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May 7, 2025

Library Research News: May 2025 Edition

In this issue:

OA and RDM Taskforce recommendations endorsed by the Academic Board

The Library is pleased to share that the Academic Board endorsed the recommendations of the Open Access (OA) Taskforce and the Research Data Management (RDM) Taskforce at the recent meeting on 16 April 2025. The action follows similar endorsement from the Research and Research Training Committee (RRTC) on 6 March.

Deakin University’s OA and RDM Taskforces were both established in 2023 with the goal of developing strategic, values-aligned approaches to open access publishing and research data management. Through extensive analysis and consultation over two years, they identified critical gaps and proposed actionable recommendations to enhance Deakin’s research culture. The endorsements of these recommendations by RRTC and the Academic Board represent a significant milestone in advancing Deakin’s role as a leader in OA and RDM.

What’s next?

With endorsement now in place, the Library will lead the next phase of work to bring these recommendations to life. In collaboration with our partners across the University, we will focus on six key areas of action:

  1. Capability building: Enhancing training and support for researchers and professional staff, including the development of new learning resources and skills development for Scholarly Services Librarians.
  2. Governance and policy alignment: Reviewing and updating governance structures, procedures and frameworks to reflect Deakin’s strategic priorities and values in both open access publishing and research data management.
  3. Guidelines and good practice: Developing clear, values-led guidance to support data quality, documentation, curation and responsible data handling – including specific attention to Indigenous data sovereignty.
  4. Tools and services uplift: Improving existing tools, services and workflows to better support researcher needs and align with open scholarship principles – this includes UX-informed improvements to platforms like Where Should I Publish.
  5. Advocacy and engagement: Advancing open research culture through targeted communications, outreach and the development of champion networks to foster a shared sense of responsibility.
  6. Monitoring and improvement: Auditing current practices and platforms, including FAIR compliance assessments and service delivery audits, to identify gaps and prioritise change.

Together, these efforts will help to position Deakin as a national leader in responsible and open research practice.

Manage your research outputs and Find an Expert profile with Elements

The Library is pleased to introduce a collection of new resources to help you get the most out of Elements, Deakin’s research management system. Created for academic staff and graduate researchers, these resources provide practical support for managing your research outputs and Find an Expert profile more effectively.

New ‘Request a librarian presentation’ topics

Our menu of requestable presentations now includes two sessions focused on Elements.

Managing your research outputs at Deakin introduces researchers to the why and how of registering both traditional and non-traditional research outputs, ensuring they are visible and accessible through platforms such as Find an Expert and Deakin Research Online (DRO). A librarian will guide participants through configuring Elements for accurate harvesting, claiming and creation of publication records, and attaching key files like author-accepted manuscripts or NTRO artefacts. This session is suitable for all Deakin researchers, including graduate researchers and academic staff, who want to ensure their research outputs are discoverable, compliant and accurate.

Find an Expert: Update your staff profile in Elements familiarises participants with the Find an Expert platform and its integration with Elements, Deakin’s internal research management platform. The session walks through each component of the profile (e.g. biography, research outputs, grants, professional activities and supervision history), explaining how to update or manage your information. You’ll learn which sections are editable, which are automatically populated, and how to address any inaccuracies. This presentation is intended for all academic staff and graduate researchers who want to ensure their Find an Expert profile best reflects their activities undertaken at Deakin.

To request a presentation on any of our research topics, complete the Request a librarian presentation form.

Your how-to guide for managing research outputs at Deakin

The Library has also released a new how-to guide for managing your research outputs at Deakin.

This guide provides academic staff and graduate researchers with step-by-step instructions on how to use Elements.

Learn how to reduce the time and effort required to manage your publications by using Elements to:

View the Managing your research outputs at Deakin guide to get started.

Deakin’s new Research Data Planner

Last month, the Library’s Footprints platform was upgraded to a more intuitive and user-friendly new platform: Research Data Planner. The Research Data Planner enables Deakin researchers to work through the various stages of creating, managing and reviewing both data management plans and research data descriptions.

By following the steps in Research Data Planner, you can produce a formatted PDF plan ready to use in grant applications, or as part of a project plan.

To support researchers with the transition to the new platform, comprehensive user guides can be found on the Library’s Research Data Planner page.

If you have any questions about Research Data Planner or need further support, please contact your librarian.

New modules: Literature Review Modules for Health Research series

We’re excited to introduce two new modules in our Literature Review Modules for Health series, designed to strengthen your research skills and streamline your review process.

Translating Search is now live and ready to support graduate research students and academics in translating search strategies across different databases and information sources for their literature reviews.

Estimated time to complete: 20 minutes

Access the Translating Search module.

Screening, Synthesis and Dissemination supports graduate research students and academics with the screening, data extraction, appraisal, synthesis and final dissemination stages of the review. It connects to tools and information to support these stages.

Estimated time to complete: 45 minutes

Access the Screening, Synthesis and Dissemination module.

Hot tip: Manage your references with EndNote

Did you know there are tools to help you manage your references? They can boost your efficiency and make it easier to keep track of your sources. EndNote is recommended for researchers, graduate researchers and research administrators. It can be used to:

Explore the Library’s refreshed and updated EndNote guide for Deakin contextualised information and guidance. This guide connects to videos and instructional material developed by the EndNote vendor and includes an overview of alternative reference management tools.

Event roundup

Our series of graduate researcher workshops are underway, with the following workshops available to book:

Publishing and open access

Tuesday 13 May, online, 10am–12pm

Responsible use of genAI in research

Tuesday 17 June, online, 10–11am

You can also explore previous workshop recordings below.

All Library events can be discovered on the Library’s What’s On page. Additional professional development for researchers is also available via Deakin eResearch: training and events.

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Library Research News is a regular publication from the Library, publishing library-related news for Deakin researchers. To stay in the loop, please subscribe to Article.

To access Library research services, please contact your librarian or navigate to Research via the Library website. Scholarly Services Librarians bring discipline-specific expertise related to the following key areas:

 



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