Organisational and Professional Development, 12 February 2018

OPD Training Opportunities Available to Research Staff - February/March

The following Organisational and Professional Development (OPD) workshops, taking place February/March, for Research Staff have places available. For further information, please follow the links provided after the workshop descriptors below, and make a booking by signing into your OPD account.

Workshops for which there is information below include:

• Navigating the Funding Landscape  - Who Funds Research?
• Moving On - Getting Started with Applications
• One-to-One Careers Advisory Session
• Creative teaching using the University Archives [NEW]
• Strategies for Developing Your Career in Academia [NEW]
• Research Data Management at the University of Dundee
• How to Peer-Review Research Manuscripts for Journals
• Practical Presentation Skills for Researchers
• Influencing and Persuasion Skills
• Building Good Research Habits
• Mind Mapping
• How to Write Research When There's No Time
• Mastering Academic Style
• Wow! Why? Aha! Communicating Complexity
• Introduction to R graphics with GGPlot2
• Research Project Management

Sessions are provided free of change. If you have any issues, please contact OPD@dundee.ac.uk.

Please note: We require sufficient notice of cancellation and non-attendance to allow others the opportunity to attend these workshops, or to allow the workshops to be cancelled if insufficient places are filled. Our Terms and Conditions are available to read on our website.

One-to-One Careers Advisory Session

Various Sessions

Careers guidance is the process that enables you to make well-informed, realistic decisions about
the next steps towards your future career. You do not need to know what you want to do before you come to see us – we see people at all different stages of their plans.

Previous enquiries have included: Understanding the academic career path; Alternative career options; Improving applications, CV and covering letters; Mock interview practice; Marketing transferable skills to employers.

For more information and to book.

Navigating the Funding Landscape - Who Funds Research?

21/02/2018 9:30 - 12:30

Building a track record of getting funding, even for small amounts, at the start of your career teaches you how to convince people to support your ideas and ambitions; more importantly it demonstrates your initiative, independence and drive – boosting your broader employability whatever your ultimate career destination.

This workshop will help you to understand which funding schemes and funding bodies are right for you – we’ll start with small awards for conferences and visits and work up to prestigious independent fellowships. This workshop includes advice gathered from researchers who have been awarded funding and perspectives from research funders. We will look at the range of funding schemes open to researchers and consider how these relate to your career stage and research interests. The workshop will also be an opportunity to network with other early career researchers. Please come armed with the questions you have about funding.

For more information and to book.

Moving On - Getting Started with Applications

22/02/2018 9:30 - 12:30

This workshop is aimed at people who have started to consider alternatives to a research career and will soon be in a position to start applying for positions outside academia.

Many researchers, once they have made the decision to move to a career beyond academia, then feel daunted by the task of effectively marketing their specialist skills and knowledge. What will a non-academic employer expect and what will they want to know? How do we describe specialist skills to a non-specialist in applications and interviews?

We will look at the recruitment processes used by non-academic employers as well as what makes a successful CV and cover letter. We will also consider interview scenarios and how to answer typical questions that you are likely to face.

For more information and to book.

Creative teaching using the University Archives

27/02/2018 11:30 - 12:30

This short workshop will introduce you to the range of unique archive collections held by the University and examine different ways these can be used in teaching across a wide variety of subject areas. We will aim to show the practical and research skills your students can learn by making first-hand use of original sources. The Archives holds documents, photographs, rare books, maps and plans and other material that relate to many of the teaching disciplines in the University. Using these is a unique way for your students to engage creatively with your subject area and to develop research and other transferable skills. You will also find out how you can use the collections to promote your courses and aid student recruitment.

This workshop will include case-study presentations and hands-on activities to allow you to become familiar with the potential of the collections.

For more information and to book.

Strategies for Developing Your Career in Academia

28/02/2018 13:30 - 16:30

This half-day workshop will differentiate between fixed career plans and flexible career strategies and help to create individual options for career development activities over the next 12 months, 3 years and 5-10 years.

In order to look at future plans the workshop will evaluate past and current career development activities, consider the direction of career development, facilitate a conversation about ambition, drive and career longevity and evaluate CV strengths and gaps in order to look at short term and longer term career plans, options and strategies.

For more information and to book.

Research Data Management at the University of Dundee

07/03/2018 9:30 12:30

The workshop will explain the terminology around data management and the importance of adopting good practice at the start of a project. In practice this will make it easier for you and others to work with and build upon your data. It will also help bring your data to a wider audience and potentially increase citations. Good practice is straightforward and easy to put in place and will save you and others time and work. Various research funders have specific mandated requirements of grant holders and their institutions with regard to the data they create to ensure that it is managed correctly and, where possible, shared. Some academic journals require that authors provide access to the datasets underpinning conclusions drawn in their published findings. The University has systems and support in place to help researchers fulfil these criteria.

For more information and to book.

