D8 - Visualising research with infographics: theory and practice

Workshop overview: 

Infographics provide a great way of communicating insight in reports, on social media, in presentations, or posters. As researchers there's no shortage of material to work with, qualitative as well as quantitative. However there's little guidance out there on how to get started and how to get the best out of their use.

With an increasing demand to support researcher development and meet their diverse  learning and development needs, a focus on infographics is one way to provide relevant and value added support and development opportunities for / to researchers. 

Following an introduction to the visual representation of information, delegates will be invited to participate in a series of short group and individual exercises designed to stimulate their creativity:

1. In small groups, participants will introduce themselves to each other (10 minutes);

2. Groups will analyse and critique examples of graphical abstracts from different fields (15 minutes);

3. Each group will feedback to the workshop as a whole (10 minutes);

4. Workshop facilitators will share practice and learning from their experience in infographics (10 minutes);

5. Using materials provided, participants will create one-page infographics to explain their research (25 minutes);

6. Participants will share and annotate the infographics created (5 minutes).

The session will be concluded, linking back to the key pedagogic foundations of the workshop theme. Participants will be asked to evaluate the session and provide feedback. There will be time for questions at the end. 

The workshop will: 

• Provide an introduction to infographics 
• Explore how, when and why infographics might be useful to researchers
• Share practice and learning from our experiences 
• Share ideas and considerations of implementing Inforgraphics training
• There will be an opportunity to discuss how other Institutions are addressing the challenge of implementing infographics training
• Support the engagement, influence and impact RDF domain D and Knowledge and intellectual abilities domain A.

Workshop topics covered: 

• Infographics in research 
• Creating an infographic
• Common pitfalls
• Graphical abstracts
• An Introduction to Infographics Training for HE / researchers
• Multimodal presentation of research ideas
• Creative approaches to research
• Reflective practice in research
• Implementing  Infographics  for researchers and researcher developers
• Case study: University of Warwick with examples of a implementing Infographics in L&D provision 

Themes covered:

• Engaging research leaders, principal investigators and supervisors to transform professional development of researchers and embed professional development in the research environment
• Developing a pipeline of research talent, including widening participation, strategies to attract and retain research talent, and approaches to mainstreaming equality and diversity for researchers in the research environment
• Leadership development of early career researchers including researchers’ as leaders in different disciplines
• New and successful ways of supporting researchers’ mobility including international, inter-sectoral, interdisciplinary and virtual mobility
• Researcher development within structured doctoral programmes, including perspectives on doctoral training centres/ partnerships, Innovative Training Networks (ITNs) and other cohort based models; including European and international collaborations and organisational benefits and challenges in managing diverse researchers’ experiences
• Researcher development across boundaries including international collaborations, inter-cultural competences, international researchers’ experiences, business/industry collaborations and engaging society through open research.

Workshop outcomes: 

Participants will leave with:

• An understanding of the key pedagogic, social and cultural influences driving this emerging trend for graphical and visual representation of information and creativity in research
• An improved understanding of infographic best practice
• An understanding the steps to develop an infographic 
• Experience of peer reviewing and critically evaluating example graphical abstracts, analysing their effectiveness at communicating information
• Experience of creating an infographic-style poster of their topic of choice
• An understanding of implementing an infographics provision in HE
• An opportunity to share experience/ practice from other institutions and consider alternative examples of infographics L&D provision options
• Knowledge of resources available to help them create visual information and develop creative, multi-modal approaches to the dissemination of their research

Format:

Presentation, information, discussion, interaction, creation, reflection, critical evaluation. Participants should be prepared to talk about how they communicate their research during the discussions.