In this blog post from Congress 2021, University of Alberta JD Candidate Valerie Leowto draws on advice from Letitia Henville and Glen Ashworth for tips and apps that can aid in editing your own work. “Many of you are likely familiar with the difficulties of editing your own writing. When reading over your own work, your brain has a tendency to make sense of what you think is on the page, rather than what is actually there…” See the full post.
Western’s Inspiring Minds Initiative
Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferrable skills.
Inspiring Minds has one rule: graduate students (master’s and doctoral) are asked to describe their research, scholarship, or creative activity in any language in no more than 150 written words. They can also include supplementary digital files to support their work including music, images, or video clips.
Some reasons to participate:
- It’s great written communications practice (which is the key goal of the exercise)
- It’s not a competition – 26 randomly selected submissions will receive some extra coaching and be turned into digital artwork
- You’ll be contributing to a first-of-its-kind, multi-disciplinary collection of the research being done at Western
More information: https://grad.uwo.ca/academics/inspiringminds.html
Submissions will be accepted until June 11, 2021.
2021 Bertram Scholarships
In recognition of the growing importance of good governance to all Canadian institutions, the Canadian Foundation for Governance Research is offering up to three annual Bertram Scholarships. The scholarship will support the work of students who are conducting research into governance as part of their doctoral research project.
Deadline: May 27, 2021.
Amount: $15,000
Eligibility: PhD students registered at Canadian universities. The doctoral research project should focus on a topic directly related to governance, including for example:
- The importance of effective boards in enabling good decision-making and improving the functioning of Canadian institutions;
- Governance issues of interest to Canadian boards of public, private, government-agency and not-for-profit organizations;
- The role of corporate governance in enabling positive societal impacts;
- Governance best practices through the Canadian perspective.
For full details on the Bertram Scholarship, visit the CFGR website.
Research Impact – Workshop
Attendees are welcome to join this interactive, hands-on workshop to learn how they can use both InCites and Web of Science to find indicators to describe their research impact.
The workshop will introduce productivity, uptake and spread indicators that can be used to demonstrate their research expertise, team expertise and scholarly contributions in grant applications, promotion and tenure applications, award nominations and many more!
Open to interested postdoctoral scholars and graduate students, this workshop will be held virtually on May 5, 2021.
Publishing Fees Workshop – Western Libraries
Western Libraries is offering two workshops on publishing fees:
Ins and Outs of Publishing Fees
- Wednesday, April 28 (10:30-11:30am) Register for this session
- Tuesday, May 4 (2:30-3:30pm) Register for this session
Have you been asked to pay an article processing charge or other fee to publish your work in a journal? Learn why these fees exist, how you can publish without a fee, and what discounts and fee waivers are available to you as a researcher at Western, including new waiver programs with PLOS and SAGE publishers.
This workshop will be of particular interest to faculty, but staff, undergraduate, and graduate students are also welcome to attend.
Leave knowing:
- Types of journals that charge publishing fees
- Options for paying publishing fees
- Options for publishing without a fee
Western Humanitarian Award
This award recognizes faculty, staff, and students at Western who are engaged in a range of efforts directed towards improving the quality of life for individuals and communities around the world. Preference will be given to the recognition of activities undertaken by the candidate that have current or potential international impact.
Amount: $5,000 (must be used in support of humanitarian efforts as chosen by the recipient)
Deadline: extended to July 20, 2021
More information and applications…
Contact: Interested parties are encouraged to consult with Julaine Hall (rwprizes@uwo.ca) at Western Research regarding this award and the nomination processes.
New Scholarship Program from Coalition Publica
Coalition Publica, a partnership between Erudit and the Public Knowledge Project, is launching a scholarship program for undergraduate and graduate students in Canada. The program will support research projects that study the scholarly communication and research dissemination system or that apply digital humanities methods to the corpora made available by Coalition Publica.
Scholarships available:
- PhD ($20 000)
- Master’s Thesis ($10 000)
- Bachelors: to develop term papers into research articles ($500)
Scholarships are awarded annually for one year of study (graduate) or for one research article (undergraduate).