How to Peer-Review Research Manuscripts for Journals

08/03/2018 9:30 12:30

Peer review helps to ensure the quality and reputation of published academic research. The ability to review manuscripts for journals is a core skill that every researcher must acquire. However, many inexperienced reviewers can spend too much time reviewing a single manuscript. By learning how to review manuscripts quickly, you will have more time for your own research. But how long should you spend reviewing a manuscript? And what should you write in your review? Find out in this workshop which draws upon the results of an extensive survey of editors of international journals. The main focus will be on STEM journals, with best practice based on the views of 116 editors of medical, psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, maths, engineering and geology journals. The workshop is also highly relevant to Arts, Humanities and Social Science researchers as it includes the views of 112 editors of sociology, economics, law, history, philosophy, literature and linguistics journals.

For more information and to book.

Practical Presentation Skills for Researchers

12/03/2018 9:30 16:30

This workshop is aimed at those required to give presentations on their work and current research. Participants are given the opportunity to practice delivering a short presentation and responding to questions with feedback provided by the trainer.

During the workshop, time is spent analysing the nature of a request for a presentation, using a checklist which can assess this and the presenter’s responsibilities. Examples are provided of different ways of structuring a presentation and the use of a script or cue cards.

For more information and to book.

Influencing and Persuasion Skills

13/03/2018 13:30 16:30

Our work, and lives in a wider environment, involves us influencing people and situations through our verbal and written communication (independently and together) on a daily basis. 

This workshop allows reflection, practice and planning. It is a chance to focus on the subject for 3 hours and then create an action plan.

The workshop aims to reinforce the things we already do well in this area and look for further strategies and plans to continue to build a range of styles to work with others.

For more information and to book.

Building Good Research Habits

14/03/2018 9:30 12:30

This half-day workshop is an opportunity to press ‘pause’ and reflect on the research habits that create success and those that lead to procrastination, avoidance and last minute panics or stop us from doing the activities that we believe would be good for us if only we could develop the habit of doing them regularly. It is a discursive and practical workshop sharing tools and topics for good habit building helping us to make the most of the time we spend at work and creating more time for things outside.

For more information and to book.

Mind Mapping

14/03/2018 13:30 16:30

This half-day workshop is practical right from the start encouraging participants to consider how the process and outputs of mind-mapping can be useful within a research environment. Central to the workshop are the principles of mind mapping originator Tony Buzan. The workshop will focus on how mind maps can be constructed to be ‘useful’ rather than ‘perfect’ and to prompt and develop creativity and ideas and form the basis for project plans and management. There will be time in the workshop to use mind-mapping to develop individual and group mind maps.

For more information and to book.

How to Write Research When There's No Time

19/03/2018 9:30 12:30

In this half-day workshop postgraduates will explore what effects productivity in writing a thesis. The workshop will discuss the various factors effecting the process of writing and how writing fits into the overall research process. Also, covered are how best to approach planning, drafting, redrafting and editing. The workshop will show how to develop focus during writing sessions and how to be more productive and effective over the long term. Practical and actionable advice is given during this interactive and reflective workshop.

For more information and to book.

Mastering Academic Style

19/03/2018 13:30 16:30

A half-day workshop for PGRs, exploring the characteristics of academic style, including developing an objective tone, and the use of references in a critical way, are explored and presented within the context of a research writing process. Participants are provided with a set of analytical tools aimed at analysing their own discipline’s standards and writing tasks suitable to all fields of study.

For more information and to book.

Wow! Why? Aha! Communicating Complexity

20/03/2018 10:00 17:00

This course is ideal for anyone wishing to develop their public engagement activities (public performance, workshops, press, TV or radio) through to those just wishing to improve their lecturing or speaking skills.

Delivered by international TV science presenter, performer and writer Tom Pringle (AKA Dr Bunhead from Brainiac).

For more information and to book.

Introduction to R graphics with GGPlot2

21/03/2018 9:30 16:30

This workshop will use the package ggplot2 in the R language to explore and visualise data as a prelude to formal statistical modelling

The exploratory analysis of data using graphical methods is an essential part of any statistical modelling exercise. This workshop will deal with the use of the industry standard package ggplot2, implemented in the language R, for the exploration and visualisation of data prior to carrying out formal statistical modelling, with an emphasis on the production of high-quality publication standard plots.

For more information and to book.

Research Project Management

28/03/2018 9:30 16:30

This participative workshop explores the challenges of managing the delivery of research within a higher education context from a pragmatic project management perspective and reflects the differing needs of funders.

Starting from the initial phase of developing research ideas into proposals with detailed plans, through to finishing the project and ensuring that outcomes are achieved, you will be introduced to a range of tools and approaches to support delivery of your research projects.

For more information and to book.

OPD Academic and Researcher Steering Group

Are you interested in providing input into the future direction of researcher development training on the OPD programme? Would you like to contribute to activities that support the career development of researchers?  If so, we’d like to hear from you, please contact opd-secretary@dundee.ac.uk for more details.

Research Leader's Impact Toolkit

This Toolkit is designed to help higher education institutions, research leaders and individual researchers to maximise the impact of their research.