Month: November 2018

Staying healthy while you research: Live webinar on mental health, imposter syndrome and dealing with the stress of research

mendeleyteam

By Priyanka Kalra

impostorEver had the feeling that you have faked your way into your career and you don’t deserve to be where you are? Well, to prove that you are not the only one, there is actually an entire psychological concept called imposter syndrome devoted this feeling. According to Hugh Kearns, an expert on self-management, positive psychology and work-life balance, “imposter syndrome is that nagging feeling you have, that somehow you don’t belong, you haven’t earned your success and that at any moment you will be uncovered.”

The syndrome manifests itself strongly and comfortably within academia, given its elite nature and competitive atmosphere. In addition to feeling like a fake, research also shows that imposter phenomenon can impact researchers in ways that they “conduct less research and are less willing to present at conferences or publish.” These feelings and thoughts can manifest into insecurities resulting in or leading to anxiety and self-doubt.

So, the question then is, what can researchers do to control these feelings or keep them from effecting their work? Other than recognising these doubts and categorising them under the phenomenon of imposter syndrome, individuals can use other techniques to curb these feelings. According to Hugh, if the imposter feelings start to take over, researchers can focus on the evidence and separate imposter feelings and imposter syndrome from a real imposter. “The crucial feature of imposter feelings and the imposter syndrome is that there is clear evidence that you are not an imposter, but you still feel like one. So, if you want to know whether you are an imposter or not – look at the evidence,” he adds.

Yet, advice around these issues can be rather ambiguous and to concretely address these pertinent issues, Researcher Academy, with the help of Hugh Kearns, is devoting the month of November to discuss mental health and imposter syndrome. In a live webinar to take place on 23rd of November (2pm UTC), Hugh Kearns will discuss the not-so-exciting part of research and share techniques that can help you stay healthy while you work. The webinar will tackle the perineal issues within research that add stress and inhibit imposter feelings and will further ways of dealing with setbacks, strategies to efficiently counter imposter syndrome and most importantly, teach you how to switch off and take care of yourself. The webinar will give you a chance to interact with Hugh and ask any questions you have about maintaining a healthy research career. You can also join the Researcher Academy Mendeley group to ask any questions in advance which Hugh can make a part of the webinar.

See you then and happy researching!

 

What’s new with Mendeley? The Mendeley Advisor Briefing!

Rachel Brennesholtz

We tried something new recently: An Advisor Briefing Webinar that gives Mendeley Advisors a chance to give feedback on what we are cooking up here at Mendeley HQ. To be honest, we weren’t sure if you would be interested in spending an hour with us on the internet, but it turns out hundreds of you were! One of you even stayed up until 1:00 to join us live… Wow!

This Advisor Briefing session is now available as a recording for those who missed it or just want to watch it again.

In this session, we had two topics:

  • Product Manager Adrian Raudaschl introduced the new Event Management platform we are working on for Advisors. This platform is designed to help manage event registration and track attendance. If you are interested in testing the system, drop us an email: community@elsevier.com

 

  • Laura Thomson, Head of Reference Manager, gave a demo of the new Mendeley Reference Manager. The new Reference Manager is part of ongoing work at Mendeley to keep the software healthy. By strengthening the foundation of Reference Manager, we will be able to add new features and functionalities more easily. After watching the session, we’d love to get your feedback on the new Reference Manager Beta. While we don’t have feature parity yet in the new Mendeley Reference Manager, we are working on it.

Want to know more about what’s new at Mendeley?  You can watch the Advisor Briefing webinar here.

And here are a few more useful links:

Download the Reference Manager Beta

Give us feedback on the format of the Advisor Briefing

Want to know more about Advisors or apply to be one?  Visit us here.

