Heather Doran

A round up of the best things that I have discovered online this week. Covering everything from posts on public engagement with research, how we use social media and other good stuff. I posted this week about PhD students and their use of social media. Are they really as 'switched on' as people seem to think? You can read it here . 1) LIFESAVING TOOL:  TRIPIT   This app is incredible if you travel quite a lot. It can; collate your itineraries, automatically plans routes from place a to b (e.g. if you arrive at Airport X and staying at Hotel Y it plans a route between them), sync with your diary and can include meeting details and locations. By far the best bit about this app is that YOU DON'T HAVE TO INPUT ANY INFORMATION!! You can either forward booking confirmation emails to Tripit or give Tripit access to your email account and then TA-DA!, you have a list of where you are going, how you are traveling, the times and your ticket details all in one place. PERFECT.

A round up of the best things that I have discovered online this week. Covering everything from posts on public engagement with research, how we use social media and other good stuff. I posted this week about my upcoming trip to North America to look at the communication of science via social media. If you missed it, you can read it here .  1) LIFESAVING TOOL:  Freedom thanks to @DrMRFrancis for this one. It's an app that blocks the internet so you can concentrate when you need to. You just let the app know how long you need to stay offline and that's it, work away. I think this might be one for the thesis writers!  2) ONLINE DISCUSSION:  The #NASINTERFACE discussion on trust in science This roundtable discussion with academics and journalists looked at aspects of trust and public perceptions of science. There were some interesting side conversations on Twitter and you can view the talks online. It was focused on the life sciences (just to add some context).

  Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/balleyne/2668834386/   This June 1 - 26 I am heading to North America to undertake the first part of my Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travel Fellowship focusing on online science communication. I've created a travel map so others can see where I am and when. I'm keen to connect with people as I go (and I will add to this map as I travel). Follow my journey through my Twitter account and through my blog (you can subscribe via the grey box on the right hand side of the page). 'Public engagement with science online' is clearly a very large area so for this part of my trip and in the time frame I have I will be focusing my efforts on these three questions: Can quality two-way dialogue and engagement between scientists and the public take place on social media? What training and environment is needed to foster this quality two-way dialogue? What can go wrong and how can that be managed? These questions are broa

A round up of the best things that I have discovered online this week. Covering everything from posts on public engagement with research, how we use social media and other good stuff. I posted this week about 'digital detoxing'. If you missed it, you can read it here .  1) LIFESAVING TOOL:  Unroll me A lifesaver for anyone with an inbox overflowing with subscriptions. Sign up and collate your 1000s of daily emails into one easily readable digest. In a week it's made me a happier person. (And it's calmed all of my friends down as they don't need to get stressed out at the 11512905 unread email notification on my phone.)   SAY NO TO THIS MANY EMAILS.  2) ONLINE DISCUSSION:  Socializing Scholarly Communications   A panel discussion about science blogging and scientists' use of social media that took place this week at the Advancing Research Communication and Scholarship conference in Philadelphia (#arcs2015)  A great overview of what

Image from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dirkb86/8444929253/ This January I visited London for an interview. I was feeling nervous and excited and, as I usually handle challenging situations, I tweeted about it. People on twitter offered words of encouragement and support. Some of the people that tweeted I have met and know well, others I only know through twitter (and I don't even know their real name). With all of these people I have built relationships completely online and we have shared advice, interesting news stories and silly memes. The tweeting helped, I found at the end of February that I was successful. The twitter conversations I had just before the interview helped me get through the interview, and reinforced my feelings about why I was there. The interview was for a project focusing on how science is shared via social media with the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust . The project is a Travel Fellowship and I'm going to be meeting with people across the US

Last week I was invited to speak at a Biomedical careers event at the University of Aberdeen about Careers in Science Communication. I thought others might find the presentation useful (especially some of the links) so I have included it below. I put a post out on twitter for gif's and images that encapsulated the 'field' of science communication. The brilliant Matthew from Errantscience.com  created these two gems. Ways to do #SciComms comic based on extensive research :P pic.twitter.com/Gh01122Rjn — Matthew (@MCeeP) February 11, 2015 . @hapsci and this is one I just drew on a whim pic.twitter.com/w20vB64BVL — Matthew (@MCeeP) February 10, 2015 I only had a limited amount of time for the talk so I gave a little background about what I did as a student (Editor and co-founder of Au Science Magazine) and how I have worked at science festivals and present the Talking Science radio show with the team in my current role. I spoke about the field

Follow my blog with Bloglovin So my thesis has been published online on the University of Aberdeen Library page. You can read it by clicking here .  It has the very snappy title 'GPR30 and ERα36 and their potential role in breast and endometrial cancers' This is my lay abstract: Oestrogen is a hormone that is mostly associated with the development of sexual organs and the female monthly menstrual cycle. However, it is also known to play a role in breast cancer. The presence of oestrogen can make some breast cancers grow and in the 1970s ‘anti-oestrogens’, like tamoxifen, were developed which have successfully prevented the growth of some breast cancers by blocking the action of oestrogen. Oestrogen causes this growth by binding to specific ‘receptors’ in the body. The anti-oestrogens work by blocking the oestrogen binding to the receptor. Some breast cancers do not have the receptors and therefore can’t be treated with anti-oestrogens. These types of cancers tend to be

These are the slides I used for the session on social media and the PhD at the  PhD Journey Conference  in Aberdeen.     If you are interested in learning more about social media you might want to look at my: online tools for conferences how to use twitter

I wanted to create something to visually represent different types of research communication. I wanted to get the point across that not all communication is public engagement, similarly not all blogs or social media is public engagement, or journalism. But some are. I think there is a place for all of these in research communication different people contribute to different parts in different ways and amounts.   Please note, this diagram is not based on data and it isn't supposed to represent relative contributions to science communication (although if anyone had any ideas/data so I/we could do that it would be amazing). It represents overlaps. I wanted to use this with researchers to show how varied research communication is. Any feedback or suggestions would be great!