Web Presence?

[nevermind]

I was wondering if any of you guys have a "Grad student" site (with CV, research interests, blog) on it? I'm thinking about building one (I've been looking at other students' pages) and was wondering what type of strategic content to put on it. So far I have:

-Research interests

-link to download CV

-social media links (LinkedIn, Academia.edu, my Twitter which is professional and engages with scholars on research topics)

-maybe a blog where I can document my research (?)

-a little bio about me that's professional, but shows I have interests outside academia

---

Anything else that I'm missing?

Thanks!

[fuzzylogician]

I started having a website some time during my Masters program or maybe early in my PhD program, I can't remember anymore. I do remember that the earliest versions were basically just one page, with a short bio (research interests, contact info, a picture), link to my CV, and a research section with updates on talks and papers. It didn't make a lot of sense to have separate pages because they would have been pretty sparse.

These days my website has 6 different pages: the top page has basically all the same stuff I listed above, except that the research section is just selected recent/upcoming papers and presentations from the last maybe 6-12 months. I have an about page with more details on my interests and my academic ancestry; a publications page with links to all my papers and talk handouts; a research page that tells more of a narrative about the different projects I'm involved in and lists projects by interest, so I have short blurbs that say roughly "This project goes after question X. X is important because blah. The main findings are ABC," then I list all the papers that have come out of that project; I have a teaching page with syllabi and short blurbs for courses I've developed and materials for some of them; and I have a personal page with some non-academic info about myself and some etymology, because there is something interesting to say about both my first name and last name, and people get curious. 

Some people in my field also link to their social media accounts. I personally don't, though I'm not hard to find. I don't know of anyone who keeps a real blog as part of their website, but some (usually more prominent people) have blogs alongside their website.

[TakeruK]

In our research group meeting recently, our advisor just spent an entire hour discussing the importance of a strong web presence. We talked about what content to include, how to find good web hosts, which software to use to design websites, etc. It was more for the younger/new grad students in our group because most of the older students already had websites. It seems like in my department, most students create this sometime at the beginning of their 2nd year.

Here's some stuff we discussed:

1. You should have your picture, email address, and a brief description about you (e.g. I am a X year grad student studying Y at University Z) in a very easy to access location. Most of the time, when people want to look you up, it's because: i) they want to contact you; ii) they want to see what you look like so they can find you at a conference; or iii) they just met you at a conference (or saw your talk) and want to learn more about you---the info and picture will confirm they got the right person. 

2. It's a good idea to have both a CV as a webpage and a downloadable PDF. In my field, when I am at a conference, I often pull out my phone to tweet about the talk and also to look up the person. It's hard to view PDFs on a phone, so an abbreviated CV as a webpage is appreciated by me and many other phone users at the conference. Also, in the same vein, if you put your twitter handle, I can tweet about your talk with your twitter handle (then you can see it and others can interact with you on twitter) instead of just using your name, which is not linked.

3. We talked about blogs and even looked at some example ones. I think if you do this, it's really important you keep it updated. Some people in my field force themselves to write every day, see: http://hoggresearch.blogspot.com/

4. Research interests---this is important! Use pictures! Avoid jargon---write it at the level that a high school student can understand what you're working on. The advice we got was that the following audiences will be interested: i) other researchers who want to know what else you work on; ii) people considering you for conference talks wanting to know about your areas of expertise; iii) media outlets looking to "contact an expert" about certain topics can find you here

5. Make sure that when people Google search for your name and either your field or your school, that you are the first hit that comes up, not some other random person with your name. One good way to get a high page rank is to have good links. At my school, we can make sure our plain boring School Directory page links to our research website and our advisor links to all of our websites too. This way, if someone looks you up at the school and finds the (useless) Directory page, they can at least get a link to your real website.

6. We talked a little bit about how much personal information to include. I have only one or two sentences about my non-research life. My advisor's bio page is all professional (they talk about where they grew up but in the context of where they went to high school and college). It's all up to how you want to "brand" yourself, for lack of a better term. For thoughts on how to "brand" yourself as a researcher, I'd recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Scientists-Shine-Tough-Times/dp/1597269948

7. You can tell Google to index your webpage---I forgot the steps now but if you search for it, you can explicitly link some info to your webpage.

