This paper reports on information literacy and management skills training aimed at
doctoral students beginning their research careers. This training was part of an
overall suite of packages of training delivered in academic years 2007/8 and 2008/9.
The courses were developed within the UK Roberts funding remit (Roberts, 2002).
The courses arose from a realization that training postgraduate researchers in using
bibliographic software management tools alone was insufficient to equip some of
them to start an independent literature review or search. While training in Endnote,
the facilitator found that while many students had heard of some online database
resources, this knowledge was, in general, incomplete and patchy. For example,
some students had used Web of Knowledge but were unaware of more specialized
subject specific databases, while for others the situation was more or less the other
way around.