Keeping up to date with new research
Keeping up-to-date with the latest research is a vital. However, the volume of information available can make this a challenge. There are a range of current awareness services and tools available to help you keep up-to-date quickly and conveniently.
Many online databases and general web sites such as news sites offer RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) feeds, which are a convenient time-saving means of bringing together:
- The latest tables of contents (TOCs) for your favourite journals
- The latest research articles on your area of research via saved keyword search alerts
- Track citations to seminal papers via a cited reference alerts. This can be useful if you want to monitor how a particular article is being received by the research community.
- Media newsfeeds and other updates from websites
There are a number of ways to receive RSS feds. Two methods are:
- Register once at a free RSS reader web site such as Google Reader. To subscribe to your chosen RSS feeds. Look out for this standard feed icon
on e-journal sites. Right-click on the icon, copy the Shortcut (or Link Location) and paste it into your RSS reader. - Receive RSS feds directly to your browser.
- Most browsers like Internet Explorer (Version 7) and Firefox have inbuilt feed reading capabilities that enable you to simply click on the feed icon on a page of interest. You can then receive and read feeds within your browser. These can be stored and organised within your browser.
- If there is no RSS feed for a page that you think would be useful there are a number of ways in which to create an RSS feed for that page.
- If you prefer to have latest updates routed to your email inbox you can receive automated email alerts.
- You will need to 'Register' a personal account with the individual database. This normally means completing a brief online form supplying your name and email address etc.
- You can specify how often you receive alerts e.g. weekly, monthly etc
- You may need to login to the service and renew your alert after one year.