Workshops
Workshops and training for researchers
Attendance at MRE sessions counts towards Postgraduate Researcher training hours. Add details to your eProg record following our MRE_eProg_guide.pdf.
Open Science and getting your paper published hosted by Karger (online)
During this interactive workshop you will learn about the manuscript journey to from submission to publication and what you can do you can give your manuscript the best chance as a successful peer review.
This workshop will focus on how the principles of Open Science can support a strong manuscript submission. During this workshop you will:
- Discover how to embed Open Science in your research to maximize publication opportunities.
- Understand the key stages a manuscript takes from submission to decision.
*Learn about the responsible use of Generative Artificial intelligence (GenAI) in your research.
- Participate in an interactive discussion on Open Science and paper publishing.
This workshop is aimed at Early Career Researchers and those with an interest in Open Science. No experience of peer review or publication is necessary.
Enhance your Public Speaking Skills using Improvisation Techniques (on campus)
In this fully interactive workshop you will learn a range of improvisation techniques that will improve your confidence about public speaking and informal networking.
Improvisation is a form of unscripted theatre that relies on heightened communication and creativity. Aside from performance, it can be also be used to promote teamwork, enhance presentation skills and ease social anxiety. We will focus on the application of improvisation for improving public speaking skills and will provide you with practical exercises to help you build confidence in communicating with a variety of audiences.
Learn to be more present, feel confident speaking in any setting and embrace failure.
We are running this event more than once on the following dates and times:
Fri 18 Oct 2024, 10:00 - 11:30 BST (GMT+1) | Find out more | ||
Thu 28 Nov 2024, 10:00 - 11:30 GMT | Find out more | ||
Wed 15 Jan 2025, 14:00 - 15:30 GMT | Find out more |
Shut up and write (online)
Shut Up and Write is an event for researchers to come together for a fixed amount of time and write. The aim is not to put pressure on you to be productive, rather, to help you carve out some dedicated time to write and to present a chance to connect with other researchers. It is a great way make progress on those thesis chapters, journal articles, or grant applications.
Whilst two hours doesn't sound like much, it is amazing what you can get done if you really focus. There will be short, scheduled breaks in between writing sessions of 30 minutes, to help keep you motivated and on-task. During the breaks there will also be time to reflect on some of the challenges we are facing as a research community and how we might support one another.
How to book on
This event will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom.us. Booking onto the event is essential to receive the link and passcode to join.
Find out more about the workshops and online resources offered by My Research Essentials on the library webpage. Online resources related to this workshop include:
We are running this event more than once on the following dates and times:
Tue 22 Oct 2024, 14:00 - 16:00 BST (GMT+1) | Find out more | ||
Thu 21 Nov 2024, 14:00 - 16:00 GMT | Find out more | ||
Fri 10 Jan 2025, 10:00 - 12:00 GMT | Find out more |
Introduction to Research Data Management Part One
Researchers collect, receive and manage research data in many forms. Managing your data can be complex, but a little planning at the beginning can save you time, raise your research profile and help you work more effectively. This session aims to provide you with confidence in data and information management and introduce you to resources and services to help with Research Data Management.
How to book on
This event will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom.us. Booking onto the event is essential to receive the link and passcode to join.
Further support
Talk to us online via the 24-hour Library Chat service. Alternatively, you can email us for advice or to book one-to-one appointments at uml.teachingandlearning@manchester.ac.uk.
Find out more about the workshops and online resources offered by My Research Essentials on the library webpage. Online resources related to this workshop include:
Zoom guidance and support
All University of Manchester students and staff should register at Zoom.us using their University of Manchester email address, only authenticated users can join this event. Help and support with using Zoom is provided by Media Services. Updates are posted to the Media Services website, and you can contact the team by emailing mediaservices@manchester.ac.uk.
7 steps to raising your research profile (online)
This workshop will help you to raise your research profile by getting noticed promoting yourself and your research online. We will explore useful strategies for managing your online research presence by considering the following questions:
- Which online tools and platforms are the most useful to me?
- How can I find the time to use social media tools to promote my research?
- How can I maximise access to my research?
- How do I know if my online presence strategies are effective?
This session will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom. Booking onto the session is essential in order to receive the link to join.
Further support
Talk to us online via the 24-hour Library Chat service. Alternatively, you can email us for advice or to book one-to-one appointments at uml.teachingandlearning@manchester.ac.uk.
