Whether you're working on your next paper, interviewing, recruiting, or raising funding, an up-to-date website will help you get there. 

Faculty Pages versus Faculty Websites

First let’s identify what you have to work with. 

Most university faculty have a page within their institution’s website. These pages typically contain basic information including a headshot, short bio, department and contact information.

Faculty pages can be hard to update if you don’t control your page directly. To make changes, you may have to update the faculty directory that powers the page, or submit a change request form or IT ticket. It can be a long process. 

The university also usually controls the design of the faculty page and the url that you get. This is to provide a consistent web and brand experience for visitors.

But there is a silver lining. There is usually a spot on your faculty page where you can link to a website that you control. 

You’ll need two things to make that website great

Findable is Fundable. This is an idea that most researchers agree with. To increase your likelihood of attracting funding and collaborators, you need to have a web presence where you tell your unique story. You support that story with data and details - about your latest research insights, your publications and your all-star team.

This is more important than ever as growth in science requires growth in funding, which has remained relatively flat for a long time, but has declined as a percent of the federal budget and for many projects not related to Covid-19 is restricted or paused.

While the NIH is the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world, competition remains high. So you want to stack the deck so that the foundation or the private donor or the pharmaceutical company who doesn't know you today, finds you and reaches out.

It’s matchmaking stories like this one that we love hearing: A Texas Tycoon Throws Millions at the Covid-19 Testing Puzzle

But

How do you propel science forward in between discoveries? Or when the lab is closed? How about when researchers are remote?

You become your own research publishing platform.

This accomplishes three things:

1. It makes your people, programs and projects more visible

Harvard is a great example. Ten years ago, they built websites department by department. Departments used different software, agencies, processes, and budgets to achieve their goals. The result was thousands of disconnected websites with different branding, missing research, and dollars wasted.

Harvard wanted a more efficient, unified approach. Unsatisfied with the options available, they created an open publishing platform that allowed every researcher, department, and team to tell their unique stories. Anyone at Harvard, from graduate student to tenured faculty to labs to departments to special projects, can create a website with a click of a button. On it, they publish important research, publications, stories, and collaborations. Researchers take pride in sharing their work publicly while feeling in control of their content.

This inclusive

When Harvard moved to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, it launched three important new teaching and learning websites in just two days using OpenScholar. 

Teach Remotely

Learn Remotely

Work Remotely

As soon as we heard this, we wanted to learn more about the people and process that pulled it off.

I spoke with Dustin Tingley, Harvard's Deputy Vice Provost for Advances in Learning and Professor of Government to hear how he brought remote teams and content together for the fast launch. 

He shares how the Vice Provost’s office, faculty, marketing, and IT collaborated to:

• Create a site building strategy
• Structure + prioritize content 
• Launch the new sites
• Collect feedback
• Measure success