We have just added the 1000th electronic thesis for the University of Leeds to White Rose Research Online. The theses are a mixture of those digitised from print (by the the Leeds Digital Library digitisation studio or the British Library's EThOS Service), plus new 'born-digital' etheses deposited by their authors.
The 1000th thesis is written by Helen Robinson from the Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences.
Robinson, Helen (2011) Action identification in chronic pain: how do people construct meaning in action? D.Clin.Psychol thesis, University of Leeds.
It is online at:
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1903/
Congratulations to Helen who was the lucky winner of a £25 Amazon voucher. We asked Helen to tell us about her research and about what prompted her to deposit her ethesis in White Rose Etheses Online. Helen writes:
"My research supervisor and I wanted to apply Action Identification Theory (AIT) as a possible way of understanding how chronic pain interference relates to sense of meaning in life. Action Identification Theory holds that every action has different 'levels' of meaning. High levels confer greater meaning and are preferentially sought but when the action is interrupted lower level identities with reduced meaning are elicited. We therefore hypothesised that interference to action caused by chronic pain ‘down-regulates’ levels of action identification thus effectively draining meaning from life. To test this out we needed a measure of action identification level. We developed a new questionnaire and administered it to undergraduate and postgraduate students to ensure it had satisfactory internal consistency and test-re-test reliability. In the second stage of the research we administered our measure to chronic pain patients using a forced choice card-sort method. Patients also completed the Meaningful Life Measure and measures of pain intensity, pain interference, depression, withdrawal from activity, acceptance and optimism. As we expected, pain interference negatively correlated with meaning in life and action identification level positively correlated with meaning in life. However, interference and action identification were not significantly related to one another. Furthermore, they did not significantly contribute to variance in meaning in life when the effects of depression, acceptance and optimism were controlled for. We concluded that further work is necessary with a larger sample of chronic pain patients to reliably understand the process of action identification in chronic pain.
In completing my research I found White Rose Etheses a useful resource for quickly and easily searching for recent theses in the field of chronic pain. I found it helpful to consider the various different theoretical perspectives of other researchers when developing my own research questions. As my research was the first study of its kind insofar as applying action identification theory to chronic pain, I wanted to make it openly available to others in the hope that they may be encouraged to pursue this new direction for study."
We're confident that by depositing in WREO Helen has brought her thesis to a very wide audience and that this may indeed encourage others to 'pursue this new direction for study.'
Showing posts with label institutional repositories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label institutional repositories. Show all posts
Monday, 14 November 2011
Thursday, 11 September 2008
Understanding Organisational Cultures Workshop
This workshop organised by the repository team at Cranfield University provided some really interesting insights into the realities of working with repositories.
The first half of the morning was taken up with 2 sessions from the researcher perspective. Dr Colin Macduff from The Robert Gordon University presented as the Convert. He described his PhD experience and specifically how he made his thesis available electronically. He suggested it was time to reconceptualise the thesis as an electronic entity. This could open up the possibilities for new types of PhD submission. Colin had linked to his PhD from his web page and also set up an online evaluation. His thesis has been downloaded 1400 times in about a year. He felt this access to his PhD had also helped him gain research grants.
Dr Bruce Jefferson from Cranfield was positioned as the sceptic. He gave a very lively presentation about the need for evidence to support claims that repositories increase citations. He ended his presentation with an outline of his plans to track the citation rates of his papers by depositing some in CERES (Cranfield's repository) and not others. He will then compare the citation rates. He also plans to contact people who have cited papers in CERES and ask if they accessed the paper via CERES or via another route. The results of Bruce's test could be very interesting, despite the small scale.
Neil Jacobs from JISC gave the final presentation of the morning with an outline of the national picture for repositories. He argued Open Access could enable new developments in research but that it was necessary to reduce legal worries and the need for data entry.
A breakout session then followed with 3 groups looking at cultural influences, identifying barriers and impact of RAE/REF. This was followed by a very nice lunch!
The first session of the afternoon was a very upbeat presentation about mandates by Michael White from the University of Stirling. He gave the background to the introduction of Stirling's etheses and eprints mandates. He outlined the support that is being provided to ensure the mandate is successful. High level advocacy from the Vice Principal has been hugely significant. Departments are being made responsible for ensuring compliance and so each has a rep to assist with this. They are continuing to look at ways to help make compliance as easy as possible, including bulk upload.
