Build a research website in under three hours

Audience: PG research

Date: Friday 31 January 2025

Times: 09.30 to 12.30

Programme: GRADskills

Key details: This event will run online. No programming skills required! Find out how to make your research more visible using freely available website platforms.

Target audience

PhD students all disciplines.

Qualifications needed

You must bring a laptop in order to participate in this workshop. If you do not have your own laptop, please contact IT Services to borrow one.

Course mapped to

Vitae's Researcher Development Framework domains: B3 (Professional and career development), D2 (Communication and dissemination), D3 (Engagement and impact)

Course information

PLEASE NOTE: This workshop will run online.  If you are no longer able to attend, please cancel your place at least two working days before so that we can allow others onto the course.

An academic website is a good way to make your research more visible, whether this is a website for you as an individual researcher or a site to showcase your whole research group. You can use your website to explain your research, list your publications, point out your collaborations, blog, link to social media and note your awards and achievements.

The increased visibility that a website brings can be useful when job searching, attracting applications from prospective students and postdocs and finding potential collaborators. A researcher can use their own website to publish a preprint of their research article (depending on the copyright policies of the journal), allowing them to pre-publish their research in one place.

This workshop requires no coding skills or programming experience. You will be introduced to the principles of web design, usability and a few different platforms for building websites free of charge. The workshop will focus on the free Wordpress platform and you will be taken through the website building process; by the end you will have a functional research website that you can update and manage themselves.

What previous participants have said about this course:

• "Great course that allows you to actually create a research-oriented website."
• "Good event, basic without being too much, so thanks!"
• "Quick and easy intro to creating a professional personal website."
• "If you know nothing about making websites, this is great!"

Aims and objectives

By the end of this workshop you should:

• Understand basic principles of web design and user experience.
• Be able to use a free online platform to design, build and optimise your own websites.
• Have the skills and knowledge required to share and promote your own research online.

Tutors

Dr Joanna Young

Course provider

IELLI
Email: ielli@st-andrews.ac.uk