B8 - How to use Webinars to support researcher development

Workshop overview: 

Providing effective support for researchers at all stages, from postgraduate, early career and research academic, is integral to ensuring both a successful doctoral experience and developing REF-ready researchers. However, the geographical displacement of doctoral students and researchers can often hinder the effectiveness of face-to-face development activities. This workshop provides an opportunity to examine how webinars can provide developmental activities informed by the Vitae framework. The workshop will explain how the University for the Creative Arts coordinates, promotes and facilitates webinars to support researcher development across its four campuses and strengthen research networks across and beyond the University. Participants will also have the opportunity to identify the barriers to using webinars in their own institution, discuss potential solutions, and have the opportunity to consider how to develop their own researcher development webinar programme.

Workshop topics covered: 

• The benefits and challenges of using webinars for researcher development
• The technical skills required to plan, promote and facilitate webinars
• Experiences of webinar participants 
• Small group activity to enable participants to develop a programme of webinars  

Themes covered: 

• The contribution of researcher development to developing REF-ready researchers
• Innovative use of the Vitae researcher development framework

Workshop outcomes: 

By the end of the workshop, participants should: 

• Have a greater awareness of how they might use webinars to deliver aspects of their service
• Have identified the potential organisational and skills barriers that they will need to address to provide a successful webinar programme

Format: 

• Introduction – power point presentation
• Small group exercise
• Small group presentations
• Summing up