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.
Main content
Teaching semester: Spring 2025
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 Natural Sciences and Technology at UiB. If spots 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 11th 09:15-15:00 Academic integrity in searching, reading, and citing. Publishing strategy and visibility
March 18th 09:15-15:00 Open Science and Research Data Management
April 8th 09:15-15:00 Scientific Paper Writing
April 29th 09:15-14:00 Scientific Paper Writing and Publishing
Please register in Skjemaker before February 15th
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)
Learning Outcomes course part 3:
After this course participants will be able to:
Knowledge:
- understand the basic concepts of open science and the University of Bergen's policy for open science.
- identify different routes to open access publishing.
- recognize good research data management (RDM) practices.
- describe the life cycle of research data and the requirements for data management, from project planning and data collection to sharing research outputs.
- explain the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), and how to make research data open and FAIR.
Skills:
- identify and use appropriate platforms for making research output available
- implement the FAIR principles to make research data more accessible and reusable
- write a data management plan that covers the entire life cycle of research data
- apply good research data management (RDM) practices in their own work
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
