LibrarySkills@UCL

It is vital that researchers develop and maintain library and information skills in order to effectively carry out their research, manage it and communicate it.

Whether you are working on your undergraduate dissertation, your PhD or other research projects, our Independent Research pages will support you in further developing and refining the skills and knowledge you need.

You may also find our guide to support for dissertations and research projects helpful:

Many of our training sessions and self-paced online tutorials are offered as part of UCL's Doctoral Skills Development Programme and Research Staff Development Programme.

For a comprehensive, informed search of the literature, planning is key. These pages will help you to:

• Carefully define your search terms
• Understand the strengths of different resources to help you choose which to use for your search

For effective independent research, a solid understanding of search techniques is important to benefit fully from the resources available to you. These pages include:

• Tutorials covering search strategies, tools and techniques;
• Guides to specific bibliographic databases;
• Searching for systematic reviews.

In this section we look at some methods for evaluating research outputs that may be of interest to researchers, including:

• Bibliometrics, the analysis of research based on citation counts and patterns;
• Critical appraisal of clinical studies.

Independent researchers should have an awareness and commitment to the highest standards of academic integrity, such as:

• Citing all types of information sources accurately;
• Using reference management software;
• Understanding of issues relating to copyright and intellectual property;
• Understanding the process of  managing research data.

Researchers need to be fully aware and participate in effective communication of research. These pages will help you to understand:

• Your digital researcher profile;
• Open Access and Open Science;
• Systems and technologies for professional communication with other researchers.