The Research Data Management team and Research IT Services jointly run regular drop-in sessions.  These sessions are open to all UCL research staff and research students. 

Someone from the Research Data Management team will be there to support you with

• data management planning
• best practice in storing and sharing data
• complying with funder requirements

– at all stages of the research lifecycle.

If you’d like to come along to one of drop-in sessions, please contact the RDM team at lib-researchsupport@ucl.ac.uk with a summary of your research data query beforehand.

Representatives from all of the RITS service areas teams will also be on hand to answer questions or problems related the following areas:

• research programming
• workflow automation
• finding tools and services for your research programmes
• high performance computing
• handling large datasets
• handling personal and GDPR special category data
• data storage

For RITS queries, there’s no need to book, but the RITS team can make sure there’ll be someone there to help with your problem if you email rits@ucl.ac.uk, ideally two days before the session.

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What is TDM?  

There are various definitions of Text and Data Mining (TDM) which cover both the technicalities and utilities of the practice. The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) usefully define TDM as: ‘The use of automated analytical techniques to analyse text and data for patterns, trends and other useful information’. Even within TDM, there are different definitions for both text and data mining. Text mining is more commonly seen as the computational process of discovering and extracting knowledge from unstructured data. Data mining, on the other hand, is the computational process of discovering and extracting knowledge from structured data. There has been a surge of interest in the use of TDM in academia across all disciplines ranging from the sciences to the humanities. Yet undertaking TDM has also entailed a whole host of legal and political issues, which have nearly threatened to hinder the practice. These issues have largely centred around copyright, intellectual property rights, licenses and download limits. 

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Free event for UCL researchers and staff.

This one day workshop will explore the facets of Open Science and how these are/could be pursued by UCL researcher. In the morning speakers will discuss different aspects of and perspectives on Open Science with afternoon workshops offering practical advice. There will also be opportunity to discuss the steps UCL should take to support Open Science. This free event will be open to all UCL staff and is delivered by UCL Library Services with support from UCL Organisational Development.

Speakers include:

• Prof. David Price, Vice-Provost (Research), UCL
• Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost, UCL Library Services
• Catriona MacCallum, Director of Open Science, Hindawi
• Emily Sena, University of Edinburgh
• James Wilsdon, University of Sheffield
• Simon Hettrick, Sustainable Software Institute

Afternoon workshops will cover:

• How do we make Open the default at UCL
• How to make your data open (and FAIR)?
• Citizen Science
• Open Peer review
• Open Education

Registration available via Eventbrite. Please contact lib-researchsupport@ucl.ac.uk with any questions.

UCL Research IT Services (RITS) organise regular informal events where you can learn about useful tools and techniques which will help with your research while meeting other students and staff who use computers for science. Each event features a short talk followed by informal discussion over pizza and drinks.

The next Research Programming Technical Social event will take place on the 24th of May and will focus on Fortran, the dominant programming language of computational science. Find more information and how to register.

The previous presentations of these monthly events are available on the website of the UCL Research Programming Hub.

Jisc, in collaboration with the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI), University of Cambridge, University of Sheffield, University of Bath, University of Leicester, University of Birmingham, the British Library and STFC are inviting all researchers interested and passionate about developing or using research software to join a workshop on this subject.

Events are taking place across the UK, including a workshop at the British Library on the 12th of January, 2017. These free events invite researchers to:

• Share experiences and best practice around managing and sharing software for research
• Discuss and explain the blockers and issues you are having with the current best practice and why it is not working in your research group
• Work with others on developing new solutions for problems that might not have been tackled yet in this area

Spaces are filling quickly so you are recommended to register soon if you are interested in attending.

UCL researchers using – or thinking about using – software in their research have a range of support available to them at UCL. Research IT Services (RITS) can support researchers with research software development, research data storage and high performance computing. For researchers wanting to develop their software skills RITS also offers training. You can read about the support RITS has provided researchers at UCL on their Showcase page. 

The Research Software Development Group is part of UCL Research IT Services . The Group has recently launched its new Research Software Dashboard where you can discover software written at UCL or share your codes via GitHub. The Software List already covers a large range of research themes, including Psychology, Public health, Geography, Archaeology, Engineering and Physics. Explore the Dashboard now.

The Research Software Development Group also provides useful information on how to write and care for your software. Among their recommended resources for instance you will find a link to the Software Sustainability Institute’s top tips and guides.

The Group is available for consultancy and collaboration work with your research projects (fractional or full time effort as needed). Don’t hesitate to contact them, whether before appplying for a grant or during your project!