How well do UC Davis Graduate Groups communicate their work to the wider world?

PhD students in our lab are mostly split between a couple of UC Davis's many graduate groups. A conversation with some of the students today about 'outreach' and 'social media' led me to wonder how well these graduate groups are communicating their presence to the outside world. The simplest ways of doing this would be:

  • maintain a current website for your graduate group (i.e. with news items)
  • use Facebook (ideally with an open group)
  • establish a blog
  • use twitter

I looked at 11 different graduate groups to see how well they ticked the above boxes. I might be missing some blogs, Facebook groups, and twitter accounts, but if I can't find the relevant details from a Google/Facebook/Twitter search, then I'm assuming that others won't discover them either. This is what I found:

Headline links take you to the home page for the respective graduate group.

Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (BMCDB)

  • No news page but has an actively maintained blog (easily linked to from above site)
  • Facebook group (open)
  • Active twitter account

Biomedical Engineering (BME)

Biostatistics

  • No news page, though there is a short 'announcements' box on main page
  • No Facebook group
  • No twitter account

Ecology

Epidemiology

  • No news page
  • Facebook group (closed)
  • No twitter account

Integrative Genetics and Genomics (IGG, formerly GGG)

  • Has a news page, but only one item from 2013, remaining items from 2009 and 2008!
  • Facebook group (closed, and have to search for GGG or IGG to find it)
  • No twitter account

Immunology

  • No news page
  • No Facebook group
  • No twitter account

Microbiology

  • No news page
  • Facebook group (closed)
  • No twitter account
  • Has separate website
  • Other: website told me I had to enable Javascript to view their home page even though I have javascript enabled

Nutritional biology

  • No news page
  • No Facebook group
  • No twitter account

Plant Biology

  • No news page
  • No Facebook group
  • No twitter account

Population Biology

  • No news page
  • No Facebook group
  • No twitter account

Please let me know of any updates or additions that I can make to this list

So overall it is pretty poor. BMCDB outshines the others, though BME and Ecology also have a good presence on the web. In many ways, I think it looks worse to do these things badly than to not to them at all. Closed Facebook groups don't send out an inviting message, and having a 'news' page for your graduate group with items from 5 years ago, also sends out the wrong signals.

It takes time and effort to maintain a social media presence, but it doesn't take much effort to at least maintain a news page or simple twitter account (even posting just 1–2 times a week is better than nothing).

Furthermore, the ability to show that you can communicate your work to the wider world is of increasing relevance when applying for grants. It can also raise your profile with your peers and be a useful addition on a resume that helps you stand out from other applicants. Finally, starting a blog or twitter account also helps you hone your writing skills (the latter is great for making you think about how to condense complex thoughts into 'bite size' chunks).

I hope that some of UC Davis's graduate groups make more of an effort in this area (and of course the same can be said for many of UC Davis's departmental and lab websites).

 

Updated 26th September: Added details of some graduate groups that do have blogs and/or websites but which, unhelpfully, are not linked to from their official graduate group webpage.