+31 (0)6 5465 1346 | info@theonlinescientist.com
CAUSE AN EFFECT
Do you want to look professional on the profile page of your university website, research page, or LinkedIn page? That means you need to have a good profile picture. We give you the tips to create a great profile picture with your mobile phone.
Are you dreading writing a bio for your website or LinkedIn page? Don't worry, we'll help you write an effective bio that is fun to read and you are proud to share with the world!
We encounter them too often: unattractive team pages with holiday snapshots and boring bios. But your researchers are doing all the work, so we say it’s about time to put them in the spotlight they deserve! With this guide, we will help you take better profile pictures, design an attractive team page, and write interesting bios for your consortium members. Let’s get started! Should you create a separate Team page? If you do not want to showcase your research team on a separate page, you can just create a team section on your About page with a list of names and research roles. However, we think it’s a nice touch to create a team page with a bit more information about the people in your research department or consortium. We like to give navigation menu items a more interesting name, so let’s call your team page “Meet the team”, “About our researchers”, or “Get to know us”. What personal information do you put on a team page? The information in your team profiles should be relevant for the website, but it also shouldn't be impersonal or boring. That’s why it's good to try to include a bit of creativity, and maybe include a personal quote, your favorite food, or another fun fact about someone. This really makes a team page come alive. Here are some items we often include in a profile page: Full name with your titles - but leave out the impersonal initials.Role within this research group - e.g. Project manager, Early Stage Researchers (ESR), or Senior researcherPersonal quote - e.g. “I think we should pay more attention to mental health” or more quirky “I always share my cookies with my co-workers”Expertise keywords [...]
Vague websites with hidden menus, confusing sliders, irrelevant stock photography and long texts that no one wants to read… And many websites are stuck in the 90s with introductions such as “Welcome to our website”. We think you can do better! We’ll share our best practices so you can make your website & homepage useful and inviting to your visitor. Your homepage is the summary of your website On your homepage you want to summarize who you are, what do you, what you offer and why it’s relevant to the visitor. Because the homepage is not a unique page with a specific topic, you can give a short impression here of what can be found on the rest of your site and entice people to dive further into your website. But be aware that nobody is going to spend hours browsing your website if they do not know who you are and why you’re relevant to them. Questions your visitors always want to know Who are you?What do you do?What problems do you solve?Is the information on your website relevant to me?Why are you the right person for me?How do I know I can trust you?What should I do on your website? With these questions - and their answers! - in mind, you can make sure your website content is relevant and useful. Questions to answer on your website Who is the main audience for your website? Who do you want to reach primarily, and who could benefit from your knowledge?Who are you and what is your main end goal or mission?What do you do, and what don’t you do?What problems do you want to solve? (From personal problems to global problems.)How does the information [...]
A good EU project website is an excellent way of showcasing your work. We have collected some best practices to help you create better, more beautiful and user-friendly websites.
You have a presentation scheduled in Zoom – a common sight since 2020! Use these tips and tricks to avoid the most common blunders when presenting in Zoom.
Giving a poster presentation is not the dream of every scientist, but we help you to make a beautiful and effective poster presentation to take advantage of the networking opportunity!
What can you do to make your research stand out from the crowd? As science communicators in an online world, we have compiled the five most efficient ways to become more visible to journalists, colleagues, conference organizers and funding agencies. Have you ever Googled yourself, only to find an outdated article or forum comment from your time as a student on the first page? It can be painful, embarrassing or at least not representative of your academic progress. There are ways to control your online identity and prevent embarrassing search results. And they make sure that when other people look for you online, your desired and up-to-date social media accounts and website show up. 1 Get a personal website The first rule of standing out is that you shouldn’t be like everyone else. So while online networking tools for scientists, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu and Google Scholar have their place (more on that later), you’ll still be just one of many colleagues. This doesn’t help your visibility. But there is another reason to want to get out of these ‘gated communities’ of science. Because, for better or worse, there is a growing requirement for researchers to engage with the general public and to ensure that your research has an impact in society as a whole. A website is a great way to overcome both these challenges. But you’ll have to go beyond that online profile that your institute provides for you on their website; these often convey a bland, generic image and have a design that is inflexible and generally outdated. To have a page with your photo and a list of publications is just not enough to get people excited about your work. Share [...]
Research is slowly moving into the real world, with studies being done using data from social media websites and interaction with the public. But what do you do when you need to cite someone’s tweet? How do you cite a Facebook post in your journal article? Is it enough to give the URL? We’ve compiled the best-practices to help you organize your citations. For social media the same rule applies that also goes for websites and other types of sources: you have to use in-text citations and a listing in your references. Be aware that publication details may vary between citations styles. If they’re not included in the official citation guide you’re using, you can adhere to the best practices we’ll discuss in this blog. Best practices for referencing social media You want to credit the person posting the information, so include their full last name followed by their initials. (Thaler, R.). If they have a screen name or post privately, for example on Facebook you can include those names in brackets: Thaler, R. [MisbehavingBlog]. If it’s an organization their full profile name is sufficient. Provide the date when the post was created: the year, month and day, or use n.d. if this is not known. When the content of the citation can change, such as a webpage, you need to add the date of retrieval. This is not necessary when the date is a part of the post, for example as in a tweet. The content of the post or the caption (if it exists) can be used as the title up to 40 words, and you should include in brackets the type of social media post e.g. [Tweet] [Facebook status update]. If the [...]
Finding a new hosting provider for your website can be very frustrating; online you find good and bad reviews, you never quite know what a hosting provider does for you, and maybe you lack the technical know-how to assess if they offer enough service for a safe and speedy website. We help you to avoid spending hours on the internet trying to find out which is the best host and share our experience with you. By now, we have a decade of experience with various hosting providers, and we’ve spent days looking for a good company to work with (spoiler alert: we have found a reliable one!). Since we put in so much time, we know exactly what is important when you’re choosing a hosting company. Because we work with WordPress exclusively (it is the most user-friendly software to build websites with), this article will only concern the best hosting options for WordPress sites (although these are usually great for other platforms as well). What is hosting? Hosting is a space on the internet where your website lives. It’s like the plot your house stands on. A domain name is the address for your house, and makes sure people can find your front door. Both are necessary when you want to start your own website. What do I need for website hosting? If you want a reasonably comfortable hosting package for a simple website, you’ll need the following: 500 MB of space (or 1 GB if you want to display hundreds of PDF articles and large pictures). Unlimited data traffic (is standard everywhere these days). MySQL database. Email addresses and maybe webmail (but we advise you to send and receive email through your own mail [...]