John Harrington then talked about how Cranfield have been re-assessing their repository, CERES. They looked at the advocacy and felt a more concerted approach was needed. They recently renamed the repository and launched a new publicity campaign. It is hoped this campaign will address most of the misconceptions about depositing in an institutional repository. They have also been talking directly with academics and hope to continue this face to face effort.
The final presentation of the day was by William Nixon from the University of Glasgow. He looked at the ways in which they have had to change and adapt the repositories at Glasgow to address the needs of the university. Enlighten, the repository for academic papers, has been positioned as central to the university's publications policy. It is also seen as key to REF with Glasgow being one of the 22 pilot institutions.
These presentations were followed up with another breakout session, looking at mandates, advocacy and responding to inevitable change. I was part of the group discussing mandates and this provided some really interesting points. A representative from the research councils asked if they should be enforcing their mandates more strictly. This lead to a discussion about how mandates could be enforced and whether penalties (such as financial) were the best approach. It was suggested that incentives might be a better approach. One approach would be for institutions to tie their repositories into the appraisal and promotion process to ensure academics deposit their papers. It was felt that without some form of sanction / incentive then mandates were unlikely to be successful.
The day ended with a general question and answer session, though there wasn’t much time left for significant discussion. Overall it was a very useful day, and provided some thought provoking discussions of the current issues institutional repositories are facing.
Understanding Organisational Cultures Workshop
The first half of the morning was taken up with 2 sessions from the researcher perspective. Dr Colin Macduff from The Robert Gordon University presented as the Convert. He described his PhD experience and specifically how he made his thesis available electronically. He suggested it was time to reconceptualise the thesis as an electronic entity. This could open up the possibilities for new types of PhD submission. Colin had linked to his PhD from his web page and also set up an online evaluation. His thesis has been downloaded 1400 times in about a year. He felt this access to his PhD had also helped him gain research grants.
Dr Bruce Jefferson from Cranfield was positioned as the sceptic. He gave a very lively presentation about the need for evidence to support claims that repositories increase citations. He ended his presentation with an outline of his plans to track the citation rates of his papers by depositing some in CERES (Cranfield's repository) and not others. He will then compare the citation rates. He also plans to contact people who have cited papers in CERES and ask if they accessed the paper via CERES or via another route. The results of Bruce's test could be very interesting, despite the small scale.
Neil Jacobs from JISC gave the final presentation of the morning with an outline of the national picture for repositories. He argued Open Access could enable new developments in research but that it was necessary to reduce legal worries and the need for data entry.
A breakout session then followed with 3 groups looking at cultural influences, identifying barriers and impact of RAE/REF. This was followed by a very nice lunch!
The first session of the afternoon was a very upbeat presentation about mandates by Michael White from the University of Stirling. He gave the background to the introduction of Stirling's etheses and eprints mandates. He outlined the support that is being provided to ensure the mandate is successful. High level advocacy from the Vice Principal has been hugely significant. Departments are being made responsible for ensuring compliance and so each has a rep to assist with this. They are continuing to look at ways to help make compliance as easy as possible, including bulk upload.
John Harrington then talked about how Cranfield have been re-assessing their repository, CERES. They looked at the advocacy and felt a more concerted approach was needed. They recently renamed the repository and launched a new publicity campaign. It is hoped this campaign will address most of the misconceptions about depositing in an institutional repository. They have also been talking directly with academics and hope to continue this face to face effort.
The final presentation of the day was by William Nixon from the University of Glasgow. He looked at the ways in which they have had to change and adapt the repositories at Glasgow to address the needs of the university. Enlighten, the repository for academic papers, has been positioned as central to the university's publications policy. It is also seen as key to REF with Glasgow being one of the 22 pilot institutions.
These presentations were followed up with another breakout session, looking at mandates, advocacy and responding to inevitable change. I was part of the group discussing mandates and this provided some really interesting points. A representative from the research councils asked if they should be enforcing their mandates more strictly. This lead to a discussion about how mandates could be enforced and whether penalties (such as financial) were the best approach. It was suggested that incentives might be a better approach. One approach would be for institutions to tie their repositories into the appraisal and promotion process to ensure academics deposit their papers. It was felt that without some form of sanction / incentive then mandates were unlikely to be successful.
