Heather Doran

A round up of the best things that I have discovered online this week. Covering everything from posts on public engagement with research, how we use social media and other good stuff. I posted this week about PhD students and their use of social media. Are they really as 'switched on' as people seem to think? You can read it here . 1) LIFESAVING TOOL:  TRIPIT   This app is incredible if you travel quite a lot. It can; collate your itineraries, automatically plans routes from place a to b (e.g. if you arrive at Airport X and staying at Hotel Y it plans a route between them), sync with your diary and can include meeting details and locations. By far the best bit about this app is that YOU DON'T HAVE TO INPUT ANY INFORMATION!! You can either forward booking confirmation emails to Tripit or give Tripit access to your email account and then TA-DA!, you have a list of where you are going, how you are traveling, the times and your ticket details all in one place. PERFECT.

Looking to share your research project online via a blog or social media but not sure where to start? I often get asked how you blog. So here's a post with some hints, tips and how to get started with a blog. I think blogging can be an extremely useful tool but it isn't for everyone, it is hard work and can be extremely difficult to do well. There are also risks involved and it usually isn't the best way of engaging with the public. Researchers can blog for a number of reasons . It could be to share work with a wider audience or to share it with peers and there's plenty of folk (myself included) that blog about working as a researcher in a general sense. These posts are mostly read by other researchers. I found blogging through my PhD quite therapeutic and it helped me make a few new friends along the way. I've included lots of links in this post to resources elsewhere on the web. I'm definitely not the first person to post about blogging so I hav