Academics Online: Building your research profile in the digital age

Start date and time

Tuesday 2 May 2017

Location

The Rivers Suite, Craiglockhart Campus

The “Academics Online” workshop on Tuesday 2 May, organised by Dr Ivana Rihova and Dr Nathalia Tjandra from the Business School, allowed the 40 participating academics, ECRs and doctoral students from across the University to consider the benefits but also pitfalls of engaging online and representing oneself and one’s research in positive and constructive ways.
The workshop sessions involved a mix of hands-on digital activities, challenging conversations and cross-discipline networking:
Frances Ryan (PhD researcher, Centre for Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier University) introduced the notion of altmetrics and discussed the importance of building and evaluating online academic reputation.
Dr Nick Blackbourn (Research Content Officer, Edinburgh Napier Marketing & Communications) offered practical tips to find new audiences using the ‘work out loud’ approach.
Dr Vanessa Heggie (University Research Fellow, Institute of Applied Health Research, University of Birmingham) discussed the risks associated with the use of digital media and provided a few hacks and coping mechanisms to deal with any personal, professional and practical challenges.
In the final session, Steven Vass (Scotland Editor, The Conversation) challenged the audience to think of their research in journalistic terms, and provided helpful advice on how to engage wider, non-academic audiences.