Communicating Your Work

• What are the goals and objectives of the communications effort? What impact do you hope to have?
• Who is affected most by this research? Who would be interested in learning about the study findings? Is this of interest to a broader community?
• What is the most effective way to reach each audience?
• When should each aspect of the communications plan occur (e.g. if you are undertaking a research or creative project, for instance, at which points during it do you want to communicate)?
• If you are working with a team, staff, or collaborating, who will be responsible for communications? Be sure to keep track of information on presentations and publications from all team members, including students, co-PIs, and subcontracts.
• Note for funded projects: Acknowledge your funder in publications and published presentation abstracts in the manner they would like to be acknowledged. Make sure to check what the rules are regarding announcing with your sponsor. This varies, and there may be constraints or language to include.

• The Public Engagement Project supports and trains faculty members to use their research to contribute to social change, inform public policy, and enrich public debate. The project also helps faculty members build their own networks of institutions and individuals who can apply their research findings, and it helps create institutional spaces for communication between academics and non-academics who do applied work in common areas of expertise. The project runs a fellowship program, and, at times, workshops and seminars, for faculty. Find resources for communicating your scholarship on their webpage.
• UMass Libraries Digital Media Lab: Offers free audio/video and virtual reality equipment and studios for your projects.
• IDEAS (Instructional Design, Engagement, and Support):  Instructional Video Creators Network supports faculty wanting to learn video design and production
• The Academic Freedom Crisis Toolkit, can provide guidance if you think your engagement may prompt academic harassment.

Communicating effectively to the public is not something that comes easily for a lot of academics – it may take more time to draft, review, and complete than you think. 

• Set aside time! Give yourself deadlines and block off dedicated writing/creation/production time into your calendar every week. There are writing spaces, workshops, and fellowships offered through the OFD's Scholarly Writing program and the Third Spaces Writing Program.
• Share your work with key mentors and colleagues from other disciplines and outside academia to gauge its effectiveness. If you’d like to set up a group to exchange work with, let OFD know!

If you want to get your toes wet before reaching out to a larger audience, consider communicating your work broadly on campus first.

• Contact Inside UMass
• Follow and post on UMass social media
• Contribute to the campus series “Research for the Common Good.” They are seeking faculty and communicator collaborations to highlight
• See if you might be eligible for nomination as a Spotlight Scholar
• Your Department and College may have a communication & marketing office. Check with your staff professionals to see if they have ideas about communicating on campus and beyond. 

• Work with the UMass Office of News and Media Relations to disseminate research findings and creative activities widely through public media. https://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/
  • You can be added as an outside expert who the media can contact.
• Consider giving a public talk locally, doing a talk at a “science cafe,” a TED Talk, or reach out to local radio (The NEPM's Fabulous 413, for instance). OFD or your college associate deans can help you find other faculty on campus who have done these recently.
• Consider developing an OFD mutual mentoring grant project to help move your project along.
• Pitch an article to The Conversation. The Conversation is an independent source for informed commentary and analysis, written by the academic and research community and edited by journalists for the general public. Their aim is to promote better understanding of current affairs and complex issues. It is a digital publication that helps research reach a wide audience. As a Founding Partner of The Conversation, UMass Amherst academics have been republished in outlets such as: Newsweek, Business Insider, Quartz, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, Salon, U.S. News, and Time.
  • See a list of articles by UMass Amherst faculty on their website.
  • Sign up as an author.
  • Fill out the pitch form. Once completed, The Conversation will be in touch with you directly to discuss whether they feel the article is a good fit for the platform.
• Your disciplinary society will have materials to help you get the word out to public venues. One example is the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) is a nonprofit advocacy organization working to promote and advance the social and behavioral sciences in federal policymaking.
• Explore ways to make your existing teaching and scholarship more accessible and open to the public. The Libraries and IDEAS can support you on this.
  • Libraries Open Scholarship initiatives: Make your existing scholarship more accessible to the public  https://guides.library.umass.edu/ScholarlyPublishing/Home
  • IDEAS Open education practices to make your teaching more accessible to the public: https://www.umass.edu/ideas/teaching-open-education-resources