For most master’s or doctoral students, the thesis or dissertation is the big one, the first long, original research ever done.

One of the little-known challenges of graduate research is that students need to know lots of things beyond the subject of study alone. These include:

• Understanding what can and can’t be used under copyright;
• Keeping files safely stored and organized over years of research, writing and revising;
• Managing different versions and drafts that a professor or committee might refer to;
• Organizing citations, notes, transcriptions, data, IRB correspondence, charts and data visualizations, all the elements of the project.   

To help doctoral and master’s students gain just-in-time tools to smooth the research and writing process, VCU’s research librarians have organized a day packed with information and expertise that grad student need to "Get Ready" for advanced research. The session takes place Aug. 15. at Cabell Library with a simulcast at Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences. 

“The sessions will work for a variety of studies and students, whether he or she is working with text, images, qualitative or quantitative data, bench science, field notes, video or a blend of research materials and methods,” says Research Data Librarian Nina Exner.

This event is designed for doctoral students who have finished their comps and are working on designing their proposal. However, all graduate students are welcome.

Students should bring a laptop and files from the roposal/thesis/dissertation preparation to work on during the hands-on sessions. The focus of the August session is on planning. A January session will focus on the writing process for a dissertation or thesis.

Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2018

AGENDA

8:30-9 a.m.   Coffee and  welcome

9 a.m. 9:50 a.m.          Storage

10 a.m. - 10:50 a.m.    Copyright

11 a.m.-11:50 a.m.       Metadata

Lunch break (Lunch on your own)

1 p.m.-1:50 p.m. File formats

2 p.m. -2:50 p.m. Version control

3 p.m. -3:50 p.m. Data organization

Sponsored by the VCU Libraries and the VCU Graduate School