Online Reports

Cairngorms National Park (CNP) Online Grey Literature Search Protocol

Detailed below is the search protocol used for the online grey literature search or download a PDF Version (PDF | 331KB). There are additional notes in italics to support the updating of this reference list in the future.

Step.1

A list of potential organisation’s websites to search was collected as a basis for research.
Below are key organisations and their website in brackets (Note: Additional guidance related to the Forestry Commission search is available under “Additional Notes”)

• Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) (www.sepa.org.uk)
• Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) (www.nature.scot)
• Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) (www.rspb.org.uk)
• Scottish Environment LINK (www.scotlink.org)
• Forestry Commission (FC) (https://www.gov.uk/search/all?parent=&keywords=&level_one_taxon=&manual=&organisations%5B%5D=forestry-commission&public_timestamp%5Bfrom%5D=&public_timestamp%5Bto%5D=&topical_events=&order=most-viewed)
• Ramblers (www.ramblers.org.uk)
• Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) (www.forestryandland.gov.scot)
• Scottish Forestry (SF) (www.forestry.gov.scot)
• Forest Research (FR) (www.forestresearch.gov.uk)
• Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) (www.jncc.gov.uk)
• Ecosystem Services Community (ESCom) (www.oppla.eu/groups/escom-scotland)
• Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) (www.sruc.ac.uk)

A range of key search terminology was used due to the variability of organisation search functions, in brackets there is feedback about the terminology:

• Cairngorm
• Cairngorms (Often Cairngorm gave the full list of results, however, some sources required “s” to appear in the search)
• Cairngorms National Park (Many returns related to national parks and national research rather than specifically relating to the Cairngorms National Park)
• CNP (Rarely returned any new results after the above terminology had been used).

Due to the robustness of some organisation search tools a Google search of the organisation’s name followed by “Cairngorms” was required to gain as many references as possible.

Step.2

Google search engine was first used

1. To potentially source other websites to search further,
2. To find individual pieces of grey literature that may be relevant to download but not on the key
   organisation’s website,
3. To ensure as many sources as possible were gathered to minimise the risk of organisation’s search tools not being fully comprehensive.

Step.3

Each key organisation’s website search tab was used with the key search terminology as listed above.

Step.4

Returned results titles scanned and a control F search for the key words (Cairngorm & Cairngorms) conducted, a decision was then made whether the source was relevant or not. If potentially relevant, the web link, title and the search platform used were imported into Excel.

Step.5

A further scan of each potentially relevant source was conducted, this was completed by a skim read. Following a skim read, only relevant sources that contained some form of original work in the CNP were downloaded.

Step.6

Relevant sources were then imported to Mendeley, including details such as the author(s), title, dates and sources website.

Step.7

References checked for errors and any discrepancies noted below.

End product – A list of relevant references which mention one of more of the key terminology listed above.

Additional notes:

Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) has been devolved and FCS website no longer has a search function, instead an alternative search was made, listed under key organisations.

Some references are difficult to find on the source’s website and are easier to find through Google, such as “Modelling flooding at Mar Lodge, Cairngorm National Park, Scotland”. Which is easier to find by googling the title or by searching for the author on the source’s website rather than searching for the title on the source’s website.

The general search tab on some organisation’s website does not give the same result as when a filtered search is conducted. An examples of this is at the FR website, different results are given when using the “all publication and research” tab compared to the general search tab on the website.

Some titles of references are not the name of the file, so are difficult to find using the search function for example: “Identifying river restoration sites to deliver multiple benefits in the River Dee” is named “dee-non-technical-summary” on the SEPA website (www.sepa.org.uk). This is the same for “NFI provisional estimates for woodland in the Cairngorms National Park” which is called “Cairngorms National Park woodland” on the FR website (www.forestresearch.gov.uk).