POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

Introduction

Embarking on your academic journey as a postgraduate student can be daunting, but the Midlands State University Library offers a range of comprehensive resources and services tailored specifically for you. This guide is your roadmap to accessing and utilising scholarly materials and support available to enhance your research and learning experience. The MSU Library is committed to providing resources, services, and support to improve your research and academic pursuits. Our extensive collection spans various disciplines, offering comprehensive scholarly materials to fuel your intellectual curiosity.

What are the Library’s Service Standards?

The Midlands State University Library is dedicated to offering top-notch services to our Post-graduate students. We value our customers’ feedback and strive to improve our performance to meet their needs. To support this commitment, the Library has developed a Service Charter. This Charter is a guiding principle that directs the Library’s behaviour and holds it accountable for its actions. It also demonstrates the Library’s unwavering commitment to its customers by providing a memorable experience and ensuring every customer interaction results in a positive experience.

 Client Expectations

Expect from us:

• Prompt and courteous service
• Helpful, well-trained staff who will treat you with respect
• Fair and equitable access to our collections and services
• Collections that aim to meet your needs and are well-maintained and accessible

 Library Expectation

Help us to help you by:

• Treating other people in the library with respect and courtesy, whether these are other clients or library staff
• Treating library facilities, equipment, collections and property with due care
• Assisting staff understand your needs clearly
• Providing us with feedback on how we may improve our services or we can resolve a specific service problem

Access to Library Resources

The MSU Library has a comprehensive collection that covers all academic programs offered by the institution. To access the library, one must be a registered student or current employee of MSU. Non-MSU students or staff can request permission to use the library and become “Approved readers” by paying the required fees. Borrowing privileges vary depending on the client’s status, as follows:

1. Teaching staff – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 8 books at a time for one month
2. Non-Teaching staff – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 6 books at a time for one month
3. Postgraduate students – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 3 books at a time for seven days
4. Undergraduate students – Allowed to borrow a maximum of 3 books at a time for seven days
5. Approved readers – Do not have any borrowing rights. They are only allowed access to library materials within the building.

Scholarly journals

A journal or periodical is a scholarly publication containing articles written by researchers, academics, practitioners and other experts. Journals usually focus on a specific discipline or field of study such as biology, chemistry or computer science. Journals are published at regular intervals such as monthly, quarterly or yearly and several authors contribute to each issue. Electronic journals are online versions of the printed journals and they are only accessible over the internet (NMSU Library, 2020).

How to access access Print Journals

1. Go to www.msu.ac.zw and point your mouse to “Libraries”
2. Select “Catalogue”
3. On the Online catalogue page click on “Advanced Search”
4. Enter your keywords in the search form provided
5. Under “Item Type” select “Journal” to limit your results to journals only
6. Click on the “Search” button to get results
7. Click on a journal title of your choice to get the Call number
8. Approach appropriate shelf in the Special Collections section to retrieve the journal.

How to access e-Journals

Research at Midlands State University

REFERENCING

The MSU Library Research Support Section

The MSU Library Research Support section plays a crucial role in assisting students and academic staff in their research endeavours. The Research Support section facilitates access to information and supports users in navigating the vast print and electronic resources available through the library. Here are some key functions of library research support services:

1. Reference and Information Services

1. • Assisting users in locating relevant resources, answering reference questions, and navigating library catalogues and databases.
   • They provide guidance on effective search strategies and help users refine their research topics.
   • Training sessions and workshops to enhance users’ information literacy skills, teaching them how to critically evaluate information, cite sources, and use library resources effectively.
   • Helping users with access to a wide range of resources, including books, journals, databases, and multimedia materials.

2. Research Consultations

1. • One-on-one research consultations to provide personalized assistance, helping users develop research strategies and find relevant sources for their projects.

3. Reference Management

1. • Assisting students and staff in using and managing their references, including the use of citation management tools such as Zotero and Mendeley.

4. Library Workshops and Training

1. • Organising workshops and training sessions on various topics related to research, academic writing, and information literacy to help users develop their academic and research skills.

