Prerequisites¶
| Prerequisite | Importance | Skill Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Research | Helpful | Beginner | An understanding of open research practices is useful for creating a personal website. |
| Blogs for Research Communication | Helpful | Beginner | Blogs for research communication can be part of a personal website. |
| Making Research Objects Citable | Helpful | Beginner | Gain understanding of how to make your research objects citable. |
Summary¶
This chapter explores the importance and benefits of communicating your skills and your research via various pathways. At the moment, we included two pathways: a personal website and a narrative or evidenced-based CV. Those two pathways gives you some freedom to present what you consider to be the most important first, and gives the opportunity to explain what you did, why you did it and where it brought you, while online profile on social media website or on orcid are restricted in what you can present..
The section on personal websites provides a general structure with common components and content suggestions for developing personal websites. Then, coding and non-coding website generators with different levels of complexity are discussed, explaining their features and differences. Several deployment options and maintenance strategies are also presented, helping researchers to choose the best solution for their needs.
The section on narrative or evidenced-based CVs explains what these CVs are, why they are currently used in research evaluation, and how you can start with writing one. The section contains examples and tips on how to write a narritive CV, and contains an overview of what type of research objects you can include in the CV.
Both sections conclude with a list of additional resources.
Motivation and Background¶
It is important to advertise your research skills and outputs via various pathways to increase your visibility as a researcher. Examples are a personal website or a narrative CV. Both a personal website and a narrative CV allow you to take control of your narrative, showing what you consider to be important in your career path instead of having a pre-defined structure or ‘box’ of what is expected (as is the case in platforms like LinkedIn or the traditional CV).
A personal website is an online space where researchers can share their work and additional interests with a broad audience. It can serve as a platform to present research findings, projects, talks, publications, CV or resume, and other professional information. But this space is not necessarily limited to academic content; it can also be a place to share personal interests, hobbies, and other activities. As a result, this website can be customised to express the individual’s unique identity and values. This online presence can help researchers expand their visibility, engage with a wider audience, connect with potential collaborators, and even create new career opportunities.
The narrative CV aims to reward a broader set of research-related activities beyond peer-reviewed publications. It values diverse contributions and career paths in research. This will lead to more inclusion and diversity in research, as well as encouraging a more responsible manner of using metrics. It also allows researchers to place focus on activities that they value, instead of being limited by a restricted amount of criteria.