MyResearchSpace is YOURresearchSpace ... how do YOU want it to work?
The first post to MyResearchSpace was on 9 June, 2006, so with our first anniversary just on the horizon, those of us who set up MyRS are wondering, what do YOU, the emerging MyRS community, want MyRS to do for you?
When it was first set up, some of the core aims of MyRS were:
- To provide central Forums for the use all graduate research students;
- To provide university-hosted blogging for all graduate research students; and
- To provide robust file-storage space (500Mb) for each graduate research student, ensuring they always have somewhere to backup and store files from their research.
Additionally, there was a real hope that the combination of blogs and forums (along with the photographic galleries) would facilitate a level of social interaction between research students, using an electronic medium rather than a face to face one. Sure, there are some great opportunities to meet face to face on campus, but in real terms, the life of a research student can be a pretty solitary and lonely one, and we hoped MyRS would provide some infrastructure for those people who might enjoy some sort of connection online. In addition, the use of blogs might allow researchers to develop some sort of public profile, useful when networking with colleagues and fellow researchers far beyond the confines of UWA.
Certainly we've got an emerging community, some of whom make use of different aspects of MyRS. But we - the Graduate Research School and those looking after the infrastructure and design or MyRS - we wondering, what else would you like us to do?
Are there technical features that would make MyRS easier for you to use?
Are you after more detailed how-to guides for different aspects of MyRS (if so, which ones)?
What else could we do to improve MyRS for you?
A second question that has come to mind recently, is: does the MyRS community want some sort of guidelines of standards for how this community operates? A number of people have mentioned anecdotally that they're not using blogs, for example, because they're not sure if what they want to write would 'fit in' with what's currently being written. What do you think?
Should blogs be related to research and the life of a researcher (which certainly includes everything about life - with some limits - which occurs during the research experience, from supervisory trauma, to weddings and Eurovision)?
Is there anything in particular that isn't appropriate to MyRS?
Should blogs be clearly identified as being written by a person with real name, or are pseudonyms okay?
(Keep in mind, if such guidelines are developed, they're more about encouraging people to participate by explicating what's welcome, rather than trying to stop anything being written!)
As MyRS grows, we want it to grow in a way guided by the needs and wants of the MyRS community, and to allow that community to expand.
Please leave a comment below (or, if you prefer, send an email to tama.leaver@uwa.edu.au) and let us know what we can do for you!