Category: Community Engagement

A closer look at the funding landscape for scientific community managers

Through the State of Scientific Community Management survey we’ve collected data on all facets of the field. So far we’ve looked at scientific community managers’ education and training and identified … Continue reading “A closer look at the funding landscape for scientific community managers”

Through the State of Scientific Community Management survey we’ve collected data on all facets of the field. So far we’ve looked at scientific community managers’ education and training and identified which types of organizations are hiring them. We’ve also learned that insufficient funding is the number one reason why organizations lack community managers.

Today, we’re following up on this finding by digging a little deeper into the picture of funding for community managers. Read on for 3 key findings.

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Building interdisciplinary communities – what hurdles do we need to overcome?

Posted by Lou Woodley, Trellis’ Community Engagement Director. Last week I took part in a session at the ESOF16 conference on building interdisciplinary communities. ESOF – the EuroScience Open Forum … Continue reading “Building interdisciplinary communities – what hurdles do we need to overcome?”

Posted by Lou Woodley, Trellis’ Community Engagement Director.

Runners jumping over hurdles
“Determination Wallpaper” by Alisa Cooper is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Last week I took part in a session at the ESOF16 conference on building interdisciplinary communities. ESOF – the EuroScience Open Forum – is a biennial conference focusing on various European science and science communication activities, with a mixture of different session formats.

In our session, one of the other presenters, Ismael Rafols, gave a good overview of some of the different barriers to successfully building community, which I’ve listed out below (taken directly from his slides).

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Many organizations have communities. Why don’t they all have community managers?

Posted by Dan Richman, Program Assistant for the Community Engagement Fellows Program In our first post about results from the State of Scientific Community Management Survey, we reported that while … Continue reading “Many organizations have communities. Why don’t they all have community managers?”

Posted by Dan Richman, Program Assistant for the Community Engagement Fellows Program

In our first post about results from the State of Scientific Community Management Survey, we reported that while over half of community managers in science organizations have PhDs, their community management skills are usually self-taught or garnered through reading, networking, or mentorship.

In this post we report an overview of the types of organizations that were sampled by our survey, and why some organizations don’t have community managers. This is important for the Community Engagement Fellows Program because we intend to support scientific community managers in two broad variations of the role – either within professional societies and organizations or within research collaborations. We want to understand more about what those workplaces look like and how they differ.

Continue reading “Many organizations have communities. Why don’t they all have community managers?”

Scientific community managers: often self-taught with a science PhD

Having received over 100 responses, we’ve begun analyzing the State of Scientific Community Management Survey. Read on for more details of some of the trends we’ve seen so far. If … Continue reading “Scientific community managers: often self-taught with a science PhD”

Having received over 100 responses, we’ve begun analyzing the State of Scientific Community Management Survey. Read on for more details of some of the trends we’ve seen so far.

If you’re working to build communities within science and haven’t yet taken the survey, we’re leaving it open a little longer, so please do add your data points to the overall picture.

Continue reading “Scientific community managers: often self-taught with a science PhD”

Best Practices in Community Building: 3 Takeaways from CMX Summit East 2016

Posted by Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Community Manager at Trellis In May I attended CMX Summit East, a community management conference focused on the future of the community industry. I met community managers … Continue reading “Best Practices in Community Building: 3 Takeaways from CMX Summit East 2016”

Posted by Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Community Manager at Trellis

Gabrielle Rabinowitz Badge CMX Summit 2016
The CMX Summit badge decoration station, including my artistic rendition of a lego & pipe cleaner “trellis”.

In May I attended CMX Summit East, a community management conference focused on the future of the community industry. I met community managers from new startups and industry giants, across a wide variety of fields. We got to know each other over coffee at the badge decorating station and then got to work learning about modern community management in a series of workshops and lectures stretching over two days.

In this post I’ll share three questions for community managers followed by strategies discussed at the Summit.
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Update on the AAAS State of Scientific Community Management Survey: Your response needed!

Thanks to all the scientific community builders who have taken our State of Scientific Community Management survey so far! We hope you’ve been inspired by our recent Q&A series to … Continue reading “Update on the AAAS State of Scientific Community Management Survey: Your response needed!”

Thanks to all the scientific community builders who have taken our State of Scientific Community Management survey so far! We hope you’ve been inspired by our recent Q&A series to think creatively about what a scientific community manager can be. Our intention with this survey is to gain a better understanding of the field and lay the foundation for the upcoming AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program.

So far we have received survey responses from a variety of scientific community engagement professionals around the world, including the UK, Germany, and the US. Wherever you’re located, you can participate in the survey – so please help us include scientific community management practices from your region in our overall picture of the field.

