BU Research Blog

What’s in the toolkit?

The Research Toolkit contains a number of links to useful information that will help you with your research career.  By hovering on the ‘Research Toolkit’ menu option on the front page of the Research Blog, you will be presented with the following options:

• RKE Development Framework – introduces you to all the pathways available to support your research and knowledge exchange activities
• Research Funders’ Guide – will guide you through the different sources of research funding available and shows funder remits, strategy, what they fund, success rates, impact reports, application guidance, etc. for all major funders
• Research Outputs – includes guides to Open Access, BRIAN, BURO and funds available for publishing
• Research Ethics – includes the link to the ethics checklist, the review and approval process, role of ethics panel and committee, and training and guidance
• The Concordat to Support Research Integrity – provides a comprehensive national framework for good research conduct and its governance.
• Clinical Governance – includes guidance for undertaking research in a healthcare setting, useful links and documents, and relevant training opportunities
• The Trusted Research Agenda – included guidance and information on the TRA as well as links to further resources and case studies.
• Code of Good Research Practice – provides guiding principles and standards of good practice in research across all subject disciplines and fields of study in the University
• Quick Guides to Funding and other useful information… – useful quick guides for applying to various funders and for certain activities; these include the processes and procedures that need to be followed at BU
• Building international research partnerships – link to a guide based on 11 principles and 7 key questions for effective international partnerships.
• Research Staff – find out information about our Research Staff Association, training and development opportunities for research staff, careers guidance, and what BU is doing to implement the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers
• Academic Career Pathway to Research Funding identifies what type of funding you should be aiming for depending on your level of career
• BU research related systems – BU has a number of systems that enable research activity and outputs; read on to find out what the systems are, what they do and how they interact with each other
• 6M – Research Misconduct: Policy and Procedure – this policy applies to all BU staff and postgraduate research students undertaking research.  It also applies to undergraduate and postgraduate taught students in relation to suspected cases of a serious breach of research ethics.

Get connected

This section provides links to all of the BU-endorsed systems, methods and policies that you may need when undertaking research at BU.

If there is anything missing then please let us know by email and we will add it to the Toolkit!

E-collaboration space
We have a Facebook group, accessible only to BU staff, to provide a shared area for BU staff to share ideas, discuss research, search for one another, etc. The BU Research Group was launched in April 2011 and instructions for joining can be accessed here.

If you need collaborative e-space for a select group of people (can include BU staff as well as people who do not work for BU), for example to discuss ideas for a particular research project, then we can guide you through setting up a private group on Facebook that only this select group of people can access (providing they all have Facebook accounts).

See our previous blog post on using Facebook to collaborate. This post explains how Facebook can be used as a collaboration tool, how to set up private groups as shared work areas, and also provides links to a couple of excellent guides on social media.

Sharing large files

BU released a large file transfer service in November 2011 – BU Transfer. This tool will enable you to quickly and easily share large files with colleagues internally and externally via a web browser.

You can access BU Transfer here: https://butransfer.bournemouth.ac.uk/

Online surveys and questionnaires

BU subscribes to Online Surveys (formerly BOS), an easy to use survey creation tool that allows you to create, design and launch surveys; the system also records and monitors the survey responses for you… why not take a tour?

To find out more and to obtain a system log on, please email the IT Learning Centre itlearningcentre@bournemouth.ac.uk

Telephone collaboration

BU encourages the use of Skype for telephone collaboration. See our previous blog post on using Skype for further information.

Promoting your research via social networks

BU actively encourages staff to promote research using social media networks, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. These are excellent platforms from which to promote your research and connect with likeminded people. See our previous blog posts on using Twitter for research projects, using blogs for disseminating research, or sharing posts.