- A high turnout, with more than 300 people completing the survey (40% academic, 40% general and 20% PG students)
- High consensus on the most valuable attributes (the obvious ones) and equally valued for all three profile types.
- However, obvious includes roles and the related attributes that differ by role (location, responsibilities, some contact details, etc) which is poorly handled now and many people requested a single profile even when there is more than one role.
- People claimed that they would benefit from many attributes, even if not absolutely essential. This means we need to make it easily to enter/maintain, or even populate these attributes automatically.
- Self-service was requested many, many times, meaning that a person can easily maintain their own profile.
- Three quarters of respondents support research-based PG students have the option to have a profile, with some frequently mentioned messages:
- Clear style so these are not confused with staff profiles
- Definitely good for PhD, but concern about the short duration of stay and turnover of those in other programmes.
- Would definitely benefit the students involved, but also the organisation (e.g. retention, recruiting new PG students, easy to profile students when required, etc)
- While many additional attributes were requested (including photo which was only missing due to my oversight) most of these would be easily possible with the attributes in the survey.
- Some others we will now consider include Iwi affiliation(s), linking to other research communities (e.g. ORCID, SSRN, Hein, Google Scholar), links to other people and the nature of this link (e.g. people I work closely with, when I am unavailable please contact, my supervisor, my PA, etc), downloadable cv and high resolution photo, etc
- Based on all of the above it is likely that future profiles will:
- Be available to all staff and some PG students
- Have one profile per person, even if they have more than one role, and even if the roles are of different types (e.g. a general staff member doing a PhD.
- Offer very similar attributes to profiles regardless of type, but make few mandatory, give good contextual help on the purpose and leave it up to common sense and line management (to handle misuse)
- Only display fields with values.
- Be owned/maintained by the individual, easy to update without specialist knowledge or tools.
- Be far richer and more flexible than currently, allowing a user to do a lot or a little (based on need and desire)
- Have the data provisioned automatically where sensible
- Display the connections between people, research, courses, news, etc
- Have more granular permissions, allowing users to hide some attributes, either from external users or even all together.
| Attribute (or grouping) | Details | Academic staff | General staff | PG students | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photo | Essential | Essential | Essential | ||
| Name | Including. title and honorific | Essential | Essential | Essential | |
| Role(s) | Essential | Essential | Essential | ||
| Organisation, unit and address/location * | Essential | Essential | Essential | ||
| Contact details * | For example: phone, fax and mobile numbers, email, rooms/office, etc Link to map Maybe also EA/PA details if applicable | Essential | Essential | Useful + | |
| Office hours * | Not so common now? Maybe also hours if part-time and when you are back if you are away for a long block | Useful - | Useful | If available+ | |
| Responsibilities * | Useful | Essential | If available + | ||
| Involvement/Appointments | Associations, committees, collaborative work, etc. Can include your own practice | If available | Useful - | If available + | |
| Currently teaching/tutoring | Useful | n/a | Useful | ||
| Qualifications | Could include skills/training relevant to the role performed | Useful | Useful | Useful | |
| Language proficiencies | If available | If available | If available + | ||
| Overview or Biography | Useful + | Useful | Useful | ||
| Research interests | Including thesis/research topic for postgrads | Essential | n/a | Essential - | |
| Publications | Listing or recent with option to see all. Included all sorts (books, papers, presentations, articles, etc) Link to view/download full article and access data (where applicable) | Useful + | n/a | Useful | |
| Supervisor (or students who claim I supervise them) | If available | n/a | Essential - | ||
| News and events about/featuring | If available | If available | If available | ||
| Awards, scholarships, grants and funding | If available | n/a | Useful | ||
| Links | To research centres, personal websites, research communities. Social media available this way, for no extra cost | Useful | If available | Useful | |
| Interested to speak to media | If available | If available | n/a | ||
| Capacity to supervise research | Useful | n/a | n/a | ||
| Available for public speaking | If available | If available - | If available | ||
| Willing to participate in student liaison | If available + | If available - | If available + |
* Might be multiple, one set per role
Other attributes requested (more than once/often) in survey
- Photo
- Iwi affiliation(s)
- Unique ID such as ORCID, SSRN, Hein,
- Links to other people (people I work closely with, when I am unavailable please contact, my supervisor, )
- Embedded video
- Downloadable cv and high resolution photo
- Estimated completion date for thesis
...