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Astronomy: Research Tools

The best places to find information on astronomy and astrophysics.

LaTeX Templates

Computer programing

Find guides to programing languages by adding "computer program language" to your search. A few examples below.

Research Data Services

The UNM Library's Research Data Services Program provides a wide variety of services in support of effective research data planning, management, preservation, discovery and use.

Consulation & Support

Data Management Planning Support

We are here to help research team develop the most effective plans for managing their research data and in developing the written data management plans that most funding agencies now require as part of funding proposals submitted for their consideration.

  • Data formats
  • Data collaboration, storage and backup strategies
  • Documentation strategies and standards
  • Research area-specific repositories & archives
  • Strategies for meeting publisher data sharing requirements
  • Developing agency-specific Data Management Plans

Data Reference Support

Working in data intensive research areas often requires access to data developed and shared by others. The Research Data Services team in the University Libraries is here to help you in your research activities.

  • Locating data for use in proposals, pilot or research projects and instructional programs
  • Evaluation of alternative data management tools, technologies and strategies
  • Identifying both on- and off-campus collaborators

Data Management Support

Effective research data management often involves thinking about what the entire workflow from initial data acquisition, through analysis and visualization, to publication and sharing. The RDS team in UNM's Libraries is here to help in supporting your end-to-end data management process.

Recommendations for:

  • data management strategies & workflows
  • analysis tools and technologies
  • visualization tools and technologies
  • strategies for meeting computational and data intensive research needs

Integration of research data products into LoboVault, including batch import of large data collections

Support for integration of research data into other repositories

Instruction and Training

Research data management is a continuously evolving discipline in which continuous learning and practice of new skills and strategies is the norm. UNM's RDS team works very hard to stay abreast of ongoing developments in the field and is provides training and instruction for classes, lab groups and individuals in a wide variety of subject areas.

Credit courses:

  • Introduction to Spatial Data Management (OILS 515)

General and Custom Data Management Traning Sessions:

  • data managment first principles
  • data documentation (metadata)
  • collaboration tools (LoboDrive & LoboGit)

Infrastructure

UNM's Dryad Institutional Membership

https://dryad-stg.cdlib.org/stash

Dryad is a general data repository for which UNM has an institutional membership. Our membership supports:

  • Deposits of data collections of up to 300GB in size
  • Provision of a Digital Object Identifier that can be used for citing a data collection and reporting to sponsors and publishers
  • Multiple methods of submission of data and documentation - web interface, linking to external storage systems (e.g. Dropbox), and secure FTP
  • Long-term preservation of data through the California Digital Library's CoreTrustSeal-certified repository.
  • Deposit fees are covered by our institutional membership. There are no costs to researchers.

UNM's Institutional Membership in Dryad is supported by the New Mexico EPSCoR Program through funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF) award #OIA-1757207.

LoboGit - Collaborative Code Development

http://lobogit.unm.edu

LoboGit is a collaborative environment for shared software code development based on the Git version control system. It supports:

  • Synchronization between local and hosted repositories
  • Issue tracking/comments at the level of individual files
  • Wiki for developing shared documentation for collaboration groups
  • Public and private repositories

UNM Digital Repository - Preservation and Sharing

http://digitalrepository.unm.edu/

The UNM Digital Repository is the university's Institutional Repository for archival storage of research data, publications, documents, and documentation. It supports:

  • Portal interface for discovery and access of collections of documents/data
  • Permanent identifiers enabling citation of data/documents
  • Indexed by Google Scholar

Identity and Profiles

There are numerous tools available for scholarly identification purposes. Two broad but related categories include Author IDs and Profile Sites.

An Author ID is a unique identifier used to distinguish you from other researchers who have the same or similar names. Using an author ID can help ensure that all of your publications and research are associated with your profile in databases or online. Signing up for author IDs and making sure that you use them in your C.V. and website is something all researchers can do to make their work more findable and identifiable.

An academic Profile Site is a platform used to identify and showcase academic affiliation, publication history, and professional activities. There are numerous profile platforms targeted to and built around the specific needs of researchers and academics, and many individuals also maintain personal webpages for this purpose. Some platforms provide crossover into networking and publication sharing functionality as well.

ORCID and Researcher ID (Author IDs) as well as Google Scholar profile and and Mendeley (Profile Sites) are used across disciplines. There are also discipline-specific IDs and profiles.

What is it?

ORCID ID

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is an open, non-profit system to provide unique identifiers to researchers working in all fields. It is rapidly becoming a cross-disciplinary standard, and it works with other ID systems as well, which means it can connect different research systems and save you time on entering data.

Some journals now require an ORCID for  article submissions.

How to get one

Go to http://orcid.org/ and click "register now" to obtain an ORCID. 

What it's used for

List your ORCID on your C.V., your web profile, your grants, and anywhere else you provide a list of work.

How to improve your profile and correct errors

Some publications will be automatically loaded when you sign up for ORCID. After signing-in you can manually update publications, add biographical details, or choose to turn on auto-updating for your ORCID record.

What is it? 

Researcher ID is a unique identifier scheme developed by Thompson Reuters and used in Web of Science as well as being compatible with other ID schemes.

How to get one

Go to http://www.researcherid.com/ and click "join now", and enter your information. You will be sent an email; click on the link in the email and finish entering your information (such as your institution name) to create the ResearcherID. You will then be able to link the ID to ORCID.

What it's used for

ResearcherID, like ORCID is used to tell authors with similar names apart and produce profiles of author work. If you use Endnote or Web of Science, ResearcherID ties into these systems seamlessly. You may also use your ResearcherID to easily collect metrics about your work in Web of Science.

How to improve your profile and correct errors

Once you have gotten the ResearcherID, you can add to your publications list by clicking "add publications" and then searching Web of Science, adding a RIS file from Endnote or RefManager, or connecting directly to Endnote. You can also connect to ORCID, and import the publications from your ORCID profile (or vice-versa).

What is it?

If you have publications indexed in Google Scholar, you can create a profile that will show up when people search on your name. It will display your publications, any information you provide, and a set of metrics including h-index.

How to get one

Go to http://scholar.google.com/citations and sign in with your Google account. You will then be asked for your name, affiliation, etc. Next, Google Scholar will automatically suggest publications to add to your profile. Select the ones that are yours to add to your profile. Add your research interests as keywords, which can then be used to search on by people looking for other researchers in a field.

What it's used for

A Google Scholar profile will show up at the top of results when people search for your publications in Google Scholar. It increases visibility of your work by providing a bibliography, indicates which publications are yours if you share a common name. It also shows a citation count to your work, provides an H-index measure.

How to improve your profile and correct errors

See Google's FAQ for answers to how to add missing publications or correct other errors.

What is it?Mendeley Profile

Mendeley is an academic social networking and reference management tool from academic publisher Elsevier. Profiles can include publications and information you provide from your CV.

How to get one

Sign up for an account and profile at: https://www.mendeley.com/

You can also download the Mendeley reference manager tool for your computer or mobile device from this site.

What it's used for

Mendeley can be integrated into many aspects of your workflow. It can be used to profile yourself and your work, collect and organize references, connect and collaborate with other researchers, and obtain statistics related to how your work is being used. Your Mendeley account is also linked to your Elsevier/Scopus author profile.