8. You can use Google Analytics to get data on how people interact with your webpage.

My website has 5 pages and it's very similar to fuzzy's. There is a navigation bar on the top right. The landing page has my picture and 3 sentences about me (I'm a grad student at X. I work with Prof Y to study Z. I use techniques ABC and I am interested in investigating DEF. This page also has my contact info.

The other pages are "Research", which describes my current projects with pictures for each one; "Publications" which lists all of them with links to the article on the journal webpage; "CV" which has text showing my Education, Awards, and Teaching appointments as well as a link to the full CV; and "Personal" which has 2 short paragraphs about me and another picture (not a picture of me). I try not to make my pages very long---I want someone using a laptop to be able to see most of the page content without scrolling (Google Analytics tell you which area of your page is seen by people using various devices).

But fuzzy is right, if you don't have a lot of things to list, it makes sense to just have it on one page. The critical things, in my opinion, are your picture, a few sentences about your position/location and research, contact information and a link to download your CV.

[nevermind]

Thanks @fuzzylogician and @TakeruK for the helpful information. I've worked for the past couple years as a copywriter/content strategist, so I'm not really *too* worried about optimizing web tools for indexing/analytics/etc. I've worked extensively with branding, so developing a personal brand throughout graduate school is pretty key for the eventual job hunt, I suspect. I've seen a lot of different pages (anywhere from half personal / half academic to entirely academic), so it's nice to hear a (sort of) consensus of how to present the information. The live tweeting conferences (complete with twitter handles) didn't even occur to me. I really just wanted my own page to update/link to in addition to the short bio on the student directory.

 

[EdNeuroGrl]

I have had a ton of success on twitter. My twitter account is 95% professional, and 5% business casual. I was so successful that around last November, one of the big names in the field created a Twitter list of Math-Cognition researchers and asked the other big names to identify others on twitter who should be included on the list. Well, I got named (by a potential future PI) and I am on the list now. 

I also have a blog that I don't post on as much as I would like to, but the application process has my perspective all weird and my mind is on the process and it is hard to be objective and approachable in writing about it... So... I'll be able to write in it more once I get something official.

I also have a LinkedIn presence, and a ResearchGate presence. I am less fond of LinkedIn than ResearchGate. RG is really wonderful for finding papers and researchers and staying up with their research and presentations. Anyway, I have had a TON of researchers in my field follow me on RG.

I know a lot of people shy away from the social media presence, BUT I am going to advocate a bit for it. Perhaps you should feel out your field first... for example in my field the list of academics posting on twitter has 54 members (https://twitter.com/tuebang/lists/mathcognitionresearchers) and this is still a pretty small field. I follow 160-ish researchers on ResearchGate and have taught it a few key topics and it now updates me whenever something new is published that is relevant to me. It also gives me the opportunity to see presentations and conference talks that may not be so easy to locate in any other modality. For example, RG just told me that one of my favorite researchers just uploaded a full-text version of a publication I've been wanting to read (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280059917_Rethinking_the_Implications_of_Numerical_Ratio_Effects_for_Understanding_the_Development_of_Representational_Precision_and_Numerical_Processing_Across_Formats).

Anyway, something to consider, I have found all of the above useful for me to gain information and also useful for me to get some name/face recognition out there into the research community that I am trying to get into. :-)

[fuzzylogician]

Also, this: http://www.colinphillips.net/?p=3023 (called Web presence for linguists, but relevant to everyone in academia)

[nevermind]

2 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

Also, this: http://www.colinphillips.net/?p=3023 (called Web presence for linguists, but relevant to everyone in academia)

The example web pages from this site are perfect! Thanks!

[drivingthoughts]

3 hours ago, fuzzylogician said:

Also, this: http://www.colinphillips.net/?p=3023 (called Web presence for linguists, but relevant to everyone in academia)

@fuzzylogician That's a great resource. Now I know what I'll be doing next week instead of writing my thesis - working on my website! Seriously though, that link has some great resources.

[Eigen]

I started one about two years ago, did some SEO optimization, and now it and my school pages are the top hits if you search my name. 

I have a more detailed CV, with reprints of articles, pictures of service activities, and fleshed out descriptions of my research projects. I also have sample syllabi, assignments, etc. 

I do highly recommend Reclaim Hosting- it's run to help students learn how to take control of their web presence, by two faculty members, and costs are pretty heavily subsidized. They're also amazing at support/help in setting up your site. 

[klader]

This is a similar question since it relates to web presence: would you recommend starting a new, professional Twitter when you're just entering grad school?

