Last month, on May 25th 2023, I enjoyed the novelty of participating at a RIVAL network event not as an organiser, but as an invited speaker. Expertly coordinated by Dr Bruce Ryan and Professor Diane Pennington, the event was funded by Edinburgh Napier University with additional sponsorship from McMaster University, Canada (the keynote speaker was Professor Brian Detlor), CILIPS, and SLIC.
My role on the day was to present an evaluation of the RIVAL network’s activities that the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) funded between 2019 and 2021. The slides for my presentation are available on SlideShare.
Please click the image to see the presentation slides
The presentation content drew primarily on the empirical study which formed the core of the Journal of Documentation article that I and the other members of the RIVAL team at Edinburgh Napier University – Dr Bruce Ryan, Rachel Salzano, and Katherine Stephen – co-authored last year. (The full text manuscript of the article is also freely available from the Edinburgh Napier repository.)
In this work we established that RIVAL was successful in meeting its broad aim ‘to create a collaborative network of Scotland-based Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers and library and information professionals interested in maximising the value and impact of research’. Over the course of the funded programme, new connections were fostered, existing relationships were strengthened, and sectoral sub-networks developed within the group. It was also evident from the data analysed in the study that those who participated in RIVAL network events had a willingness to share their contacts further. The diversity of the network was regarded a strength, the Scotland-wide initiative valued, and the mode of project delivery considered conducive to network development.
The other main findings from the evaluation relate to (1) the impact of network participation on LIS practitioner roles and (2) learning from RIVAL participation. In respect of the former, the practitioner RIVAL network members felt that RIVAL had given them greater confidence as research users and research partners. As well as gaining a general appreciation of the LIS research environment, network members highlighted learning about the measurement of research impact, processes associated with the execution of academic research, and means of communicating research results. The majority indicated that they had already put this learning to use, for example to help direct service provision or communicate research ideas.
Towards the end of the funded programme in 2020/21, the RIVAL network members worked in teams to generate four outputs. I spoke about these in my presentation with reference to the teams’ levels of success in meeting their goals. Team B published a practitioner-oriented article about the network as planned in March 2021. In the same month, Team D also completed the RIVAL project report. While Teams A and C did not realise their outputs as initially envisaged, a degree of success for each can be reported: a fifth RIVAL event took place (i.e. the event on 25th May 2023); and one research grant (so far) has been won as an indirect consequence of the RIVAL network membership of individuals from Edinburgh Napier University, Glasgow University, and the National Library of Scotland.
During the presentation I also spoke about the limitations of our RIVAL evaluation work. The main one is that we conducted the evaluation very soon after the end of the funded programme. This was too early for the true impact of RIVAL to be felt. In addition, while the analysis of data collected for our evaluation indicates that we were successful in meeting the broad aim of RIVAL, i.e. to create a network, we did not explore the nature of this network in any depth. A key question is whether the network established with RSE funding between 2019 and 2021 will endure and develop further in the future.
The slide show below includes some photographs that I took on 25th May, including images from the delegate visit to the Library of Mistakes at the end of the day.
For details of the other activities at the RIVAL reunion on 25th May 2023, and to access the event resources (including presentation videos), please see the event review on Edinburgh Napier University’s Social Informatics Research Group’s blog.
Hazel Hall 