5. Copyright and Fair Use Guidance

• Providing information on copyright regulations, fair use, and plagiarism and helping users understand and adhere to legal and ethical standards in their research.

6. Assisting Researchers With Finding the Right Publisher

• The Research Support section also assists aspiring writers with identifying the right journal and publisher for their work. It does this by using specialised online tools such as Think-Check-and Submit and publishers’ journal finders.
• Support is also given for authors to avoid predatory publishers by publishing the Beall’s List of predatory publishers.

For assistance for any of the services listed above, do not hesitate to contact the Library Research Support on libraryresearchsupportservices@library.msu.ac.zw or use our WhatsApp number – 0786 755 935. You may also approach the Information Desk located at the Main Library and ask for further assistance.

Steps in the research process

Image by Lee Rusty Waller

Step 1: Identifying the Problem

The first step in the process is to identify a problem or develop a research question. You need to identify a topic that is of interest to you to make it easy along the way.

Step 2: Review the Literature

Once the problem has been identified, it is time to gather information related to the problem or topic. Gathering literature about the topic will give you more insights into what has already been published by other researchers, how they researched the problem and the results or conclusions they got. You will need to use the library’s resources to get this information. These include the library catalogue, electronic books, electronic journals and indexes.

Step 3: Research Purpose/Design

This is a practical framework for answering the research questions. This involves making decisions about the type of data that you are going to collect, how you are going to collect it (methods), time scale and the location of your research.

Step 4: Collect Data

This step involves collecting data about your research problem from the participants in your research. Data can be collected in the form of interviews, questionnaires, observation etc.

Step 5: Analyse and Interpret Data

All the activities that were carried out in the above steps now culminate into this step. Here you will analyse data so that the research questions can finally be answered.

Step 6: Report and Evaluate

In this stage, you are now writing about the results that you got from the research. What were the conclusions about the problem you were researching on? What are your recommendations? What can be done to improve things or avoid negative things?

(Blankenship, Diane Applied Research and Evaluation Methods in Recreation, Human Kinetics 2010)

e-Reserves

Scopus Tittle List

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Choosing where to publish

It is important to find the most relevant journal to publish with so that your research output gets the attention that it deserves. You should always be able to check for certain important factors when looking for a journal to publish with. Some factors to look out for include:

• Scope of the journal
• Peer review process
• Journal Metrics
• Open Access options
• How to spot a predatory Journal

Where is the Journal Indexed?

It is important that you check whether the journal is indexed in major indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science.  These indexes assess a journal’s quality before indexing them and it is most likely that your work becomes more discoverable if you publish with journals indexed in them.

Journal Finders

A number of publishers offer some tools that can be used by aspiring authors to assist in choosing the most appropriate and trusted journal title. Below are some links to the most common tools used to choose a journal.

• Elsevier Journal Finder
• Springer Link Journal Suggester
• Wiley Journal Finder
• Sage Journal Selector
• Emerald Journal Finder
• Web of Science Master List
• Check. Submit
• Scopus Journal Analyzer
• Dimensions

RESEARCH IMPACT AND METRICS

Metrics are a measurement of the importance or impact of a journal or author. There are several metrics that can be used to indicate the importance of a journal. Author level metrics can also be used to show impact that an author makes on the scientific community or field of the study.

Journal Metrics

Journal Impact Factor

The Journal Impact Factor is used to measure the importance of a journal by calculating the number of times articles are cited within a particular year. You can find the impact factors of journals in Clarivate Analytics’s Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

CiteScore

CiteScore is the average number of citations received by articles recently published in the journal. It is available for journals and book series which are indexed in Scopus.

SJR – Scimago Journal Rank

The SJR aims to capture the effect of subject field, quality, and reputation of a journal on citations. It calculates the prestige of a journal by considering the value of the sources that cite it, rather than counting all citations equally. It is useful for comparing and anlysing journals within the same discipline, and forms the basis of the subject category ranking.

