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Hi all-sorry for the late post (I had family in town all day yesterday).
Caitlin, thanks as always for organizing the Summer Camp. The questions that you pose are excellent ways to reflect on our professional practice. I’m sketching out some ideas over the next few weeks about how to incorporate HC work into one of my classes this term; work that comes directly from our discussions. While I won’t be able to facilitate in August (because my diss prospectus isn’t going to write itself), I’m looking forward to the next wave of conversations. Until then…
/C
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‘morning folks.
Thanks to @caitlinduffy49 for inviting me to moderate today’s discussion. In addition to everyone’s posts and responses to Caitlin’s questions and prompts, I’ll offer that thinking about your profile and sites should be an ongoing process. Just as creative or analytical writing is a form of knowledge formation/construction, website design and crafting also falls into this form of intellectual production. I’ve been able to use both my HC profile and the few sites I’ve created over the years as a place to work through how I represent my Ph.D. studies to public audiences. Thinking about profile and site design includes not only considering the work that you want to showcase, but also how you want other scholars, students, or potential employers to see you. For me, and I’m sure all y’all have your anecdotes as well, the HC profile has been a valuable way for me to constantly refine, enhance, and reflect on my professional practice. If nothing else, our profiles can serve as always-flexible way of organizing who we are as scholars, not simply a static representation of ourselves that’s found (say) on our departmental web pages.
I’ll offer more ideas (if necessary) as the day progresses, but I’m frankly interested in reading what y’all are doing with your profiles, sites, and other projects related to HC’s digital resources.
Happy Camping!
/Charlie
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One area I think that HC can help its members with is the sharing of readings/exam materials. Yes, we’re all interested in posting our working papers and articles, but there’s real value in emerging scholars posting their comps reading lists, as well as departments posting mock lists, expected PhD readings, and similar documentation. To this end, I’ve posted my Southern Literature/Studies and Contemporary Print Culture exam list (here), and found a few examples from Digital History (here) via @hepplerj and a set of examination readings (here) via @professorsmoores. In tying this to yesterday’s discussion thread, perhaps there’s value in creating a “Share Your PhD Reading List” group in HC as a resource for all disciplines to contribute to and share?
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So…groups have always been tricky for me. I tend to find that (in my areas anyway) that the volume of posting papers/etc. far outweighs the discussion (for the record, I’m equally culpable in publishing material rather than engaging in discussion). I regularly search for topics and groups in and around print culture, book history, and southern studies, but there’s almost no discussion of these topics on HC. Granted, I could look at this absence as an opportunity, but given the commitments to existing conversations via listservs and social media, I wonder what the labor/time cost would be in adding ‘one more’ venue for discussion.
Does anyone else have a sense of how active/widespread HC discussion groups are? Are there solid examples of lively HC communities that aren’t replicated on other platforms? I’m certainly open to contributing or even starting a group, but hesitant about reading and writing into an academic void.
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Hi folks! Thanks for the thoughtful start to summer camp. While I’ve been working on my profile this summer in preparation for a soft entry onto the job market this fall, I overlooked the value of posting my upcoming conferences and invited workshops for the fall. As we consider the value of our profiles – not only as a showcase but as a tool to connect with other scholars – I’m finding it useful to search for folks on HC who will also be at these conferences.
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Hi folks. First off, thank you to <span class=”handle-sign”>@</span>caitlinduffy49 for facilitating HCSummer Camp as well as to everyone else who’s ideas and work I had the chance to read and think about over the past few weeks. Secondly, and in a combined response to both Challenge #5 and #6, I’ve updated my HumCom site and written a bit about my thinking and plans for a digital presence in the coming academic year. Best of luck to everyone in the Fall semester.
/Charlie
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I appreciate this challenge largely because I’ve been remiss in mining the CORE for my research. Additionally, I’ve been thinking about using the CORE for teaching introductory lessons on bibliography and research, especially in pointing students towards the strengths and limitations of databases and archives. I’ve previously uploaded every piece of my writing that’s beyond the initial draft stage, so instead, I’ll shamelessly plug the syllabus for the “Writing History: 19th Century African Amerian Activism” course that I’m teaching this fall. Your feedback is warmly appreciated. Finally, I’m looking forward to reading work by fellow summer campers @adonlon and @brigfield in between grading Freshman Comp papers this week.
/C
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Thanks, Caitlin. I was just having a similar conversation with an international organization that I consult for (we were talking about online professional development/teacher training) One of the ideas we were kicking around was crafting best practices/guidelines for folks to consider when the run or participate in groups. These could include the idea of hangouts, even ones based on time zone/geography to make the meeting times more accessible to members. Regardless of whether this occurs in the platform, via video, or through social networks (I don’t do Facebook, but Twitter is home to, for example, educational-themed chats), the thinking could be to empower groups to consider these options as a way of fostering engagement in their particular fields.
/C
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One thing that I’ve seen work on listservs are regular hangouts (Google works well, so too can Skype I gather) amongst members. Sometimes these can be lightning talks two mins to talk about your research, themed hangouts and discussions, or even panel planning for upcoming cfps and conferences. Another idea the HC folks may want to consider is expanding challenge-based (like Summer Camp) work within groups, rather than merely hoping that conversation will emerge organically. One of the downsides to these approaches is that most of us are already doing these sorts of things in other settings (Twitter, Facebook, listservs, etc.), or that HC discussion groups are just ‘one more’ platform for us to get involved. Given the time pressures we all face at our various career stages, I wonder exactly how many of us can commit to setting aside an hour each week to chat with our colleagues on HC?
/C
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There are precious few folks on HC-some of whom I already correspond with- who work in and around AfAm Print Culture, Consequently, I followed a few folks who work in DH as this is an area of interest and I’m in need of some network connections as my program has lost it’s DH faculty. The groups I’m looking to join lack active discussion threads; if anything, the activity in these groups are CFPs and deposits (I’m guilty of posting these and not participating in the discussion as well). My reading of this thread makes me think that a lack of discussion is not uncommon here at HC (?)
/C
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Hi all. I’ve updated my profile here. I too struggle with considering what sort of photo (professionally-staged vs. one that doesn’t look ‘too’ academic) to include in public profiles. Thankfully, ORCID has no option for a profile photo. I went with the latter for my HC profile, as I think photos of me in the lab or the classroom come off a little too stuffy(?).
I’m also curious; does HC allow users to track stats/traffic to their profiles? I know we can on our WordPress sites, but I wonder if there’s a way to see this data on the HC side. Having this could help to incentivize us to keep our profiles- another version of our cv– up to date during semesters. How do other folks work with maintaining multiple public profiles?
/C
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