York’s Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) Unit offers York University researchers professional social media support and training to assist them with communicating the impact of their research more broadly, enhancing knowledge dissemination and facilitating opportunities for academic partnership collaborations through online mechanisms.
The KMb Unit offers several social media learning sessions, led by Krista Jensen, Knowledge Mobilization Officer, throughout the academic term to help support researchers learn more about the tools available to them, including departmental and one-on-one training. Specializing in how social media tools can be used for knowledge mobilization activities, Jensen is currently completing her PhD in the Faculty of Education, under the supervision of Professor Stephen Gaetz.
“York’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit helps researchers communicate the impact of University research,” said Robert Haché, vice-president research & innovation. “Several York researchers have worked with our Knowledge Mobilization Unit to create online social media strategies, blogs, plain language research snapshots, online tools training and maintenance and a variety of other resources to share the impact of their research with the broader community.”
The social media training sessions focus on learning more about social media applications, including blogging, Twitter, O3 collaboration portals, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, to name a few. During the sessions, participants can expect to learn more about the following topic areas:
- How social media can be used in a research context to connect to other researchers, engage community partners and disseminate research findings.
- How to create a digital identity and mobilize knowledge.
- Examples of best practices
Many of the sessions include a hands on component where faculty, staff and graduate students can learn how to use various social media, how to use these tools in a research environment and how to maintain the tools over time.
“York’s KMb Unit started out brokering collaborations between researchers and partners from government and community agencies,” said David Phipps, executive director, research & innovation services. “We continue to broker collaborations but have now expanded our services, building capacity for faculty to mobilize their own research and engage with research partners.”
Outcomes related to KMb’s social media support services include:
- Assistance for Faculty of Health Professor Jonathan Weiss and his research team to develop an online strategy to promote research. Also provided assistance in creating plain language research snapshots to populate his ASD Mental Health blog.
- Help in facilitating the establishment of O3 collaboration portals for Faculty of Fine Arts film Professor Nancy Nicol and Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Professor Pat Armstrong on their Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded projects.
- Consultative services for Faculty of Health Professor and Associate Dean Research William Gage on his blog about research focused on understanding why older adults are more likely to experience falls.
The KMb Unit also offers support to researchers by helping them create a plan for the use of online communications tools and identify the components of their knowledge mobilization planning within their grant applications. In addition, the unit provides training sessions, ongoing support and advice on the maintenance of their online communities to help researchers reach wider audiences nationally and globally.
To register for an upcoming training session, click here.