BIO-8007 Communicating Science Module 2 – Coping with media - 1 stp

Communicating science to a variety of audiences is an important skill all researchers have to learn. Whether you want to tweet about your current research project, create a podcast, give a talk to peers at a scientific conference, give an interview for the media or explaining your research to a school class, science communication is part of a researchers everyday life. The course has three main components:

• The use of social media to communicate your research: Twitter, blogs or podcasts are fun and effective ways to communicate your research. How can you do this and which possibilities are out there?
• Media Training: insights on how to communicate your science to media. How do journalists work and how do they find a good scientific story? How do they condense complicated science into a language that is understandable to the general public?
• Interview training: experience how it is like to be interviewed by a journalist armed with a video camera.

Registration deadline for PhD students at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway: February 1. The registration for spring semester starts in the middle of December.

Application deadline for external applicants: December 1.

Prerequisites: None, but it is an advantage to have own results to work with.  

This course is aimed at PhD students and researchers from all scientific disciplines, but is open for others. Master/bachelor students are welcome to apply but they will not be able to get credits. If you aim to include the credits from the course in your 30 mandatory PhD ECTS you should discuss it with both your supervisor and your faculty.

Maximum 20 participants.

If more than 20 applicants, priority will be given as follows:

•  Participants admitted to the PhD programme at UiT
• Participants in the Associate Professor programme (Førstelektorprogrammet)
• PhD candidates from other universities
• People with a minimum of a Masters degree (or equivalent), who have not been admitted to a PhD programme

The course will be cancelled if less than six participants.

After the course the students should have knowledge about:

• the variety of popular scientific communication arenas, their possibilities and limitations
• reflecting about the role of the research community in public science communication
• understanding the journalists working methods and realities
• how the university can facilitate media contacts

Skills:

• To be able to write a popular scientific text for publication
• To be able to give an interview
• To know how to package a message to the media

General competence:

• To popularize research, and to adjust the message according to the audience
• To communicate research in a form of a story with a clear message and structure
• To be able to choose the right media to the right story, and to know how to create interest for the story

Written home exam. Deliver a popularized science text, either as feature article or a blog post based on your own research. Evaluation: Pass/Fail.

In order to take the exam, all students need to submit a press release about their research prior to the course (pre-work).

There is no continuation exam. In case of failing, you need to take the course again next year.

Important dates:

Course dates: 21-22 February 2017

Pre-work instructions will be sent out three weeks prior to course start.

Deadline for pre-work delivery: one week prior to course start.

Deadline for delivery of popularized science text: two weeks after the course.