This week, we spotlight the Faculty Publication Support Workshop Series OpenLab site. This is “a joint initiative of the Faculty Commons and the Library’s Scholarly Communications Committee” which “supports City Tech faculty in their scholarship and publishing.” Note how sleek the logo is– kudos to Faculty Commons Graphic Designer Savonne Andrews for the design!
The site uses the 2015 theme, which works very well here as the site functions primarily as a blog, with regular announcements posted to the Home page. If you are also using your site primarily as a one-way communication tool to other OpenLab members, this is a smart design. You can use posts to remind members of upcoming meetings and use a pinned post at the top of your feed to give an overview of your project’s goals. The Faculty Publication Support site’s pinned post, for example, notes that workshops are monthly, include guest speakers, and group discussions.
We also like how the Workshop series links out to other pre-existing resources on publishing, such as the Library’s Resources for Academic Publishing. While it might seem counterintuitive, it is better to break up information into smaller chunks in this way. Here, the Publication Workshop Series site is reserved for information about the workshops themselves. Broader resources on publication are kept separate, which helps avoid confusion about where to go for what information.
We also like that the Workshop Series makes materials for the actual meetings available on their OpenLab site. They link out to the page with a Meeting Schedule in their main menu. On this page, an overview for each meeting is given and materials used (for example, slide decks, recordings of the session, etc.) are posted. This is a best practice to carry over to your OpenLab courses as well, even if you post your materials elsewhere, or email them to participants. It is good to have these things in multiple places. How many of us have gone back to an organization or class’ website after a meeting only to find that the recording we needed isn’t there! Making your site a living repository of workshop/ course materials makes everyone’s life so much easier!
Please take a look at the Faculty Publication Support Workshop Series OpenLab site. It is a great model for projects, clubs, and courses!
