Join the discussion
About
The demand for skilled and experienced staff in scholarly communications and open access roles continues to increase as the scholarly publishing landscape changes, driven by funder mandates. How do we meet this need and equip those new to these roles and responsibilities?
Whether the role sits in the library or the research office, it is a buoyant job market with many roles being advertised in recent months. Institutions find it difficult to recruit staff with the right experience and those wishing to enter these roles often struggle to find opportunities to develop their skills. Experienced staff are in demand leading to retention issues and competition between institutions for staff.
This workshop provides an opportunity to address these issues, share experiences, find out about current activities in this area and to shape future work.
Topics for discussion
- Sharing institutional perspectives on supporting staff development – what are the challenges and current activities?
- What essential knowledge and competencies are needed for these roles? How do we nurture and develop the "soft skills" required?
- The challenges of recruitment and whether there is a need for standardised language around job titles and basic job tasks
- Digital capabilities and scholarly communication – linking to our digital capability work
- Developing a sector wide approach to skills development
Programme
Thursday 7 February
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Registration and refreshments
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Welcome and introduction
Progress so far on scholarly communication skills development
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Helen Blanchett
Scholarly communications subject specialist, Jisc
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Discussion: routes into scholarly communication roles
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Perspectives from institutions
Helen Dobson
Scholarly communications manager, University of Manchester
Valerie McCutcheon
Research information manager, University of Glasgow
Michelle Blake
Head of relationship management (information services), University of York
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Lunch
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Skills and knowledge for scholarly communication roles: what do job descriptions tell us?
Nancy Pontika
Open University
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If only I'd known...
What are the core skills and knowledge needed for scholarly communication roles?
Which skills and knowledge are essential?
What level of knowledge should this be?
This practical session will involve reviewing a draft competency framework and identifying key knowledge in these areas.
The outputs from this session will contribute towards the development of a UK competency framework and support resource for scholarly communications.
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Break
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Feedback from previous session
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Digital capabilities: fitting scholarly communications into the bigger picture
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Caroline Ingram
Senior co-design manager, Jisc
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Helen Blanchett
Scholarly communications subject specialist, Jisc
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Where next? Summary and questions
Who should attend
This will be of interest to:
- Those responsible for staff development in scholarly communications or open access support
- Repository staff
- Research support librarians
- Scholarly communications librarians
- Research managers and open access policy compliance staff
- Library and research decision makers
Resources
Developing a skilled workforce for scholarly communication - introduction
Helen Blanchett, scholarly communications subject specialist, Jisc.
Developing a skilled workforce: an institutional perspective
Helen Dobson, scholarly communications manager, University of Manchester library.
Skills for information management team and friends
Valerie McCutcheon, research information manager, University of Glasgow.
Soft skills to enable effective relationships
Michelle Blake, head of relationship management, University of York.
Skills and knowledge for scholarly communication roles: what do job descriptions tell us?
Dr Nancy Pontika, open access aggregation officer, CORE.
Contact
For further information please contact Helen Blanchett (helen.blanchett@jisc.ac.uk).