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Research workshops and training

The library’s Research and Open Scholarship team and Research Data team offer a programme of both in-person and online workshops for postgraduate researchers (PGRs), early career researchers (ECRs), researchers, teaching and Professional Services staff.  

Becoming an Open Researcher

• Getting started with Pre-registration and Registered Reports

  Preregistering your research or publishing a Registered Report enhances the transparency and credibility of the research process.  This introductory workshop will clarify the differences between  preregistration and Registered Reports, provide practical advice on using preregistration tools and explore effective implementation strategies. In addition, it provides a chance to meet with others who share the same commitment to fostering open research practices.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  1. Explain the differences between preregistration and Registered Reports and describe their benefits and limitations

  2. Find preregistration templates

  3. Identify journals that accept Registered Reports.

  4. Locate sources of support and guidance

  Duration: 1 hour

  Target audience PGRs and ECRs from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Learn

• Getting started with preprints

  Interested in sharing your research before formal publication? This introductory workshop will explore what preprints are, why they matter, and how researchers can use them to increase visibility and accelerate scholarly communication. It will cover practical tips for sharing preprints and discuss benefits and challenges.

  By the end of the workshop you will be able to:

  1. Describe what a preprint is and how it fits into the research publishing lifecycle.

  2. Identify trusted preprint servers relevant to your discipline.

  3. Apply a set of practical criteria to decide when and where to share a preprint.

  4. Recognize the potential benefits and challenges of preprint publishing.

  Duration: 1 hour

  Target audience Mid-late stage PGRs in all disciplines/ ECRs

  RDP Theme - Thrive

• Online research profiles: increasing your visibility, impact and engagement

  Your online researcher profile is a key tool for increasing the visbility of your research, connecting with collaborators and demonstrating research impact. This workshop introduces the main platforms for creating and managing your online researcher profile, and focusing on Elements, the ÃûæÂÖ±²¥'s platform for capturing and sharing research-related activities, will demonstrate how to build your Elements profile to present your research, professional and teaching activities effectively. There will be an opportunity to update your own profile.

  By the end of the workshop you will be able to:

  1. Recognize the role of online profiles in enhacing research visibiilty and credibiity

  2. Identify key platforms for creating and managing an online researcher profile

  3. Create an ORCID ID

  4. Apply best practices in curating your ÃûæÂÖ±²¥ Elements profile

  5. Locate sources of guidance and support

  Duration: 1 hour

  Target audience PGRs and ECRs from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Core

• Open publishing: your options explained

  Green or Gold open access? Unsure about APCs? This workshop will demystify key terminology and guide you through the open access publishing options available to ÃûæÂÖ±²¥ researchers.

  By the end of the workshop you will be able to:

  1. Apply knowledge of open access publishing models to select appropriate publishing options for your research outputs.

  2. Explain the benefits of making your research outputs openly available

  3. Use appropriate tools and platforms to discover openly published research

  4. Locate sources of support and guidance

  Duration: 1 hour

  Mid-late stage PGRs in all disciplines/ ECRs

  RDP Theme - Thrive

• Open research: principles and practices

  What is open research and why does it matter? This workshop will introduce the concept of open research, and explore opportunities for implementing open research principles into your own practice. It will cover open access publishing, open data, open source software, open peer review and tools and techniques to help you discover open access materials.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  1. Define key concepts of open research

  2. Describe the benefits of open research for researchers, institutions and society

  3. Assess how open reseach practices align with and support your chosen research methodology

  4. Identify and apply relevant open research practices and locate sources of support and guidance to help you implement them effectively.

  Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

  Target audience PGRs and ECRs from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Core

• PGR essentials: introduction to Open Research

  Are you aware of open research? How can open research practices be applied to your research? Interested in finding out more? This workshop will introduce open research, considering the benefits for researchers, institutions and society. It will provide opportunities for you to consider how open research methods could be embedded into your research and highlight sources of support and further information.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  1. Define key concepts of open research

  2. Describe the benefits of open research for researchers, institutions and society

  3. Assess how open reseach practices align with and support your chosen research methodology

  4. Locate sources of support and guidance

  Duration: 45 minutes

  Target audience PGR in the early stages from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Induction

• Tools for Open Research: OSF

  The Open Science Framework (OSF) is a free, open-source project management and collaboration tool that supports researchers throughout the entire research lifecycle-from planning, to conducting, to sharing and discovering research. This workshop introduces the key features of OSF and demonstrates how it can be used to enhance transparency, collaboration, and reproducibility in academic research. You will learn how to create projects, collaborate with others and share outputs openly.