Find out more about the workshops and online resources offered by My Research Essentials on the library webpage. Online resources related to this workshop include:
Reference management with EndNote desktop for researchers (on campus)
This hands-on session will introduce you to EndNote desktop reference management software, a tool to help with collecting, managing and organising your references and creating citations and bibliographies in different formats. You will reflect throughout on how reference management software can fit into your existing research workflows.
In the session you will gain practical experience of managing an EndNote Library including using the Cite While You Write function to insert and format in-text citations and bibliographies within Microsoft Word documents, and an introduction to using EndNote with Overleaf.
How to book on
Due to popularity, booking onto the event is essential to ensure a place.
Further support
Talk to us online via Library Chat now, or send us an email: tls@manchester-uk.libanswers.com.
We are running this event more than once on the following dates and times:
Fri 25 Oct 2024, 14:00 - 15:30 BST (GMT+1) | Find out more | ||
Wed 27 Nov 2024, 14:00 - 15:30 GMT | Find out more |
MRE Writing Retreat
The aim of this one-day writing retreat is to provide a quiet space where staff and researchers can make progress with their writing. It is a great way to carve out dedicated time to get on with those journal articles, thesis chapters, HEA Fellowships or grant applications.
The majority of the day will be spent in concentrated writing sessions where there should be no talking, no internet, no research - just writing! There will be short, scheduled breaks (with free tea, coffee and snacks) in between these blocks of concentrated writing time, to help keep you motivated and on-task.
Don't forget your laptop!
Programme for the day:
9.00-9.20 Tea, coffee and registration
9.20-9.50 Set your writing goals for the day, and learn some useful writing strategies
9.50-12.00 Concentrated writing time
12.00-13.00 Lunch and optional wellbeing activity
13.00-13.10 Reflect on your progress so far, re-evaluate your goals
13.10-15.20 Concentrated writing time
15.20-15.35 Coffee break
15.35-16.50 Concentrated writing time
16.50-17.00 Reflection
We are running this event more than once on the following dates and times:
Mon 28 Oct 2024, 09:00 - 17:00 GMT | Find out more | ||
Fri 6 Dec 2024, 09:00 - 17:00 GMT | Find out more |
Introduction to FAIR data principles (online)
Researchers collect, receive, and manage data in many ways. Making sure this data is well-managed and reusable can be complex, but the FAIR Principles are here to help. The concepts underlying the FAIR principles are grounded in good scientific practice and aim to guide people to maximise the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets. Making your data FAIR can help you work more effectively, raise your research profile, and engage with open research initiatives.
This workshop is for people in academia with little or no experience of FAIR. This course aims to be succinct in introducing FAIR, its concepts and terminology, and supplements all material with introducing and signposting to useful FAIR resources.
Participant information
This session will take place on Teams. We will send you the Teams link for the workshop a day before the workshop is to take place, booking onto this workshop is essential.
Please note: This event is bookable by all staff and PGRs, simply follow the 'Book on this event' button below to register.
Choosing a Credible Journal and How to Avoid 'Predatory Publishers' (online)
This workshop will equip you with the skills to spot so-called 'Predatory Publishers', and feel confident in the credibility of the journals you will be submitting to. By the end of the session you will be able to:
- Feel confident in your ability to identify credible journals
- Understand the motivations behind 'Predatory Publishing'
- Understand the consequences of submitting your work to non-reputable journals
- Spot the common characteristics of non-reputable publishers
- Use established tools and processes to check the credibility of a journal
As part of this workshop we will be running an activity where a personal device (mobile phone, laptop, tablet etc.) would be useful but is not essential.
This session will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom. Booking onto the session is essential in order to receive the link to join.
All University of Manchester students and staff should register at Zoom.us using their University of Manchester email address, only authenticated users can join this event. Help and support with using Zoom is provided by Media Services. Updates are posted to the Media Services website, and you can contact the team by emailing mediaservices@manchester.ac.uk.
Writing your Data Management Plan - a QA Session (online)
Are you starting to write your Data Management Plan but have questions? Then this hour long session is for you. Here is the format:
* Introduction and a brief overview of the Data Management Plan, including why each section is important
* 20 min question and answer session - ask any DMP related questions on your mind
* 10 min break - we would encourage this time to be spent looking at your DMP to see if you can apply what you've learnt
* 10 min for any further questions and session wrap up
If this sounds like something that would be useful to you, book onto a session today and start getting your questions ready.
