Guest Post: Exciting New Changes to the AuthorAID Website
[Note: Greetings from Rwanda, where I’ve arrived for an AuthorAID workshop. This post is by Stuart Church, who oversees the design of the AuthorAID website. Stuart and a development team at the Institute for Learning & Research Technology (ILRT), University of Bristol, have been working hard on the site. Thank you all! —Barbara]
You may have noticed a change to the AuthorAID website this week. As part of our ongoing site developments, we’ve launched some new features that we hope will provide even more support to early-career researchers:
A new look and feel. The site has been redesigned to look fresher and cleaner. We hope you like it!
Enhanced profiles. We’ve added options to your profile so you can provide more details about your research interests and what you’d like to gain from AuthorAID. This means that now is an ideal time to log in and update your profile; doing so will also make it easier for other site users to find you using the new member search.
Member search. You can now search for other AuthorAID site members on the basis of their location, their research interests, and whether they’re seeking a mentor or offering mentorship.
Improved Resource Library. We’re adding great new resources all the time. We’ve also we’ve added a sort feature to let you easily find the resources that you need.
Online mentoring and collaboration. We’re trying a new feature that lets mentors and mentees set up a formal mentoring relationship and use a Web-based interface to share and discuss ideas and documents. This feature is open to all. If you use it, we’d really appreciate your feedback on how you like it and how well it suits your needs. You can get a simple overview of the process of mentoring by reading our comic strip, The Mentoring Journey, or by reading our overviews for mentees (early-career researchers wanting support) or mentors (experienced researchers offering support).
We hope that you find these new site developments useful. If you have any feedback (positive, negative or neutral) or any questions about the new site, please e-mail us at authoraid@inasp.info.