  By the end of the workshop you will be able to:

  1. Describe the OSF and explain the benefits of using OSF in academic research

  2. Use OSF to discover openly shared research outputs

  3. Create an account, set-up projects and share your research outputs openly and responsibly using OSF’s registration and licensing tools.

  4. Locate source of support and guidance

  Duration: 45 minutes

  Target audience PGRs and ECRs from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Learn

• Understanding copyright and Creative Commons licences

  This session will cover the basics of UK copyright law and how this impacts what you can use in your work and how you can share the results of your own research. It will introduce concepts such as rights retention and fair dealing and will provide guidance on how to seek permission to reuse third party content in your publications. The workshop will explain what Creative Commons licences are and how they can be used to protect and share your work.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to

  1. Identify the key copyright principles relevant to academic research

  2. Evaluate how and when third-party materials can be used legally in a research output

  3. Understand how to license your own work, including Creative Commons options

  4. Understand the university's approach to publishing and copyright retention

  Duration: 1 hour

  Target audience ECRs from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Realise

Library Research Skills

• Choosing where to publish

  Choosing the right journal, the publisher or publishing format for your research output can be daunting. If you’re new to publishing and unsure where to begin, this workshop will help you understand what works well, and what to avoid.

  By the end of the workshop you will be able to:

  1. Use the Think, Check, Submit checklist to help evaluate and choose a publisher for your research output

  2. Describe the open access publishing options available to ÃûæÂÖ±²¥ authors

  3. Use publication metrics responsibly to help inform your publishing decision

  4. Locate sources of support and advice

  Duration: 1 hour

  Target audience mid-late stage PGRs in all disciplines/ ECRs

  RDP Theme - Thrive 

• Copyright and your thesis

  Navigating copyright in academic writing can be complex, especially when preparing your thesis and, to help you make informed decisions, this workshop offers a practical overview of the essential copyright issues every postgraduate researcher should understand before submission. It will introduce what copyright is and why it matters in scholarly work, consider the role of fair dealing and exceptions for research and the intersection beetween copyright and open access publishing as well as offering practical tips for how to legally use third-party materials, licensing your own work and repository submission.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  1. Identify key copyright principles relevant to academic research and thesis writing

  2. Evaluate how and when third-party materials can be used legally in a thesis

  3. Understand how to license your own work, including Creative Commons options

  4. Recognise when permissions are needed and know how to seek them effectively

  Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

  Target audience mid to late stage PGRs from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Realise

• Keeping up with the literature: tools and techniques for researchers

  Keeping up with newly published research is essential and can be an over-whelming. This workshop introduces practical tools and techniques for discovering newly published literature in your field, including database alerts, academic networks, and publisher notifications. You will learn how to integrate literature tracking into your research workflow and identify sources of support.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  1. Identify key tools and platforms for discovering newly published literature

  2. Set-up personalised alerts and notification to monitor new publications in your research area

  3. Evaluate the relevance and reliability of sources when reviewing new literature.

  Duration: 1 hour

  Target audience: PGRs and Early career researchers from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Learn

• This workshop introduces core techniques for literature searching. We'll start by exploring connections between research outputs and authors to uncover new sources. Building on this, we’ll demonstrate how to carry out structured, systematic searches, getting you familiar with the advanced techniques that can be applied across different academic databases. The session will also include activities to help you refine your own literature searching approach.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  1. Construct and refine literature searches using effective strategies that move from unstructured exploration to structured database searching.

  2. Apply advanced search techniques across a range of databases and resources to locate relevant literature.

  3. Evaluate the reliability, relevance, and authority of sources retrieved through different search methods.

  4. Implement effective techniques for monitoring and staying up-to-date with newly published research.

  Duration 1.5 hours

  Target Audience: PGRs in the early stages from all disciplines

  RDP Theme - Core

• Managing references using Zotero

  This session covers the key features of Zotero, a free and user-friendly reference management tool. You’ll learn how to add sources to your personal library, generate citations, and organise your references. We’ll also highight additional features for note-taking, annotation and keeping your library backed up and accessible across devices. By the end, you’ll be able to integrate Zotero into your research workflow to support efficient and collaborative practice.

