Candela (the PhD intern working on this project) has now completed the 'Making the most of your dissertation' handbook. The handbook was circulated amongst the RDS team and other relevant parties and feedback has been used to improve the handbook.
Candela has been working on the final Project Report about developing the training materials and presenting the training sessions. The report has been circulated and is currently being reviewed by members of the team.
Issues
As the timing of the project unfortunately did not coincide with the time when the training would be most usefully available to UG students, we are exploring whether project funds can be carried across to allow Candela to be employed into the next academic year to allow her to deliver the training again when it will have greater impact and reach. Due to getting a decision on this we have needed to explore alternative methods for increasing the impact and scope of the training materials.
Based on discussion with and positive feedback from various stakeholders (UG programme directors, Academic Support Librarians and other student support services) we are currently developing training videos based on the 'Making the most of your dissertation' training workshops, which will allow these training materials to remain accessible to UG students after the project ends. Due to the anticipated time needed to get the online training materials ready (given the short time before the anticipated end of the project) we have increased Candela's hours (from 9hrs per week to 14hrs per week) and extended her contract until the end of July to enable her to spend as much time on this as possible.
Next Steps
Candela is currently developing an online version of the 'Making the most of your dissertation' course, which will use 8 short videos (presented by Candela) to introduce each of the topics covered in the 'Making the most of your dissertation' handbook. Candela will use her remaining time on the project (currently until the end of July) to develop the online training course. The proposed online course will make use of the videos alongside supporting materials (the handbook, suggested activities, and links to other useful online resources) plus guidance for teachers on how to use the materials to deliver research data management (RDM) training to students.
With the above in mind, we will employ a professional video editor to record and edit the 8 videos (to be shot in mid-July).
Additionally, we will print materials to support the wider promotion of RDM training more widely within the university.
Budget Information
Grade 5 PT17 (SBS Pension ) – 9 hours p/w (0.26 FTE) - January 14th 2019 to June 9th 2019
Grade 5 PT17 (SBS Pension ) – 14 hours p/w (0.4 FTE) - June 10th 2019 to July 31st 2019
Fees for professional video editor to record and edit training videos - approx. £2,000.00 (costs to be confirmed, July 2019)
Printed materials for promotion of RDM training (costs to be confirmed, July 2019)
Subject to confirmation that remaining project funds may be carried over to new academic year, if possible we expect to extend Candela's contract for approx. 6 months @ 9 hrs p/w