SNIP

The SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper) measures citations weighted by the subject field. It is useful for comparing journals not just within the same field but also across disciplines. SNIP is available from Scopus.

ALTERNATIVE METRICS – ALMETRICS

Article level metrics help researchers to understand how their research is being used in the digital or online environment through factors such as downloads, page views and mentions in social media platforms. Many publishers such as Elsevier, Oxford University Press, PLos and Springer Nature now provide alternative metrics on the search results page by using the Altmetric bookmarklet or Plum Analytics. You can get the attention that your research is getting from fellow researchers through mentions in Twitter, Researchgate, Facebook and Linkedin.

RESEARCHER IDENTIFIERS AND DISAMBIGUATION

An important aspect of research is to keep track of your research output and to uniquely identify your among many other researchers. There are several author identifier tools that you can use to achieve this.

ORCID – Open Researcher and Contributor ID

This provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes an author from other authors with a similar name. It makes it easier for researchers to compile their research output even if they change their affiliation or if their name is spelt differently in other publications. Researchers are able to compile their profile, research interests, educational qualifications contact details etc.

ResearcherID

Similar to ORCID, this tool free is also able to provide you with a unique identifier. You can also link your ResearcherID to ORCID so that you can enjoy the benefits of using both systems.

Scopus

Scopus allows researchers to create an author profile that includes all their citations that are included in this multi-disciplinary database, even with name and affiliation changes. Researchers are also able to get email alerts when someone cites their articles.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar Profiles provide a simple way for authors to showcase their academic publications. You can check who is citing your articles, graph citations over time, and compute several citation metrics. You can also make your profile public, so that it may appear in Google Scholar results when people search for your name.

How to Spot a Predatory Journal or Publisher

Predatory publishers make false claims about their peer review process in order to charge unsuspecting researchers article processing fees. Most predatory publishers will spam the mailboxes of prospective authors with offers of rapid publication.

Here are some factors you may need to consider:

• Use the Think Check Submit checklist for journals
• Lookup titles in Directory of Open Access Journals
• Lookup titles in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
• Use indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science to check if journal is listed there

You can also follow the links below for more information on identifying predatory publishers.

Criteria for determining predatory publishers

6 Ways to Spot a Predatory Journal

HOW TO INCREASE YOUR RESEARCH VISIBILITY

Activities aimed at increasing the visibility of research output are very important to an academic’s career. Increasing the visibility of research ensures that research results are discovered by a wider spectrum of researchers and in turn the work gets more attention and impact. This also helps in the success of the researcher.

Here are some methods that can help in increasing the visibility of research:

1. Register to get unique author identifiers and create your profiles:

• ORCID
• ResearcherID
• Scopus ID
• Google Scholar

1. Share Outputs of Your Research Through Open Access

Evidence of your research output include research articles, conference, posters, presentations and papers, preprints and research data. By making these publicly accessible, you are increasing the chances of your work getting discovered and cited. Moreover, many funding institutions and universities now require that both publications and their accompanying research data be made available through Open Access.

To make your work Open Access, you can use the following:

• MSU Institutional Repository
• AgEcon(Agriculture and Applied Economics)
• ArXiv– (pre-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics)  
• CiteSeer– (Computer and Information Science)  
• PubMedCentral– is a repository for US federally funded research outputs in Medicine.
• Research Papers in Economics (Repec)is a collaborative effort of volunteers in 86 countries to enhance the dissemination of research in economics and related sciences. It is a bibliographic database of working papers, journal articles, books, books chapters and software components.
• Social Science Research Network(SSRN) – aims at early dissemination of social science, business, law and economics research.  It allows for deposit of both abstract of working papers and upcoming publications as well as full text of published outputs. 

1. Share Your Research Data

Apart from publications, you can also share your research data through various platforms listed below.

• F1000Research – Useful to researchers in Life sciences
• Mendeley Data
• JSTOR Data For Research
• OpenAire
• Dryad
• Slideshare

1. Keep an Updated Online Profile or Web CV

There are a number of platforms that can be used to create profiles where you can capture your research interests, make a list of your publications and highlight your professional accomplishments.

