Home
University of Bergen Library
PhD seminar

PhD seminars on writing, searching and data management

This course for PhD candidates at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences provides candidates with the tools to efficiently manage their research projects and publish the results.

4 students reading and writing
Photo:
Colourbox

Main content

Teaching semester: Spring 2024
Language: English

ECTS credits: 1*

*Completed course including participation and activities can be credited with 1 ECTS credit (25-30 working hours) in the dissemination part of the training component. Please contact the department coordinator for questions regarding the inclusion in your training component and to register the credit. Contact information for the Ph.D. coordinators: https://www.uib.no/en/matnat/142878/phd-coordinators-departments

The course has a limited capacity of 40 students and is open to all Ph.D. candidates at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, at UiB. If places are available, candidates from other faculties are also welcome to participate. Confirmation of whether you have been offered a place on the course will be sent out after the registration deadline.

The course will focus on four main topics. To complete the course, you must be present at 3 of 4 separate course days and have all three written assignments approved.

Course schedule:
March 13th 09:15-15:00 Academic integrity in searching, reading, and citing. Publishing strategy and visibility
March 20th  09:15-15:00 Open Science and Research Data Management
April 10th 09:15-15:00 Scientific Paper Writing
April 24th 09:15-15:00 Scientific Paper Writing and Publishing


Please note; we have reached maximum capacity for course participants for this spring

Please register in Skjemaker before March 1st
 

Learning outcomes, objectives, and work requirements:
This PhD course provides candidates with tools to efficiently manage their research projects and publish the results. The course covers evaluating and managing existing literature, refining data management and publishing strategy for their research projects, and offers hands-on experience with academic writing (Details in the drop-down menu below). 

Course part 1 (session 1): Academic integrity in searching, reading, and citing

Objectives and Content: Presentation of techniques, tools, and approaches for collecting, managing, and using scientific literature.

Work requirements:

  • Perform a (semi-systematic) search for relevant research literature and document the choices made

Learning Outcomes course part 1:

Familiarize yourself with:

  • How academic integrity depends on a well-thought-out strategy for collecting, reading, and using literature in research and dissemination.
  • The do's, don't's, and useful tools of artificial intelligence (AI) in academia

and be able to:

  • Thoroughly analyze information needs and use advanced functions in databases and other traditional discovery tools.
  • Effectively build a reliable and verifiable knowledge base as a basis for own research and dissemination, as well as to know which method of information retrieval is needed for a specific task (e.g. systematic review)
  • Translate literature needs into searches in relevant databases, based on the databases' limitations and strengths
  • Produce correct, consistent bibliographies at any time adapted to the relevant publication channel

Course part 2 (session 1) Publishing Strategy

Objectives and Content: Introduction to publishing strategies. Candidates will reflect on their publishing strategy, and improve their researcher visibility.

Work requirements:

  • Create an ORCiD, edit UiB profile

Learning Outcomes course part 2:

  • Be familiar with different academic profiles
  • Know what you can do to make publications findable, accessible, and visible
  • Be able to reflect on your publishing strategy
  • Get acquainted with various indicators used for research evaluation

Course part 3 (session 2): Open Science and Research Data Management

Objectives and Content: Introduction to the philosophy of Open Science. Candidates will learn about open access to publications and develop a data management plan for their research project.

Work requirements:

  • Create a data management plan (DMP) and provide peer review to another DMP

Learning Outcomes course part 3:

Familiarize yourself with:

  • Open Science concepts and UiB's policy for open science
  • Different routes to open access publishing
  • Good research data management (RDM) practice
  • The “life cycle” of research data and data management requirements, from project planning and data collection to sharing the research outputs
  • The FAIR principles
  • The basic principles of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and licensing of research outputshow (and where) you can make your research data available
  • How to write a data management plan

Course part 4 (sessions 3 & 4): Scientific Paper Writing and Publishing

Objectives and Content: This workshop has two main goals. Firstly, to provide the participants with a set of tools to help them to present their scientific results clearly and interestingly, and secondly to make them aware of various strategic issues connected to paper writing (which journal to publish in, cover letter to the editor, etc.). A particular emphasis will be put on the writing of the paper abstracts.

Work requirements: 6 hours.
Before the workshop, you are expected to have written an abstract (max 300 words) on your own or an invented research result (2 hours). This abstract must be uploaded on Mitt UiB. After the workshop, you have one week time to upload a second, improved version of your abstract based on what you have learned in the first module (2 hours). You will then be assigned the task of peer-reviewing two abstracts written by other workshop participants and uploading your reviews on mitt UiB (2 hours). This must be completed before the second module.

Learning Outcomes course part 4:

Knowledge of:

  • How to write a clear abstract for a scientific paper
  • How to write a formally correct scientific paper, including correct use of the past and present tense and direct and indirect speech
  • How to write a cover letter to the editor and write a response addressing referee comments
  • The various steps in the submission process from the initial idea to the final publications
  • A strategy for how to organize the writing process efficiently, including how to handle the involvement of co-authors