very influenced by culture. If you grab them at the right time, you can influence culture through them.
- 17. Thanks! And thanks to the many, many librarians I’ve learnt from over the last 25 years.