Eligibility and selection criteria: All students registered at a Canadian university are eligible. Applications may be submitted in English or French. Applications will be evaluated on the basis of the relevance of their research objectives and their originality. Scholarships will be granted in accordance with the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion. Students from traditionally underrepresented groups are encouraged to submit a proposal.
For more details, see https://www.coalition-publi.ca/news-nouvelles/2021/4/7/scholarship-program
Western Research Update (Covid-19 Stay at Home)
MEMORANDUM
Date: April 15, 2021
From: Kevin Shoemaker, Acting Associate Vice-President (Research)
Subject: Continued Vigilance For Research During Stay-at-Home Order.
As we enter the second week of a province-wide stay-at-home order, I want to provide some reminders to ensure the safety of our research community.
Research continues at a reduced rate on campus. Your continued vigilance is appreciated and critically important to our efforts to protect peers, friends and families. Thank you.
We are all keen to return to some sense of normalcy. To successfully do so, we must not let down our guard at this pivotal juncture.
As a reminder, when working on campus, please:
- Complete your return-to-work questionnaire on a daily basis.
- Complete your own research space’s checklist and entry protocols for tracking purposes.
- Wear three-ply masks provided by the university when inside or near others.
- Wear safety goggles—and potentially face shields, as recommended by supervisors—when it is necessary to work within two metres of another person.
- Eat and rest only in designated areas, while maintaining guidelines for physical distancing and mask use (masks are only to be removed to take a bite/sip).
- No face-to-face participant research, exercise-based activities or field studies are permitted, unless approved by the Dean’s office and the office of the Vice-President (Research).
- Ensure occupancy in Western’s research spaces remains at 30 per cent or below.
When in doubt, think safety first. Spot checks may be conducted by members of our community or by the Middlesex-London Health Unit.
Additional resources are available through ongoing university-wide notices and research-related updates from Western Research. Please also direct any additional questions to your Associate Dean (Research) and/or departmental delegate.
New Open Access Agreements with Major Publishers
Western Libraries has announced new agreements with three major publishers that offer new discounts and waivers for open access journal Article Processing Charges (APCs). These new agreements are with SAGE, PLOS, and Elsevier.
- SAGE: No APCs for Western-affiliated authors for most SAGE journals (all those that operate on the hybrid subscription/OA model; some exceptions apply) and 40% discount on APCs for journals published on the gold OA model (entirely funded by APCs).
- PLOS: No APCs for Western-affiliated corresponding authors who publish in PLOS Biology or PLOS Medicine, and 25% discount on APCs for Western-affiliated contributing authors, as part of the PLOS Community Action Publishing program.
- Elsevier: 20% discount on APCs for Western-affiliated authors.
These agreements were negotiated by the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) on behalf of researchers at all CRKN member institutions.
To learn more, register to attend an upcoming Ins and Outs of Publishing Fees workshop.
As part of their commitment to open access and support of the research mission of the University, Western Libraries has subscribed to several organizations that offer discounts for author processing charges for open access journals. For detailed information, please see the list of memberships.
Another way to make your research widely available is to share it in Scholarship@Western, Western’s institutional repository. There are no fees involved with this route to open access.
If you have questions about the discounts and waivers, or if you are interested in having your work deposited in Scholarship@Western, please email rsclib@uwo.ca.
Access to Statistics Canada Data – Workshop
Continuum of Data Access (Statistics Canada)
Wednesday April 14th, 2021, 1:00 pm
Elizabeth Hill (Data Librarian, Western Libraries)
Tina Luu Ly (Analyst, Western’s Research Data Centre)
Workshop Description: Western Libraries in conjunction with Western’s Statistics Canada Research Data Centre (RDC) is offering a workshop on access to Statistics Canada data at Western. The workshop will highlight public / open data products and access, as well as academic access to Public Use Microdata Files (PUMF). The workshop is a good introduction or review of access points to data that is useful for teaching and research. Access to masterfile data is also available to Western researchers through the Real Time Remote Access (RTRA) system and the RDC. The workshop will describe different types of access and the application process for using RTRA and RDC.
This workshop will be of interest to students , instructors and researchers.
If you have any questions, please contact Elizabeth Hill, ethill@uwo.ca, Data Librarian, Western Libraries