Involving Research Users

There are four main research users identified in the present series: research students; administrative and management staff concerned with regulation, guidance and implementation of practices in Education and social science departments; academics and supervisors of research; and librarians concerned with the archiving, storage and availability of doctoral theses.

Research students

At each seminar there will be one presentation by between one and three research student(s) on their work in progress, and on overcoming problems concerned with the arrangement, format and presentation of their research. Research students will also contribute to the afternoon workshop sessions in which small groups will work on solutions to the problems in the field.

Administrative and management staff

Often forgotten in academic research seminars are the staff who manage, revise and implement the regulations and guidance for students. Because this seminar series aims to make a difference to practice in UK universities, management and administrative staff will be invited and encouraged to comment on the papers; as well as contribute to the workshop sessions in the afternoons.

Academic/supervisors of research

These will be the principal contributors of papers to the series. They will also be key players in the encouragement and implementation of new practices in universities with regard to the format and submission of PhDs. The inclusion of one pre-1992 university, two post-1992 universities and the British Library in the series means that there will be capacity building for all partners through interaction and common outputs. The relationship between arts-based departments (Middlesex, Coventry) and social science (Institute of Education, the British Library Department of Social Science Collections and Research) will also be developed. Such capacity building will be between supervisors and examiners in established and new universities, and also for the next generation of research students who will push boundaries in the fields of multimodality and multimedia/e-content in the social sciences, both in terms of content and presentation.

Librarians

Librarians from The British Library and the libraries of each of the participating institutions will not only provide feedback on proposals that are made in the series; they will also take part in the workshops on designing solutions to the problems encountered, and make presentations at the seminars. The last seminar, in particular, will provide a focused forum for the discussion of implementations of the research for librarians and information scientists. Recordings of the six seminars will also be archived in print and/or electronic form at each of the four participating institutions.

Indeed, the last seminar will take the form of a national conference at the British Library site at St Pancras. We will invite not only all the attendees of the previous five seminars, but a wide national range of participants including research students; administrative and management staff from HEIs; academics and supervisors of research; and librarians and information scientists. We will also invite representatives of existing initiatives in the field – NDLTD, EthOS – as well as publishers and journal editors.