Participant information
This session will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom. Please sign up and download the app for free via this
link: https://zoom.us/
We will send you the Zoom link for the workshop a day before the workshop is to take place, booking onto this workshop is essential.
We are running this event more than once on the following dates and times:
Thu 7 Nov 2024, 12:00 - 13:00 GMT | Find out more | ||
Wed 4 Dec 2024, 10:00 - 11:00 GMT | Find out more |
Shut up and write (on campus)
Shut Up and Write is an event for researchers to come together for a fixed amount of time and write. The aim is not to put pressure on you to be productive, rather, to help you carve out some dedicated time to write and to present a chance to connect with other researchers. It is a great way make progress on those thesis chapters, journal articles, or grant applications.
Whilst two hours doesn't sound like much, it is amazing what you can get done if you really focus. There will be short, scheduled breaks in between writing sessions of 30 minutes, to help keep you motivated and on-task. During the breaks there will also be time to reflect on some of the challenges we are facing as a research community and how we might support one another.
Booking on
Due to popularity, booking onto the event is essential to ensure a place.
Further support
Talk to us online via the 24-hour Library Chat service. Alternatively, you can email us for advice or to book one-to-one appointments at tls@manchester-uk.libanswers.com.
Find out more about the workshops and online resources offered by My Research Essentials on the library webpage. Online resources related to this workshop include:
We are running this event more than once on the following dates and times:
Fri 8 Nov 2024, 10:00 - 12:00 GMT | Find out more | ||
Mon 2 Dec 2024, 14:00 - 16:00 GMT | Find out more | ||
Thu 23 Jan 2025, 10:00 - 12:00 GMT | Find out more |
Creating and managing your ORCID
Ensuring connections between you and your research, ORCIDs are being adopted across all elements of the research community (ie. universities, publishers, funders) as the universal method for uniquely identifying researchers.
They are free to create and link researchers to their research activities.
At this session you can:
- Learn more about the benefits of ORCIDs
- Find out how to create your own ORCID
- Discover how to easily manage your ORCID account
This session will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom. Booking onto the session is essential in order to receive the link to join.
All University of Manchester students and staff should register at Zoom.us using their University of Manchester email address, only authenticated users can join this event. Help and support with using Zoom is provided by Media Services. Updates are posted to the Media Services website, and you can contact the team by emailing mediaservices@manchester.ac.uk.
Further support
Talk to us online via the 24-hour Library Chat service. Alternatively, you can email us for advice or to book one-to-one appointments at uml.teachingandlearning@manchester.ac.uk.
Find out more about the workshops and online resources offered by My Research Essentials on the library webpage. Online resources related to this workshop include:
Introduction to Research Data Management Part Two
Sharing research data has numerous benefits including facilitating new collaborations and allowing new research questions to be answered. Data sharing is also mandated by many research, funders and publishers. This session aims to provide you with confidence in sharing your data and introducing you to using our institutional research repository, Figshare, to make data discoverable and increase research impact.
How to book on
This event will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom.us. Booking onto the event is essential to receive the link and passcode to join.
Further support
Can't make this session? Talk to us online via Library Chat now, or send us an email: uml.teachingandlearning@manchester.ac.uk.
Zoom guidance and support
All University of Manchester students and staff should register at Zoom.us using their University of Manchester email address, only authenticated users can join this event. Help and support with using Zoom is provided by Media Services. Updates are posted to the Media Services website, and you can contact the team by emailing mediaservices@manchester.ac.uk.
Resilience for PGRs: Managing the challenges of research (on campus)
In this workshop you will explore three of the most common challenges identified by PhD candidates: managing your relationship with your supervisor; time management and procrastination; and dealing with setbacks during research.
You will explore the context around these issues and how they affect the research process, before working with other postgraduate researchers to help develop the necessary skills and approaches for dealing with them.
Finally, you will be introduced to established models and strategies for working effectively with your supervisory team, beating the procrastination cycle and maintaining resilience in the face of setbacks.
Further support
Can't make this session? Talk to us online via Library Chat now, or send us an email: tls@manchester-uk.libanswers.com.
We are running this event more than once on the following dates and times:
Fri 15 Nov 2024, 10:00 - 12:00 GMT | Find out more | ||
Mon 20 Jan 2025, 14:00 - 16:00 GMT | Find out more |
Managing and Sharing Research Data From Human Participants
If your research involves working with people (e.g. through surveys, interviews, trials, experiments, focus groups or other methods) then it is essential to know the legal, ethical and contractual obligations you have towards research participants and how to put them into practice.
