In the Knowledge Business, it's Important to Promote your Work

For many of us in academia, there is discomfort in self-promotion.  However, as academics, we are in a knowledge-building business.  We may find self-fulfillment in simply doing our work, but the point of our careers is to advance an understanding of the world, hopefully in order to make it a better place.  Promoting one's work and ensuring that the knowledge you create is accessible to as many people as possible is just as important as the work itself.  A dissertation that sits on a shelf or the information in an article that never leaves the confines of a paywalled journal does little to advance society.  And the tools and strategies we develop for teaching, mentoring and supporting students, or running a research team, department or program are incredibly helpful to others in the same position. Sharing these tools and strategies helps us all improve in our jobs, and in turn we collectively improve the quality of higher education.  This summer, consider spending some time on Prof2Prof developing your own professional profile and sharing your tools and resources. Here are a few things you can do with the platform:

·     Promote your work, and your professional self.  As faculty, instructors, researchers, student affairs professionals, and administrators, we create a wide range of intellectual products.  Use Prof2Prof to showcase those things you do that don’t always get noticed on your CV.  Reports, working papers, survey instruments, administrative policies—pretty much anything you can think of that you create and are willing to share in order to generate broader impact. As a first step, join Prof2Prof.com and complete your profile. You can also promote your speaking topics, consulting services, and other forms of professional expertise using the Professional Expertise portion of your profile. 

·     Embrace teaching as a form of scholarship.  As educators, we use our disciplinary expertise to create effective tools for the classroom (e.g., syllabi, assignments, exercises, case studies, lecture slides, and much more). Share these items on Prof2Prof, as well as discover new ideas. The more we share our innovative resources, the more we can learn from each other and enhance the quality of our courses and programs. What worked well for you this past academic year? 

·     Give your network a home base.  Prof2Prof can host your academic networks, providing you with a home page for the network and the ability to promote news, events and resources.  Campus centers, institutes, and departments can use this option to promote networking, as well as inter-disciplinary and cross-institutional networks of educators and researchers with common interests. Just email customerservice@prof2prof.com to initiate a network page.

·     Create a space for a working group or team.  Developing a grant proposal? Building a new course or program with colleagues? Mentoring a group of students?  The workspace function enables both private and open-site spaces for accomplishing such tasks. Workspaces are a combination of discussion threads and resources, organized and searchable.

·     Create a professional blog. With our newest release, Prof2Prof offers a home for your academic blog. Write about your research and teaching experiences, administrative roles and student support endeavors. Help paint a more realistic picture of life in academia, and share these experiences to help others navigate this career. 

·     And remember, it’s all free.  If you are a higher education employee, doctoral student, postdoc, or emeritus faculty member, Prof2Prof is free to join.  What’s more to love?

Join the higher ed ecosystem that has members from 53 countries and counting, and from a broad range of disciplines and academic job titles. Help make the site the go-to place for learning from each other, and getting recognized for the full scope of the work that you do.