  Important: There is an expectation that attendees will have made an account with Zotero and installed the desktop app, the web importer and the Word plug-in. For guidance on these steps, see the Getting Setup section of the Library's Zotero guide ().

  We will not be covering these setup activites during the session.

  By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:

  1. Add, organise, and cite references for journal articles, books, and book chapters using Zotero.

  2. Back up and synchronise your Zotero library to ensure access across devices.

  3. Integrate Zotero into your research workflow to improve efficiency and collaboration.

  Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

  Target audience: PGRs in the early stages from all disciplines

  RDP Theme: Core

• PGR Essentials: introduction to the Library

  This workshop from the Library's Research and Open Scholarship team, will introduce the Library's services, collections and discovery tools. It will highlight key resources and sources of support for postgraduate researchers.

  Target audience: PGRs in the early stages from all disciplines

  RDP Theme: Induction

  Duration 45 minutes

• Using publication metrics responsibly

  This session will explain how traditional publication metrics- for example journal impact factor, h-index, field weighted citation indexes (FWCI) - as well as alternative publication metrics (altmetrics), are calculated and will explore biases & weaknesses of each metric. It will then discuss the responsible use of publication metrics, both by individuals and institutions, for assessing research.

  By the end of the workshop you will be able to:

  1. Identify different metrics and research assessment methods used by research organisations and funders

  2. Evaluate the advantages, limitations, and inherent biases of widely used research metrics.

  3. Assess the value of using altmetrics to demonstrate research impact

  4. Critically reflect on the value of applying publication metrics to your own research and publications.

  Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

  Target audience: Researchers all stages all disciplines

  RDP Theme: Realise 

Research Data Management

• Adding your research to Sussex Figshare

  Sussex Figshare (https://sussex.figshare.com/) offers a route to publish your research data, allowing you to meet funder requirements and increase the reach of your data by making it openly available. This session will introduce you to Figshare and take you through the practical steps of adding your data.

  Duration: 1hr

  Target audience: All Researchers (incl Staff, Postdocs, PGRs & Associates)

  RDP theme: Core

• DIY Digital Preservation

  This session on ‘DIY digital preservation’ will offer practical insights into the core concepts and tools of digital preservation. The session will share library digital preservation workflows and offer advice on how to incorporate them into your own projects. This is an introductory session suitable for all levels of experience.

  Duration: 2hr

  Target audience: All Researchers (incl associates)

• Managing Your Research Data: Introduction to Data Management Plans

  Writing a data management plan (DMP) is useful for researchers in all disciplines. A DMP covers how data will be collected, organised, managed, stored, secured, backed-up, preserved, and where applicable, shared. Writing a DMP will help you to anticipate any challenges for working with your data and make the research process much smoother.

  Duration: 1.5hr

  Target audience: This workshop is aimed at PGRs

  RDP theme: Core

• Managing Your Research Data: Keeping your data organised and secure

  How safe is your research data? What would happen if you lost it all? This session will help you consider how to keep your research data organised and secure.

  Duration: 1hr

  Target audience: PGR (Mphil & PhD)

  RDP theme: Core
  
  

• Managing Your Research Data: Supporting qualitative data sharing

  Qualitative data has rich potential for re-use in future research, but it can be challenging to navigate routes for data sharing. This session will support attendees with data management planning that will help embed consideration of data sharing principles throughout the research process.

  Duration: 1hr

  Target audience: All Researchers (incl associates)

  RDP theme: Core

• Tools and methods for web capture

  This session, delivered by the Library Research Data team, will introduce you to tools for creating an interactive copy of an existing website. It may be useful for those analyzing webpages that change over time, individuals looking to capture and preserve their own website or anyone with an interest in web archiving standards.

  Duration: 1hr

  Target audience: All University Affiliates (Staff, Students, Researchers)

• Using DMPOnline to write your Data Management Plan

  Most funders now require a data management plan when submitting a grant proposal. DMP Online (https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/) is a freely available tool which can support you in creating your plan. This workshop is a practical introduction to getting starting with DMP online.

  Duration: 1hr

  Target audience: This workshop is aimed at ECRs and faculty

  RDP theme: Core

Browse our programme and sign up for upcoming sessions

Elements Essentials workshops

Elements is the Current Research Information System (CRIS) used at the University. Elements supports the management of research activities by providing one single point of organisation, presentation and reporting for all scholarly and research activities, including research outputs. We offer a range of online workshops on profiles, publications, impact, reporting and REF assessment. See our programme and sign up for an upcoming session.