The default format for most academic conferences is that of a plenary presentation followed by panel presentations. In this post Duncan Green argues that if we can’t revolutionise conference design, we can at least strive to make standard conferences and presentations better and suggests seven ways in which academic presentations could be improved. I recently attended a big and fascinating […]
Category: conferences
Time to flip your presentation format
Conference presentations often follow a simple narrative format leading to a conclusion and a summation of the findings and implications of the research. However, as anyone who has been to an academic conference can attest, presentations run over time and conclusions are often raced through before moderators call a halt. In this repost, Pat Thomson discusses the benefits of adopting a […]
Visa applications: emotional tax and privileged passports
Researcher-artist Bathsheba Okwenje contrasts the visa requirements for a Ugandan national visiting the UK with a UK national visiting Uganda. While highlighting how some passports carry certain privileges, more hidden is the emotional tax non-privileged passport-holders pay by wanting to explore the world, by needing to prove they are worthy of travel in a country that is not their own. […]
Do the best academics fly more?
Academic flying is often justified on the basis that international conferences and travel are important to the production of new knowledge. As such, travel brings researchers into contact with new ideas, allows them to share and refine their own ideas and therefore improves the quality of their research. However, in this post Seth Wynes argues that beyond a certain level […]
Inclusive conferences? We can and must do better – here’s how.
As social media accounts and hashtags, such as #manelwatch, demonstrate academic conferences often fail to represent the diversity that exists in academia. In this post, Alice Chautard reflects on how conferences can be planned ensure/promote diversity of attendance and inclusivity of participation and presents 10 insights from the best practice guide she co-authored after implementing these inclusive planning principles at the annual REACH […]
“Greetings from Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing” – Should we call time on international academic travel?
Citing the ecological damage caused by the frequent international flights made by academics, Jürgen Gerhards asks: do academics really need to travel so much? He then presents four simple changes that could be made to reduce the environmental impact of international academic travel. Students and lecturers alike are worried about global warming and related climate change. With a clear ecological […]
Think. Check. Attend. Your guide to avoiding predatory conferences
Predatory conferences (conferences promoted to fraudulently make money from attendance fees) are becoming an increasingly common part of academic life. In this post, Mohamad Mostafa presents the Think. Check. Attend. initiative, which provides academics with an easy to use checklist to ascertain if a conference is legitimate or predatory. As an academic, you have probably received many invitation emails asking […]
Think. Check. Attend. Your guide to avoiding predatory conferences
Predatory conferences (conferences promoted to fraudulently make money from attendance fees) are becoming an increasingly common part of academic life. In this post, Mohamad Mostafa presents the Think. Check. Attend. initiative, which provides academics with an easy to use checklist to ascertain if a conference is legitimate or predatory. As an academic, you have probably received many invitation emails asking […]
Still time to submit to OR2019; I’ll be keynoting!
There is still time submit talk proposal for Open Repositories 2019, till January 16th. It’s going to be in Hamburg Germany this year, and there are fellowships available for those with financial need. And I’ll be keynoting! 🙂 Super looking forward to it…. repositories are at the center of so many exciting changes right now. Anyway, […]
Women ask fewer questions than men in academic seminars
During academic seminars, any given question is 2.5 times more likely to be asked by a male than a female audience member. Alecia Carter reports on this research, which suggests that internalised gender stereotypes are at least partly responsible for the observed imbalance, both in men’s participation and women’s lack of it. The findings are important as having models one […]