• Google Scholar Citation Profile
• ImpactStory

ImpactStory is a free online platform that permits you to showcase your research outputs (publications, presentations, data, code, posters, etc.) together with measures of their impact.  Impact story uses ORCID profiles to find and import scholarly works.  To make sure that your Impact story has all your outputs, make sure that you import them to ORCID and synchronise your ORCID profile with Impactstory.

• Kudos

This is a relatively new tool that helps researchers promote their research outputs.  It is free to use  and allows you to showcase your publications by creating links to full text. Kudos will always monitor:

• Number of times the publication is downloaded from the publisher’s site
• Number of times the publication’s abstract is clicked on or viewed on the publisher’s site
• Number of tweets posted by author to promote the publication
• Number of Facebook posts by author to promote the publication
• Number of visits to the publication page on Kudos that is generated by sharing activities via email or social media
• Number of times author has sent email to colleagues/friends with link the publication page on Kudos or with the link to the article page on the publisher’s site
• Total number of visits to publication page on Kudos
• A score generated by Altmetric.com (which includes tweets, Mendeley and CiteULike readership)

1. Engage and Participate in Social Networking Communities

Another great way to disseminate your research and gain reputation is through active engagement in research networking communities.  Research networking will allow you to create online profiles, showcase your research outputs, discover communities of interest and take part in discussions by posting and answering questions in your network.  All of them will also let you know about impact of your activates in these networks, for instance downloads of your publications, views of your profile and levels of your activity as compared to others in the network.

• Researchgate
• Mendeley
• Academi.edu
• Linkedin

HIJACKED JOURNALS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM

Bogus academic journals, known as ‘hijacked journals,’ masquerade as reputable publications by mimicking their titles, ISSNs, and other identifying features. Scammers create fake websites to deceive researchers into paying for rapid online publication, exploiting their desire for swift dissemination of their work. 

The creation of hijacked journals involves the unauthorised replication of legitimate academic journals’ online presence, incorporating their International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), title, and copyrighted content. The perpetrators subsequently engage in phishing tactics, targeting researchers via email to deceive them into submitting manuscripts and paying publication fees, thereby facilitating financial exploitation or intellectual property theft.

How can you find out whether a journal is fake or not?

• Before responding to email calls for papers, thoroughly research the journal online, using search engines, forums, and blogs to verify its legitimacy.
• Hijacked journals often offer minimal peer review time. Most of the time, they do not provide any review and accept papers without modifications.
• Most hijacked journals have fake editorial boards without designation, university address or contact information.
• Hijacked journals typically lack clear scope statements, accepting papers on any subject without regard for relevance or focus.
• Hijacked journals typically have basic websites with easy submission processes, often requiring authors to email their papers directly to the editor.

ONLINE TOOLS FOR CHECKING HIJACKED JOURNALS

Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker

You can use Retraction Watch Hijacked Journal Checker, an online tool for checking whether a journal has been hijacked. The tool shows the URL of the original journal and the URL of the fake journal side by side. This tool is continuously updated.

Beall’s List of Hijacked Journals

You can also use Beall’s List of Hijacked Journals (https://beallslist.net/hijacked-journals ). The list also includes links to the original and fake journals.

More on Hijacked Journals

You can find out more about hijacked journals by following the links below:

1. Hijacked journals are still a threat – https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02399-1 
2. Hijacked journals: what they are and how to avoid them – https://clarivate.com/academia-government/blog/hijacked-journals-what-they-are-and-how-to-avoid-them/ 
3. Predatory Publishers and Conferences – https://guides.utmb.edu/Predatory/hijacking
4. How journal hijackers derail academic careers with impunity – https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20231120151519174 
5. Case study: Avoiding submission to a hijacked journal – https://www.editage.com/insights/case-study-avoiding-submission-to-a-hijacked-journal 

Characteristics of Hijacked Journals and Predatory Publishers: Our Observations in the Academic World – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165614716300037

Frequently Asked Questions