Mendeley advisor of the month: Sunday Linus Makama (DVM, MFS, PhD, ERT)

mendeleyteam

makamaSunday Makama is a researcher with interest in Food and Environmental Health and safety, and currently works at the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), Vom, Nigeria. He is a Chief Veterinary Research Officer (CVRO), Toxicology in the Biochemistry Division of the NVRI. He has researched into various aspects of Emerging Food borne viruses, Food and Environmental Toxicology, Nanotechnology, Ethnoveterinary medicine, and Antimicrobial and other chemical residues. Before his current position, Sunday has worked as a private Veterinary practitioner, then as a Sales and Technical representative of an Agro-allied Company. His research works were conducted in several institutions at different times including the Netherlands Food Safety Institute (RIKILT) and Wageningen University and Research (WUR), the Netherlands Institute for Public Health and Environment (RIVM) and Alterra, the Institute for Environmental Research, WUR.

Sunday holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. He also holds a Master’s degree in Food Safety (MFS) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in toxicology from the Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands. Sunday is also a certified European Registered Toxicologist (ERT).

How did you get into your field and what is your research story?

Towards the end of my Bachelors program in Veterinary College, I contemplated what I wanted to do with my Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree. Clinical practice, especially surgery fascinated me; so did issues of food safety and security as well as public health and environmental health and safety. I love finding answers to very intriguing questions, especially those that have significant impact on public health and environment. The research field provided a good opportunity to be involved in all these interests in a meaningful way. Afterall, multidisciplinarity is the spice of both fundamental and applied research. Now when I realized research and development was going to be the core of my career path, I wanted to be involved in doing something novel. The emerging (or re-emerging) fields in science like emerging technologies (nanotechnology) and emerging infectious diseases therefore, became my primary interests.

Where do you do your research/work the best? What kind of environment suits you?

A nice, clean and comfortable environment with lots of nature and a soft music (including those from nature) is a perfect setting for me. The only addition would be some tea.

How long have you been on Mendeley? 

Officially, I have been on Mendeley since January 2015

What were you using prior to Mendeley and how does Mendeley influence your research?

I used EndNote mostly and once in a while the Microsoft Word citations & bibliography. Mendeley has now become my main reference manager and with so much interactive and simple user interface, it is safe to say Mendeley plays a significant role in my research.

Why did you decide to become an Advisor and how are you involved with the program?

Working in a research environment with the inherent requirement of dissemination of your findings means lots of reading and writing. Finding a tool that is well amenable to your reading, writing and networking needs is a great relief that it will be inconceivable to ignore such an excellent support. Now, when you find a helpful tool that has aided your research work, it is only proper to share the good news. Being a passionate advocate for sharing of useful knowledge and seeing the enormous need around me, I decided to contribute my quota by transferring Mendeley knowledge to those that need it; and what a blessing it has been! I could liken my experience to that of the three Samaritan lepers (in Biblical times) who found food in the time Samaria was under siege and told themselves, “we do not well!” by not sharing the good news.

What researcher would you like to work with or meet, dead or alive?

Hmmm… that’s a tough one. I think it will be Prof. dr. Marcel H. Zwietering of Wageningen University.

What book are you reading at the moment and why?

I am actually reading two books:

  1. Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
  2. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason (Read it several times).

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned this week?

The fastest person does not necessarily win the race.

What is the best part about working in research?

Getting to work in a multidisciplinary environment and overcoming the challenges of deciphering the unknown.

And the worst/most challenging part about working in research?

The weight of responsibility laid upon you by the fact that many depend on your findings to guide sometimes very critical decisions and policies.

What is the one thing you want people to know about Mendeley?

Mendeley is a sweet medley; a researcher’s best friend.

Meet the Team- Sahil Sennik

mendeleyteam

Name: Sahil Sennik

Job title: L2 Service desk specialist

sahilIntro bio: The best way to describe myself would be pretty nerdy.  I enjoy playing around with technology, whether it be consistently specing my PC or making my home as smart as possible with sensors triggering coloured light bulbs to turn my room into a disco or EDM night club!  In my opinion, there’s nothing better to come home to.  Aside from that, I am a huge football fan and support Arsenal.  Come on you gunners!