We’re particularly interested in hearing from community professionals working with large research collaborations, either within one institution or around the globe! We know that some of the language used in the survey may not be familiar to community builders in academic science, but we hope you’ll give it a try anyway. Research communities are key to the future of scientific community management and we want our data to reflect that.

The survey takes less than 12 minutes to complete – that’s less than the time it takes your coffee to cool! So please fill it out and then share the link with your networks (https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/2642025/AAAS-State-of-Scientific-Community-Management-Survey). If you have any questions about the survey, you can get in touch by emailing us at info@trelliscience.com.

Thank you for joining our effort to understand the current state of scientific community management! We look forward to reporting back with our findings.

Meet a scientific community manager: Tania Siemens

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that … Continue reading “Meet a scientific community manager: Tania Siemens”

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that exist within science, and is the first activity of our Community Engagement Fellows program. We’ll be sharing a report of the survey results once we’ve analyzed them.

But just who are the scientific community engagement professionals? To help answer that question we’re running a series of Q&As with people in existing community-building roles. If any of these stories resonate, please do take 12 minutes to complete the survey! The more input we have to the survey, the more detailed our view of the overall landscape will be.

Today we’re featuring Tania Siemens:

Tania Siemens headshot
Tania is the Community Manager for STEM-Central.net, a community of practice for improving undergraduate STEM Education. She holds a Master’s degree in Invasive Plant Ecology from Cornell University. Tania also works as an Outreach and Extension Specialist on Aquatic Invasive Species at the Oregon Sea Grant College Program at Oregon State University.

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Meet a scientific community manager: Alex Jackson

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that … Continue reading “Meet a scientific community manager: Alex Jackson”

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that exist within science, and is the first activity of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows program. We’ll be sharing a report of the survey results once we’ve analyzed them.

But just who are the scientific community engagement professionals? To help answer that question we’re running a series of Q&As with people in existing community-building roles. If any of these stories resonate, please do take 12 minutes to complete the survey! The more input we have to the survey, the more detailed our view of the overall landscape will be.

Today we’re featuring Alex Jackson:

Alex Jackson runs the social media activities at the Royal Society. Alex is a keen science enthusiast, journalist and fond admirer of a good pun. He has worked in science/health publishing and research for more than six years, and before that worked in regional journalism.
Alex Jackson runs the social media activities at the Royal Society. Alex is a keen science enthusiast, journalist and fond admirer of a good pun. He has worked in science/health publishing and research for more than six years, and before that worked in regional journalism. Find Alex (@alexkeysjackson) and the Royal Society (@royalsociety) on Twitter.

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Meet a scientific community manager: Shaila Kotadia

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that … Continue reading “Meet a scientific community manager: Shaila Kotadia”

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that exist within science, and is the first activity of our Community Engagement Fellows program. We’ll be sharing a report of the survey results once we’ve analyzed them.

But just who are the scientific community engagement professionals? To help answer that question we’re running a series of Q&As with people in existing community-building roles. If any of these stories resonate, please do take 15 minutes to complete the survey! The more input we have to the survey, the more detailed our view of the overall landscape will be.

Today we’re featuring Shaila Kotadia:

Shaila Kotadia headshot
Shaila Kotadia is the Education, Outreach, and Diversity Manager at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc). Prior to joining Synberc, Dr. Kotadia was a Policy Fellow at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Kotadia received her Ph.D. in genetics and development from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her postdoctoral work at the University of California, Santa Cruz focused on cell division and chromosome segregation.

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Meet a scientific community manager: Eric Olson

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that … Continue reading “Meet a scientific community manager: Eric Olson”

This month, we’re asking all community engagement professionals within science to complete our state of scientific community management survey. The survey’s intended to determine the variety of community-building roles that exist within science, and is the first activity of our Community Engagement Fellows program. We’ll be sharing a report of the survey results once we’ve analyzed them.

But just who are the scientific community engagement professionals? To help answer that question we’re running a series of Q&As with people in existing community-building roles. If any of these stories resonate, please do take 12 minutes to complete the survey! The more input we have to the survey, the more detailed our view of the overall landscape will be.

Today we’re featuring Eric Olson:

Eric Olson is the Outreach Coordinator for PressForward. Eric supports science organizations as they develop web publications by providing consultation about interacting with their community of audiences and collaborators. He is on the organizing committee for United Nations-sponsored conferences on scholarly communication and directs the Science Communication Network Initiative.
Eric Olson is the Outreach Coordinator for PressForward. Eric supports science organizations as they develop web publications by providing consultation about interacting with their community of audiences and collaborators. He is on the organizing committee for United Nations-sponsored conferences on scholarly communication and directs the Science Communication Network Initiative.

Continue reading “Meet a scientific community manager: Eric Olson”