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UniSkills Workshops – Spring 2020
Another year, another jam-packed schedule of UniSkills workshops! What better way to start the decade than making sure you’re equipped with top tips and strategies to succeed in your studies?
To kick start this year’s programme, the Student Engagement Team have put together three extra special workshops under the theme of New Year, New UniSkills. Put those Pinterest skills to good use at Ready, Set, Goal, learn what it means to be academically resilient at Mindset Matters, or simply drop in for a second-eye over those comments at Feedback Focus.
And, if that’s not enough to put a spring in your step this semester, our timetable is back with all your usual favourites. Master those pesky in-text citations at Harvard Referencing, avoid accidental plagiarism with Become a Paraphrasing Pro, and say goodbye to presentation jitters with our welcoming community of practice, UniSpeaks. Usually held over a lunch time in Catalyst, integrating a workshop (or two, or three!) into your weekly routine has never been easier.
Never been to a UniSkills workshop before? Never fear! As much as we love seeing familiar faces (you know who you are), our sessions are welcome to everyone – not to mention they’re a brilliant way to meet students from beyond your course.
Don’t forget to pick up our latest timetable when you’re next on campus (rumour has it there’s some lurking by the Catalyst printers), but in the meantime here’s what’s in store:
- Grow Your Academic Resilience
- Become a Paraphrasing Pro
- Returning to Learning
- Conducting a Literature Review
- Introduction To Critical Thinking
- Many more here!
As much as we’re sure we’ve got you covered with the above, do let us know in the comments below if you think of any other workshop ideas that might help get your academic cogs into gear.
So, diaries at the ready and in the meantime – we’re all ears!
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Want to get your research out there?
Some tips for promoting your research online and tracking how it’s doing
After doing the research and getting your outputs published, it can feel like the dissemination will surely take care of itself – you can tweet it, make it open access on Pure (if the publisher allows) and let your networks do the rest right? This works to an extent, but there are some great tools out there to push it even further.
Figshare
Set up in 2019, Edge Hill Figshare is a home for any research materials worth sharing that don’t have a home elsewhere such as datasets, figures, conference presentations, or posters. These can be added to Pure in some cases, but Figshare visualises them an brings them to life. For example, by sharing a poster in Figshare like this PhD student has done, you can connect it to a global community, give it a DOI, and track any views, downloads, or altmetrics activity. This exposure also provides an opportunity direct traffic back to your research outputs. To get started, just go to the site, log in and share something. Learning Services can provide, help, advice, or training sessions.
Altmetrics
Altmetrics track research impact via social media channels, websites, policy documents, blogs, Wikipedia, etc. They demonstrate impact far quicker than citations, and can track engagement beyond academia. For example, one 2019 study about how the human gaze can deter seagulls swooping to take food like chips received global exposure across news media, and this is reflected in the altmetric count, but in academica it has yet to accrue many citations.
An Altmetric ‘donut’ showing the score received by the paper ‘Herring gulls respond to human gaze direction’. The different colours represent different sources of impact. Workshop: ‘Promoting Research Using Social Media’
On 25 March 2020, Dr Costas Gabrielatos from English, History and Creative Writing is running this workshop. It discusses the combined use of academic networking websites (e.g. Research Gate, Academia) and social media to make reseach visible and accessible. All staff and research students are welcome – either book via MyView or email [email protected].
‘Maximizing dissemination and engaging readers: The other 50% of an author’s day: A case study’
This paper has some great tips for disseminating research across and beyond our regular bubbles echo chambers. This includes harnessing the power of influencers and taking the opportunity of conference hashtags.
The Conversation
A recent article in The Conversation published by an Edge Hill academic Definitely worth trying, this platform enables researchers to work with journalists to present their research for broader audiences and reach new readers. The company is coming on campus in February and March and you can book a one-to-one with one of their highly expereinced editors.
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New Year, New UniSkills!
January is the perfect time to wipe your slate clean and set some study resolutions for the year ahead. Whether you’re a chief procrastinator or struggling to decode feedback, UniSkills have curated a selection of motivation-boosting workshops to have you back on track in no time.
Ready, set, goal!
Monday 20th January 2020
This creative session will help you visualise and set achievable academic goals
Need some motivation this January? Visualising your academic success can help inspire you to set goals and keep you motivated. Be prepared for this semester and beyond by joining us to creatively explore academic goal-setting strategies. This workshop will help you to think about how academic success might look to you, and will offer you the chance to create a visual representation of this to take away. Secure your place now.
Mindset Matters
Wednesday 22nd January 2020
Come along to this session and find out why your mindset matters to your success
Whilst success and getting things right is brilliant, we can also learn a lot from our mistakes. How we approach setbacks and failure can depend greatly on our mindset, this session will therefore provide you with tips to help foster your growth mindset and move away from fixed mindset thinking. If you want to think about why you study the way you do, how you could make changes and become a more resilient student – then this is the session for you! Secure your place now.
Focus on Feedback
Friday 24th January 2020
Join us at this drop-in session to get the most out of your assignment feedback
Your tutors provide a wealth of constructive comments and suggestions, but do you always know how you can improve your future work based on their advice? If you’re unsure, then this is the session for you. We’re here to help you make the most of your feedback, so that you can put together a plan and put it into action. All you need to do is bring along your feedback and get planning! Secure your place now.
Ready to channel your inner artist, reboot your mindset or conquer your ‘criticality’ once and for all? Book your place on the above workshops here, or speak to the Catalyst help desk team.
