It was time to put a course together about tools for scientists that support and facilitate them.
With years of experience and DIY in working on browser tools, like toolbars, widgets, gadgets, add-ons, plug-in's, digesting the range of bio-medical search engines, resources and websites, exploring social networks for scientists, doctors and students, looking into personalisation, start pages, rss-feeds, trying to keep up-to-date with web technology, always looking for applied use for users, learning by doing, by trial and error, practicing what I preach, and most of all ... sharing.
So, to find a way to get this all out to those who might need it, and don't know how to tackle stuff ..., I planned a new course
"Science 2.0: trends, tools and tips
Science is changing. Science 2.0 influences the personal & workflow of researchers, clinicians and students. This workshop introduces new web-technologies and trends in communication, collaboration, searching, managing & sharing of information. Practical tips to improve efficiency in work and/or study."
And together with Jetse Goris of the Wenckebach Institute we did a short and quick setup of a limited media strategy to reach our potential audience. Jetse for his new course on "New Media", a more general approach and target audience, and me to get to the researchers.
We created a Twitter account Science20UMCG, together with a Delicious account and connected them with Packrati.us. This will automatically save & bookmark any url included in the tweets to the Delicious account.
As platform to aggregate the rss-feed, tweets, video's, presentations, links, we chose -of course- for Netvibes, http://www.netvibes.com/science20UMCG
A 30 min "follow the UMCG related tweeps" resulted in the 89 followers within a few days. Combined with traditional email and website news items, we managed to get about 50 or 60 people into the info meeting!
We tried to do a UStream broadcast on my iPhone, but the T-Mobile connection was a little poor inside the hospital, and the wireless not accessible for me. Nevertheless, when I showed it live on the Netvibes to the audience, there were 3 people trying to watch it, somewhere out there... You can see the recorded session here.
