Cultural Advice
Aboriginal Peoples are advised the Library Collection contains images, voices and names of deceased people in physical and online resources.
The Library recognises the significance of the traditional cultural knowledges contained within its Collection. The Library acknowledge some materials contain language that may not reflect current attitudes, was published without consent or recognition, or, is offensive. These materials reflect the views of the authors and/or the period in which they were produced and do not represent the views of the Library.
Welcome research degree students!
The University's librarians look forward to helping you get started, and to working with you and your supervisors throughout your candidature.
The Library supports higher degree by research candidates (HDRs) by providing an extensive collection, access to the world's literature on demand, workshops and online guides, and individual/group appointments in-person or online.
More in this section
Making the most of Library services and resources
Your first steps
- Contacting the Library – Ask the Library via chat, email, or phone
- Induction appointment – all HDRs are welcome to meet with a librarian; for some induction plans a meeting is a requirement. Contact Ask the Library to arrange a meeting, typically 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how much you would like to cover. Allow more time if you would like to make a start planning your literature search strategy!
- Register for activities – research skills development activities are available via EDGEx (about UniSA EDGE; EDGEx Activity Catalogue). Activities are made available via EDGEx throughout the year – to view all that will be on offer see the full list of Library workshops
- Do you have an ORCiD? All HDRs need to have this unique identifier, which connects your research to your identity, and it needs to be linked to UniSA – see ORCID for Research Degree Candidates
- Start planning your data management – this will depend on the nature of your research. Some Units require a Data Management Plan as part of the research proposal. See Research data management and Research data storage
Next steps
- Build your literature search skills – see Searching the literature and sign up for workshops such as Literature reviews: Plan and manage your search strategy and the Systematic reviews series. The Library Collection search provides access to many resources, most of which are online and accessible 24/7; search relevant databases to focus and extend your search
- Manage your references efficiently – UniSA has a license to EndNote, reference management software you can use to collect and organise your references, and to create in-text references and a reference list in the required style. See EndNote and register for the workshop Using EndNote for reference management
- Request resources (books, articles) not held in the Library Collection – see How do I request an interlibrary loan?
- Access PDFs faster with LibKey Nomad – see LibKey Nomad: a simple way to access Library content from the open web
As you progress through your candidature…
- Request permission from copyright owners – if you are planning to include works by others in your thesis or publications, you may need to seek permission. See Managing copyright in your thesis and Copyright guidelines: Permissions, and register for Copyright for your research proposal or Copyright for your thesis
- Keep up to date – set up alerts via databases, publisher sites and/or social networking sites to learn about the latest publications in your areas of interest
- Consider open access options when deciding where to publish – see the Open Access Guide for more, including lists of journals where the Library covers the Article Processing Charge (APC) for UniSA authors (via Read and publish agreements)
- Choose where to publish strategically – open access is just one of the considerations. For more see Publishing and register for the Publishing with impact series
- Deposit your research outputs into the Research Outputs Repository – the Repository records all research created by the UniSA community. Under UniSA's Open Access Policy, all works need to be deposited within 30 days of acceptance. If your journal article isn't immediately available to all via the publisher site ('gold' open access), include the accepted manuscript when you deposit and the Library will make this open where possible
You may also find useful…
More support
Looking to build your skills in other areas – such as writing your proposal, or undertaking data analysis with R? The Library does not focus on these areas, but others do!
For writing support, see the Research Education team's online resources and list of scheduled workshops – these are offered for:
- Business, Social Sciences and Humanities (BSSH)
- Sciences, Technology, Engineering, Maths, and Medical and health disciplines
Workshops from Intersect cover programming, data analytics, and more.
For the full range of resources and services available to researchers at UniSA see AskResearch, and for all activities on offer consult the EDGEx Activity Catalogue. Register for all workshops via EDGEx.