 

When did you join Mendeley?  I joined Mendeley October 2016

What do you love most about your job? I really enjoy being a liaison between our customers and developers.  The way I see it, it’s a two-way street – on one hand, getting those really annoying or experience damaging bugs fixed and seeing our users enjoy the product and seamlessly use it is always a win.  On the other hand, delivering positive feedback and constructive criticism to our developers always helps us learn and grow stronger.  Being a part of that is invaluable.

What book did you most recently read? Cat and Mouse by James Patterson.  My favourite of the Alex Cross series so far!

What’s one thing you want people to know about Mendeley?  I don’t just see Mendeley as a reference management software.  It is an extremely powerful collaboration tool too.  As someone who may just want to meet people in the Scientific/research community, publish their work, or be part of a group where you can share ideas, Mendeley caters to that extremely well.  In summary, think of Mendeleyans as one huge family, where you can meet so many like-minded people and be a part of such a great community.

How would you explain your job to a stranger on a bus? Quite simply put – My job is to ensure your issues are mine.  You have a problem with the product I represent and I will do whatever I can to get it fixed, even if it takes days weeks or months.  It may be technical or something as simple as a spelling mistake.  If it bugs you, it bugs me, and therefore, it will bug our developers!

What’s the most exciting part of your job? It may seem quite trivial, but I’d have to say my weekly team meetings.  This is a meeting all about us and how we can help each other help our customers as effectively as possible.  The brainstorming and discussions held during the meetings really motivate me to start working on ideas as soon as possible.  Seeing them succeed and witnessing the positive outcomes really keeps me driven.

What keeps you awake at night? Cliffhangers from my favourite shows.  Why must we suffer this way!

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned this week?  I recently helped one of my closest friends find a job after almost three months without one.  The whole experience really showed me how even the slightest intervention in a person’s life can mean the world to them.

 

Empower Researchers to Reach Their Full Potential with Mendeley

mendeleyteam

mendeley resourcesPrevious articles about Mendeley have been directed towards researchers, and how they can benefit from this powerful online workflow ecosystem. Mendeley helps researchers, readers and authors build their knowledge, stay up to date on trends, organize, advance and showcase their research, track and store the data they generate, move their careers forward, and find funding. But Mendeley is important to you and your library as well. It can raise and sustain your perception as a valuable resource center for all the different constituencies within the university.

The Future Holds Legitimate Concerns

There’s no denying that librarians need and want to reinvent themselves. While libraries will not cease to exist, they are becoming a reimagined asset that you must define, promote and manage. You need to be recognized as the “Switzerland” of your institution, retaining control of resources and decision-making while simultaneously having the right avenues to content for any possible research objective or need.

In addition to your own challenges, your researchers are more stressed than ever. Broad-based collaboration is much more prevalent, especially among younger researchers. The scramble for research funding is shifting from local to global, and research from emerging markets is increasing in volume and value. Researchers continue to seek more entry points to open science. At the same time, they must keep up with the latest technological developments without losing focus on their research topics. Universities are competing harder than ever for every research dollar – and that competition is felt to varying degrees throughout each institution.

Not surprisingly, nearly all of you are forced to do more with less. No librarian has ever said that she or he has too much funding or too large a staff! With an increased workload and a decreased headcount, it’s necessary for you to streamline wherever possible. You’re responsible for managing a large number of databases and platforms, and simplification is critical if you’re going to be successful.

You Can Facilitate Change with Mendeley

As librarians, you love to provide guidance that leads to solutions. You want to be better at anticipating needs and supporting goals. Efficient processes are important to you. You also want to know how resources will fit into your budget. You’re on board with the evolution of your role and that of your library, and so is Mendeley. You have a golden opportunity to help your researchers unlock the future of science. Let Mendeley help you serve as the cornerstone for revolutionary discoveries. It’s the workflow resource your researchers want and need.