This course will outline how to collect, store, protect and share the personal data you may encounter as part of your work. Specific attention will be paid to the requirements of data protection legislation for recruiting participants and gaining consent, managing the data securely, and anonymising data so that it might be shared for future use.
This is a blended learning course comprising:
- Mandatory pre-course learning (ca. 80 minutes) delivered via a collection of online resources (see links below) that introduces key principles and practices. Interactive quizzes are used to help check comprehension.
- An interactive face-to-face session (200 minutes) where you apply your pre-course learning to real-life research project case studies. Working together in groups, you will explore the issues and risks, and present back your mitigation strategies for wider discussion to formulate optimum solutions. Expert facilitators will be on hand to provide practical guidance and support. There will also be opportunity for attendees to seek specialist advice from the expert facilitators.
Expert content creators and facilitators are drawn from the Information Governance Office; Research Governance, Ethics and Integrity; Centre for Epidemiology Versus Arthritis; Research IT; and The University of Manchester Library.
Please note:
- Failure to complete the mandatory pre-course learning would place unnecessary burden on other participants and facilitators and would be considered un-collegial.
- The face-to-face session is designed to be highly interactive, so you must be willing to actively participate in the group work and discussions.
Links to mandatory pre-course learning:
- Find out how the data protection principles apply to research (9 minutes read)
- Research with human participants: your responsibilities under UK GDPR (7 minutes read)
- Participant engagement and consent (3 minutes read)
- Recruitment of research participants (6 minutes read)
- Participant Information Sheets (5 minutes read)
- Obtaining informed consent (7 minutes read)
- Research with children and young people (5 minutes read)
- Research with additional considerations (4 minutes read)
- Data protection considerations (8 minutes read)
- Anonymisation and pseudonymisation of research data (18 minutes read)
- Keeping your research data secure (6 mins read)
Open Access in five simple steps (online)
Open Access (OA) is an essential consideration for all Manchester researchers and PGRs. This bitesize workshop will explain OA and why you should be thinking about openness when undertaking and seeking to publish your research.
This workshop will provide you with the following:
- Understanding of the benefits of OA for you as an individual researcher, and for the wider world.
- Awareness of the different ways of publishing OA research.
- Ability to choose the most appropriate OA method for your work.
- Knowing how to ensure compliance with institutional and funder OA requirements.
- Understanding how the Library's Scholarly Communication team can help you.
This session will take place on the online video conferencing app Zoom. Booking onto the session is essential in order to receive the link to join.
All University of Manchester students and staff should register at Zoom.us using their University of Manchester email address, only authenticated users can join this event. Help and support with using Zoom is provided by Media Services. Updates are posted to the Media Services website, and you can contact the team by emailing mediaservices@manchester.ac.uk.
Further support
Talk to us online via the 24-hour Library Chat service. Alternatively, you can email us for advice or to book one-to-one appointments at uml.teachingandlearning@manchester.ac.uk.
Find out more about the workshops and online resources offered by My Research Essentials on the library webpage. Online resources related to this workshop include:
Research Data Conversations - Community sessions
Research Data Conversations is part of a new series of My Research Essentials (MRE) and UoM Data Stewardship community events exploring themes within research data and data stewardship. The sessions will have a collaborative format and explore themes that promote open and FAIR data practices, and the promotion and development of new and emerging ideas in research data.
Research data management, stewardship and curation is an area of growing professionalism and potential for academic-related career paths. These events would be suitable for anyone interested in exploring ideas in the field, connecting with professionals at different stages of their careers and across different disciplines, and joining a community that feeds into the development of research systems, data stewardship and curation at the University of Manchester.
Our first Data Conversation will be led by Stavrina Dimosthenous, Data Curator at the Henry Royce Institute. Stavrina will share her experiences in setting up a data repository, touching upon the importance of standards, ontologies and what to do in a nascent field where you have to start from scratch.
The first Research Data Conversations event will take place on:
Date: Tuesday, 26 November
Time: 12pm-2pm. These events are catered from 1pm, giving attendees the opportunity to continue the conversation and network over lunch.
Venue: Ground Floor Seminar Room, Main Library / online
Led by: Stavrina Dimosthenous, a data curator at the Henry Royce institute.