The day ended with a general question and answer session, though there wasn’t much time left for significant discussion. Overall it was a very useful day, and provided some thought provoking discussions of the current issues institutional repositories are facing.
Understanding Organisational Cultures Workshop
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
IncReASe Project Questionnaire Findings
Back in February / March this year we carried out an online questionnaire across the 3 White Rose institutions. We were interested in what people currently did with their publications and whether they put them up online. We also asked about awareness of WRRO, funder and institutional mandates and what services WRRO should be offering.
We offered a prize of £50 voucher or an iPod Shuffle. Here's a picture of Dr Tom Webb, the lucky winner, receiving his voucher.
We have produced a findings document which has just been sent out to those who responded to the questionnaire. Over the next couple of months we will be producing a report aimed at the repositories community.
We offered a prize of £50 voucher or an iPod Shuffle. Here's a picture of Dr Tom Webb, the lucky winner, receiving his voucher.
We have produced a findings document which has just been sent out to those who responded to the questionnaire. Over the next couple of months we will be producing a report aimed at the repositories community.
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Repository Support Project Summer School 2008
I’ve just got back from the RSP summer school held at Thornton Manor in the Wirral. Well, nearly 10 days ago now I suppose. It was a very interesting couple of days, not least because of the fabulous venue and great food! In fact there must have been almost as much talk about food and Lord Leverhulme’s old house as there was about repositories.
RSP held a summer school last year that was aimed at new repositories and those just in the process of setting up. This year’s was for those with already existing repositories. A good range of topics were covered in the sessions including interoperability, copyright, advocacy, preservation and statistics.
A number of the break out sessions were extremely useful as they offered the chance to discuss the issues directly with other people doing the same / similar job. I know it’s been said many times before but it is fascinating how different institutions staff their repositories. There is such a variation in the number of staff employed, the amount of their time dedicated to the repository and also the other demands repository staff have on their time.
Perhaps one of the most interesting sessions for me was Niamh Brennan’s paper on advocacy. Niamh works on the repository at Trinity College Dublin and there they have integrated the repository with their Current Research Information System (CRIS). Academics must upload details of their publications into the CRIS, and they are now offered a button to add full text. Take up seems to have been very high, and now the repository has a lot of content to deal with. Much of the work around repositories has been about raising their profile and advocacy work. Perhaps the key is actually to make repositories invisible!
RSP held a summer school last year that was aimed at new repositories and those just in the process of setting up. This year’s was for those with already existing repositories. A good range of topics were covered in the sessions including interoperability, copyright, advocacy, preservation and statistics.
A number of the break out sessions were extremely useful as they offered the chance to discuss the issues directly with other people doing the same / similar job. I know it’s been said many times before but it is fascinating how different institutions staff their repositories. There is such a variation in the number of staff employed, the amount of their time dedicated to the repository and also the other demands repository staff have on their time.
Perhaps one of the most interesting sessions for me was Niamh Brennan’s paper on advocacy. Niamh works on the repository at Trinity College Dublin and there they have integrated the repository with their Current Research Information System (CRIS). Academics must upload details of their publications into the CRIS, and they are now offered a button to add full text. Take up seems to have been very high, and now the repository has a lot of content to deal with. Much of the work around repositories has been about raising their profile and advocacy work. Perhaps the key is actually to make repositories invisible!
Monday, 23 June 2008
WRRO launch new blog
This is the new blog for White Rose Research Online (WRRO), the open access research outputs repository for the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and
Just a brief bit of background info - WRRO has been live for about 4 years now. It was developed as part of the Sherpa project and has enjoyed steady progress, now containing about 3000 records. Last year WRRO gained JISC funding for the IncReASe project. The aim of the project is to increase the content in the repository and develop services so it is easier to use and becomes part of depositors’ regular workflows.
As part of the IncReASe project we have undertaken a web survey of publications across the 3 university websites and an online questionnaire of academics’ existing depositing habits, knowledge about open access and funders’ OA policies. We are currently interviewing academics further about how they disseminate their research outputs, and what services they would like WRRO to offer. We are also working closely with the ESRC to develop our aim of “deposit once, use many times”. The aim is that ESRC grant holders will be able to deposit with us and we will send their research outputs to the ESRC to fulfil their grant requirements.
We will use both the project website and here to disseminate our findings for the IncReASe project.
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