Last week on the 16th of September I was invited to speak at the Cultural Heritage, European Ethnology and Museum Studies (CHEEMS) seminar for PhD students at the University of Helsinki. The Seminar was about how to have an online presence as a researcher, which can be daunting – particularly to PhD students, who are just getting used to being thought of as ‘researchers’.
The seminar was in two sections. The first was my presentation, where I outlined some of the platforms and methods open to PhD students to advertise themselves. I wanted to highlight that you can use online tools in two major ways: to disseminate your academic work to colleagues; and let the public know about your research.
The second half was a really useful discussion. A lot of it was focussed on Twitter, and I think that reflects just how important it is to connecting and networking academics in the modern world. There was an important comment made, which was that one PhD student pointed out that they don’t remember the last time they read a blog post. Definitely food for thought, considering how many institutions think making a blog constitutes a digital platform.
I definitely learnt a lot from the seminar, and many of the concerns brought up I’m going to take with me in my work on the Science Communications Workgroup at ANEE.
Ellie Bennett 