It has been a very quiet month on the blog, for which, my apologies! There are lots of things I would love to write about (& will, I promise) on supporting non textual and non digital research outputs, on how we are going to implement responsible research indicators at Kent and more.
The Information Services research support team have written a blog piece for “Act on acceptance” which outlines all you need to know about REF open acceess compliance at Kent.
So, what have I been up to? There have been a few staff changes in the OSC – I am still here, but there are also a few new faces around.
Josie Caplehorne is now the Co-ordinator for the office:
I’ve recently joined the Office for Scholarly Communication, following five years with the Metadata & Digital Curation team who are based here at the University of Kent, and have already been in post for around six weeks. I can’t quite believe how quickly that time has gone as it’s been a whirlwind of activity. Life before joining the University of Kent included almost fourteen years with Bexley Library Service and I have also supported KS2 children with individual educational needs in a teaching role.
I love working here at the university and have relished every opportunity I have had over the last five years here. I was very lucky to work on a unique collaborative project with Rochester Cathedral, to catalogue their historic library as part of the ‘Hidden Treasures, Fresh Expressions’ project, which included working with manuscripts that were around 1000 years old. This also allowed me to work closely with students and academics to support original research, and our partners at the Cathedral as well as the public, to curate exhibitions and harness the use of social media for engagement, which was an incredibly rewarding experience. Following this I supported research at the University, by managing deposits to the Kent Academic Repository and reporting on Open Access to University departments and major funding bodies. I’m currently an active EDI Representative for Information Services which I’m deeply passionate about, am part of the LibChats team who plan talks for Information Services staff, as well as a fully qualified workplace First Aider.
I’m very excited about having joined Office for Scholarly Communication and hope to utilize the range of experiences I can bring to the role. I’ve really enjoyed meeting so many new people, and am trying hard to remember all of your names, but I’m equally excited about everyone else that I’ve yet to meet who support research activity across the University. One of the things I most looking forward to is streamlining information to clearly demonstrate the wealth of research support and resources available across the University, so that anyone involved in research can make the most of the services available at Kent. I feel like I’m a in a good position to be supporting this as I’m looking at it for the first time as many of our new researchers would be.
Secondly, the REF assisted deposit service is now part of the OSC. The REF Assisted Deposit Service manages requests from researchers for uploading outputs onto the Kent Academic Repository (KAR). They also actively monitor KAR entries to ensure REF compliance and provide assistance for everything research-support related. The team consists of Matthias Werner and Paul Crame
Firstly, meet Paul:
I have only recently started (this Easter!) in the REF Assisted Deposit (RAD) team for the Kent Academic Repository (KAR). In my previous role I worked with Article Processing Charges (APCs); I have an ongoing interest in Open and Accessible research and how this can be best qualitatively and quantitatively measured.
And Matthias:
I have been working at the university since 2010, at the library since 2011. In my previous role I was based in the e-resources team and mainly looked after the library’s document delivery/interlibrary loans service.
I am looking forward to Spring and Summer … and to the latest KAR developments that should improve functionality. It is exiting to have so many knowledgeable colleagues around so I am learning new things every day (like coining DOIs and linking KAR records to entries in the Kent Data Repository)