I have a personal one (that's locked) and that has a bunch of my personal Tweets on it (dating back from high school). I don't think there's anything bad so to say (maybe a few drunk Tweets that I could go back and delete) but it's just a personal account that doesn't relate to academia at all. A lot of my friends follow me on there so I don't really want to delete it, but I'm wondering if it's best to just start a new, professional one to use with people in my field/new classmates and to post about academic stuff?

Thanks!

[pterosaur]

I've had a website for a couple of years (just applying to PhDs this year). Because I'm partly in computer science, I also have links to my Github and information about some of my programming projects. I also use the same domain to host some web project demos, so most of the 2,000 pageviews this month were interested in my web framework project, not me.

One unexpected benefit was that with Google Analytics, I could see where people were viewing from. It meant in a few cases, I could tell when people were reviewing my application at schools I'd applied to!

[TakeruK]

On 3/21/2016 at 10:35 AM, pterosaur said:

I've had a website for a couple of years (just applying to PhDs this year). Because I'm partly in computer science, I also have links to my Github and information about some of my programming projects. I also use the same domain to host some web project demos, so most of the 2,000 pageviews this month were interested in my web framework project, not me.

One unexpected benefit was that with Google Analytics, I could see where people were viewing from. It meant in a few cases, I could tell when people were reviewing my application at schools I'd applied to!

At conferences, Google Analytics was also an interesting way to see if people were actually going to my website after seeing my talk or poster. I can track # of visitors in the timeframe as well as by location (most people would be accessing from the conference location). However, the most interesting thing I've learned from Google Analytics is that web crawlers from Russia make up almost all the traffic on my website lol

[Need Coffee in an IV]

So do you guys think I should have one? I'm not sure how to even create a website. I'm going for my masters and haven't done research. I've had internships, work experience, and know what I want to study for my masters thesis. But I have a feeling that if I created one, it would be very empty/kinda sad looking.

[fuzzylogician]

35 minutes ago, Need Coffee in an IV said:

So do you guys think I should have one? I'm not sure how to even create a website. I'm going for my masters and haven't done research. I've had internships, work experience, and know what I want to study for my masters thesis. But I have a feeling that if I created one, it would be very empty/kinda sad looking.

If you're planning to apply for a PhD, I think you should create a webpage before you start working on your applications. It can be barebones: one page that just lists your interests, current affiliation, and any projects you're working on (papers, presentations -- I assume there won't be enough for separate pages, and that's ok at this stage). You put a link to a pdf of your CV, your contact info, a picture, and that's an entirely respectable one-page website for a beginning researcher. It helps to have a web presence for applications, and if you have Google analytics, it will help you know who is searching for you. There are free services that will help you create a simple website without needing to be at all tech savvy. 

[Need Coffee in an IV]

1 minute ago, fuzzylogician said:

If you're planning to apply for a PhD, I think you should create a webpage before you start working on your applications. It can be barebones: one page that just lists your interests, current affiliation, and any projects you're working on (papers, presentations -- I assume there won't be enough for separate pages, and that's ok at this stage). You put a link to a pdf of your CV, your contact info, a picture, and that's an entirely respectable one-page website for a beginning researcher. It helps to have a web presence for applications, and if you have Google analytics, it will help you know who is searching for you. There are free services that will help you create a simple website without needing to be at all tech savvy. 

Thanks for the info and helping me out! At this stage, I don't think I'll go for a PhD. Maybe after I complete my masters and work for a few years. I'm not completely ruling it out since I didn't think I was going for my masters and here I am. Only thing I regret in my undergrad studies is not gaining much research experience, but I'm planning on fixing that in Texas Tech! I would love to present at GSA in the near future, I love conferences.

[fuzzylogician]

I have a lot less experience with industry, so you should seek advice from people who hold the kind of jobs you'd want to have. But I'd bet some sizable chunk of money that industry employers google potential employees, too. So some web presence is important. But maybe what makes sense is not to have a personal webpage but to maintain a LinkedIn (or similar) profile. You should consult with someone in your field who knows more. 

[Need Coffee in an IV]

@fuzzylogician I do have a LinkedIn, but I should update/keep up with it more. My mentor says that I most likely won't need a PhD unless I want to work at the big time museums like the Smithsonian. I'm really looking forward to grad school and gaining/fine tuning my knowledge. Thanks for taking the time to give advice!