UIUC Library
Research and Publication Committee (RPC)
 

Helping you with your research needs...

A ready source of support and guidance on research projects is available to librarians at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Research and Publication Committee was established to:
Explore the following links to learn more about:

The Application Process

RPC welcomes inquiries and applications for funding. The Application Form and Guidelines for the Narrative Proposal and  Policies for Award Approval are available through this site. 

The application process is simple and straightforward:  after you have completed filling in the Application form and have prepared your Narrative Proposal, send these to the RPC Chair by email attachment.  If there are multiple principal investigators involved, please modify the application form so the pertinent contact information is given for each PI.  Please also submit a CV for each PI.

Generally the RPC is able to act on requests within a week, though complex requests may take longer.  Applications may be submitted at any time; there are no "deadlines for submission".

Applicants are urged to seek the assistance of committee members in preparing their proposals. 

When preparing applications, please review  the RPC's Policies for Award Approval and the Guidelines for the Proposal Narrative (which is attached to the Application Form), carefully!  Also consider whether your proposal might be eligible for full / partial funding by other campus resources.

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research has created a new fact sheet, which provides investigators summarized information about the various ethical and regulatory requirements for the responsible conduct of research. Please read Responsible Conduct of Research (http://www.research.uiuc.edu/rcr/)

RPC support and services:

PapersINVITED.

The RPC has funded access to this electronic research tool for the entire campus community, but we did it with YOU, the faculty librarian in mind! PapersINVITED is a searchable database of calls for papers, posters and publications from professional bodies, universities, journal editors and other conference organizers. Sign up at the site, and create a customized area with just your research areas listed.

Once in PapersINVITED, click on "Options" to define your research areas, which may be broadly defined using one of their general categories (e.g., Library and Information Sciences) or specifically delimited by keyword (e.g, OAI; Open Access; etc). You may also elect to receive personalized auto-alerts based on your research areas of interest.

Lectures, colloquia, and RPC Research Brown Bag Lunches:

Since 1971, RPC has assisted in the professional development of Library faculty by sponsoring lectures, seminars, workshops, and brown-bag series that provide information about research methodologies. The Committee engages in cooperative program planning with other campus units interested in library research to highlight research findings, trends in librarianship, and research techniques. 

To learn more about the current brown bag series, please visit the RPC Research Brown Bag Lunch Schedule.  For previous series (2002-2005), please see here.

Advice, advocacy and support:

RPC advises Library faculty members on the design and execution of their research projects, especially choice of methodology and possible funding sources. Committee members are available to assist Library faculty in preparing grant proposals to other campus funding sources. RPC monitors Library and campus policies to ensure that information on strategic and financial support for research is up-to-date.

RPC Funding for research:

One major function of RPC is providing financial support for research projects conducted by Library faculty. The Committee meets regularly to review funding requests for a wide range of research projects. By providing peer review of proposed research, RPC helps faculty members devise appropriate conceptual structures and methodologies. Many research expenditures are eligible for support, including:

Specifically excluded items include:  (see Policies for Award Approval, for more details)

Research funded by the RPC from 1990 to the present has covered a wide range of subjects in the social sciences, humanities, and sciences.  Library science was the most heavily represented, with bibliographic and collection guides, works in library history and the history of books, and studies of collection development policy, online systems, and users.  Research in other disciplines, such as history, art history, and musicology, has also been funded.  Research travel and  short-term undergraduate/graduate student hourly assistant wages comprise the bulk of funded requests. Take a look at the projects that have been recently funded for a better idea of the range of services the RPC has funded.  Also take a look at the Policies for Award Approval, for additional information concerning the types of research needs RPC can and can not fund.

RPC funding focuses on short-term, discrete projects. Start-up funds may also be provided for larger-scale or longer-term projects.  

Additional campus sources / resources for funding for research:

RPC's grants are a readily accessible source of funds to assist Library faculty with their research. In addition, the campus has several other sources of support for research and travel available to the Library faculty.  Here are brief descriptions of these other sources, with links to their web sites.

So, you want to do a survey? Local survey resources:

First, of course, you'll want to review the information from the UIUC Institutional Review Board, concerning research involving human subjects. Here's a clarification of the IRB policy concerning surveys conducted by students, that was forwarded to the Library Faculty by Paula Kaufman (8/05); presumably the guidelines for using surveys in research are similar.

UIUC Campus Survey Research Resources: Services, Software and Advice on Designing, Creating, Collecting and Analyzing Your Survey is a Word table created by the UIUC College of Education's Office of Educational Technology that summarizes local survey resources. Amongst the services mentioned:

There are a lot of professional software packages for conducting web surveys. The University of Illinois has negotiated agreements to provide three different survey tools to members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The three survey tools are SurveyMonkey, Survey Gizmo, and ZipSurvey. Please see the CITES Online Survey Tools web site for further information. Please note that it is an RPC policy not to fund software requests. However, for research purposes and on a case-by-case basis, we may consider funding the licensing cost for a survey instrument.

You may find the following article by Vivek Bhaskaran to be useful: Preparing an Online Questionnaire - How to Conduct an Online Survey. Several Library faculty have highly recommended the following book: Conducting Research Surveys via E-mail and the Web, which is available electronically through a link in our Catalog.

Photocopy cards:

Photocopy cards for research purposes are available to faculty in 200- or 400-copy amounts.  Requests for cards can be made by sending a simple email to the RPC Chair, with the title of your research project. Only one card will be issued at a time but faculty may request up to $75 worth of cards / year.   Requests for more than 400 copies at a time, or for funds to photocopy at other institutions, should be submitted to the Committee on a regular RPC Application Form.

Note:  The RPC also provides the funds for a Library faculty photocopy card in the Library & Information Science Library.  Use this card to photocopy materials in the LIS library for your research.  Ask for this card at the LIS circulation desk.

Portable PCs and other equipment to loan:

RPC equipment is housed and managed by Library IT as part of the Library Equipment Pool. To request RPC equipment, go to the Library IT website, follow the link for "Loanable equipment" and fill out the Library Equipment Loan Request.

 Membership:

Any comments or suggestions about this page? E-mail: Alvan Bregman, RPC Chair.

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07/18/2008