UCC Doctoral Showcase 2011

The UCC Doctoral Showcase took place on 21 June 2011. The showcase is a relatively new concept whereby PhD students explain their research to a public, non-specialist audience. I applied to take part in it and was chosen to go through to the final on 21 June 2011.

There were three categories in the showcase:

- the poster competition, where students presented their research on a poster.

- the three minute thesis, where students presented their research in a three minute presentation, using whatever props they thought was necessary and only one powerpoint slide.

- the ten minute thesis, where students presented their research in a ten minute presentation, using props and as many powerpoint slides as they wanted.

As a first year PhD student I could apply for the poster competition or the three minute thesis. I decided to apply for the three minute thesis. Three judges evaluated the entrants and they awarded a first and second prize in each category. I was not successful on this occasion, but will keep practicing my presentation skills. I think it's a valuable skill to be able to describe your research (or anything for that matter) in a succinct and clear manner.

The Showcase brochure.

Twitter

This is a worlde of my blog as it stands at the minute. Yes you read that right. I only heard about Wordle for the first time today and think it is a very effective tool to give you a snapshot of the frequency of words appearing in any given space. I just pasted the URL of this blog into the create box on the Wordle site and it gave me a picture of the most commonly used words in my blog.

The word Twitter seems to be the most prominent word there at the minute - I suppose I have written a good deal about the uses of Twitter in my research. I will be writing a small bit more over the next while. So keep checking the blog for updates.

AFIS annual conference - Lille May 2011

I have just returned from the annual conference for the Association for Franco-Irish Studies (AFIS). It was held in Université de Charles de Gaule- Lille 3, or just Lille 3 for short.

The theme of the conference was 'Les irlandais en France et les français en irlande' or 'The Irish in France and the French in Ireland'. There were three keynote speeches, one by the French journalist, Sorj Chalandon, who reported from Northern Ireland for the French newspaper Libération during the the late 1970s until the 2000s. Professor Marianne Elliott, Director of the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool, delivered a keynote speech on the experience of Wolfe Tone trying to enlist help in France for an Irish rebellion. Professor Jane Conroy from NUIG also delivered a keynote speech on a French visitor to Ireland in the late 18th century.

There was a very wide range of topics covered by the participants who presented 20 minute papers. I presented a paper on Simone Téry - a French journalist who was reporting from Ireland in the 1920s for the French press.

So much preparation must have gone into the organisation of the conference. Well done to AFIS and Lille 3 for organising such a great conference. This is a link to the conference on the Lille 3 homepage:

http://evenements.univ-lille3.fr/colloque-irlandais-francais/en/

Getting answers on Twitter

I sent out my first question into the vast universe of Twitterland and had no idea if I would get an answer, or if I would, when?

Firstly, I did not know how to ask a question. Who would even receive my question, I wondered? I found out by trial and error that my followers would receive the question. I also found out that if I used someones name using the '@' symbol, they would also receive the question.

In total I received three answers to my questions on Twitter. All of the answers were relevant. They gave me the titles of three books that they thought could help me to understand Ireland's history from 1900-22.

I was really amazed when I received these answers. I have changed my opinion of Twitter now that I can see that people can communicate in a positive way on it.

Personalising Twitter

So, without too much difficulty my new Twitter account was set up. As I said earlier, it was a relatively easy process. I have listed below some of the steps I followed to personalise my account.

First of all, I decided that I would use this new Twitter account, not for personal, but purely for research purposes. I wanted to create a profile for myself on the internet, so that others would know of my PhD research.

I began with the 'profile' section and I added a short biography that, as simply as possible, describes my research. I then added a link to this blog, so that visitors to my Twitter account could see what I am writing on the blog. I also plan to add a link on this blog to my Twitter account, if that is possible, to create another connection. For a number of weeks I didn't have any photo in the photo section of my profile, and the default symbol of the 'egg' came up instead. I decided that a personal picture would add to my profile, so I added an unusual picture so as to grab the attention of Twitter users (it's pictured at the top of this post)

Who to Follow?

I searched websites that I use frequently in my research to see if they have a Twitter account. This included media organisations, such as newspapers and magazines and radio and television stations. I also decided to follow local, national and international libraries - so that I could be kept up to date with any new developments in my research area. I am also following universities and colleges to see what's happening in terms of research trends in my area.

45 - that is the number of people and organisations that I am following at the moment. They are mainly based in Ireland and others are in the UK, USA and France.

When I signed up to 'follow' a particular Twitter account, I was advised of similar users and urged to 'follow' them too. In some cases I did, and sometimes I decided not to, as it was not necessary, because the user that I signed up with initially was sufficient to keep me up to date in that area.

Who's Following me?

At this stage there are some 8 people following me. I have not figured out how they found me, or why some of them are following me. Some have similar research interests to me, so I can understand that they would 'follow' me, but some are in no way related the area that I am studying.

First Tweeets

The first tweet I sent out was very short. I was letting people know that the Toastmasters conference was taking place. It has nothing to do with my research, but I am a member of the organisation and wanted to help get the message out there and promote them.

I'm in the middle of researching a French journalist who visited Ireland in the early 1920's. I need to be able to understand what was happening at that time to fully appreciate what she wrote at that time. So my second tweet asked the question: 'What is the best book on Irish history 1900-1922?' I included the hash tag Twitterstorians on my tweet, so that I could catch the attention of historians on Twitter.

My third tweet asked the same question, but this time I used the @ symbol to send my tweet to specific people.

In my next post I will examine the responses that I got to my tweets.

Benefits of Twitter

This little graphic called 'The Four Stages of Getting Twitter' perfectly explains how Twitter works. I found it on a website and couldn't resist using it here to illustrate the stages you have to go through to understand how Twitter works.

Before I attended the research skills module in college, I never thought of Twitter as a research tool. If I'm being honest, I had a very negative attitude towards the micro blogging site. I think my negative attitude was formed by the mindless comments that people used to write on it. For me Twitter's birth was when people would tweet complete rubbish on their account; things like, I'm drinking a cup of tea, or I'm leaving my house now.

Well, for the benefit of the research skills module and my own research, I have tried to look at Twitter with an open mind and forget what I had thought up until now.

From what I have seen so far, Twitter is being used by all kinds of people and organisations. I have seen mega corporations, small and medium sized companies, non profit organisations and individuals use it. They use it to ask for help, to ask questions, to keep up to date with what ever is going on in the world. Some people do not tweet (send out any messages) but instead use it to keep up to date with the their chosen field, be it media current affairs, the price of gold or even .

I think Twitter is similar to an email account, except that people can see your inbox.

Setting up my Twitter account

It was surprisingly easy to open a Twitter account. I was surprised because some online sites can be very difficult to sign up with. I did use Google to search for forums and blogs to help me with any questions I had about the early stages of setting up the account. For example, I was totally new to Twitter, so I did not even know what any of the terminology meant. And there seems to be a lot of new terminology to get used to, things like - tweet, retweet, followers, following, mentions etc.

My next blog post will show how I personalised my Twitter account and used Twitter to communicate with like minded others and ask for advice to do with my research.

Digital research & referencing tools - help or hindrance?

For the next 10 or so blog posts I will be discussing whether or not digital research tools can help me with my PhD research.

In recent years there has been an explosion in the amount of tools available to do coursework or research online. I am talking about referencing and archiving tools such as Zotero, Evernote & Endnote. I'm also talking about micromedia and social media outlets and sites such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook - where virtual scholarly communities can come together to share information and maybe even help each other and find solutions to common challenges.

I will also examine what has been discovered through empirical studies carried out to judge the effectiveness of digital research tools and also the use of social media sites to aid research.