Researchers, Postgraduates, Academics, Lend me your ears!
I come before you today with two announcements. Announcements which are intended to give researcher’s their rightful place on the public stage.
The first is the announcement of the dates for the Research Bazaar conference 2016. We are pleased to announce that the 2nd annual ResBaz conference will take place on:
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: 1st, 2nd and 3rd February 2016.
We will also (same as this year) have a pre-event, which will be our train-the-trainer (pre-ResBaz) event, which will take place -the week before in Melbourne- on: the 27th through to the 29th (Wed-Fri) January 2016.
The announcement!
Drum roll please…. Where, might you ask, is the ‘Research Bazaar’ going to take place in 2016?
The answer is that ResBaz will be happening in cities all over Australia! We are -as of today- publically inviting any and all Universities (especially research intensive Universities) to host their own Research Bazaar events so we can see the next generation of research skills emerge from our historic quadrangles!
As to, the University of Melbourne (in collaboration with its fellow Victorian Universities) will host #ResBaz in Melbourne for 2016.
Other Universities have already expressed interest to host a ResBaz in their city including New South Wales (Sydney) and Tasmania (Hobart), and New Zealand! We’ve also gotten some interest from Universities in the UK, EU and USA… This thing could get big, right?!
If you or your University are interested in hosting a #ResBaz event, we have officially launched a website to receive ‘expressions of interests’; alternatively, you can also contact us on our official ResBaz Twitter account.
Contact us: ResBaz.edu.au OR @ResBaz
Join today and become a “ResBaz-ador” to bring the #ResBaz event to your University.
We’ll also help aggregate news and events for each #ResBaz event happening around the world at the following websites:
melbourne.resbaz.edu.au
sydney.resbaz.edu.au
hobart.resbaz.edu.au
adelaide.resbaz.edu.au
perth.resbaz.edu.au
brisbane.resbaz.edu.au
christchurch.resbaz.edu.au
auckland.resbaz.edu.au
<cityXYZ>.resbaz.edu ← could this be your city?
So what are you waiting for? Fill in our “I want a ResBaz at my University” form today:
resbaz.edu.au/participate
How can I help participate in putting on a ‘Research Bazaar’ at my University...
...Participate by saying you want to go to an event at a city near you.
...Participate by volunteering your time to become a trainer in one of the many techniques we teach at #ResBaz.
...Participate by volunteering to become a “ResBazador” so you can organise your own kind of bizarre event.
...Participate by joining the conference steering committee and help collect and analyse the data we get from the applications forms, i.e. what is the next set of digital research skills starting to be more widely used in Academia?!
...Participate by sponsoring a #ResBaz event so we can make sure the event stays free for researchers to attend?!
Does your ResBaz event need to be as big as the one we’ve put on in Melbourne? Of course not! We started small just like you with only a dozen or so people per class. It takes time to grow; but, we assure you that all researchers from postgraduates to senior researchers (and especially early career researchers) want these next generation research skills - join today and start to become a digital leader in your field of research.
Why host an event under a common umbrella name like “ResBaz”… well here are some advantages (or “value adds”) that we could achieve by working together:
--> (Shared) Next Gen Digi Res Skillz: Researchers are continually having to suffer the tidal wave of new skills required to work with digital tools and data. And yet they just don’t have time to play with every new digital toy! Together ResBaz will save the time and money of researchers so they can get focused and up to date training on the latest skills for their disciplines!
--> (Shared) Sponsors: Research life can get expensive, so we’ve promised to keep ResBaz free (and we expect the same from our ResBazadors). Our sponsors pay for venue, food, drinks, travel and subsidised accommodation (free camping if possible!). Together we’ll work to attract new sponsors and share funds across all ResBaz sites so everyone can benefit! #ZeroSumGame
--> (Shared) Media: Thanks to Twitter we’re already making noise about the importance of research, bypassing mainstream media. Together this noise and attention will continue to grow, aiding the public’s understanding of the importance of research! Together we’ll share our accounts & open our digital doors to full ResBaz aggregation of both activity and knowledge!
--> (Shared) Data: In our first ResBaz registration form we asked researchers what kinds of ‘next generation digital research skills’ they wanted. Now that we know, we can start to give! We’ll also anonymise the data and publish it openly so everyone can benefit from its results within the research sector. Help us make this survey of researchers comprehensive so we can know where the next new skill is emerging!
--> (Shared) Curriculums: Many of our classes are taught in collaboration with Software Carpentry & Data Carpentry. Their great discovery is the ability to have researchers worldwide collaborate in creating curriculums for new research skills. Together we are also building novel curriculums for skills like mapping, visualisations, 3D modelling, scientific instrumentation tools + more!
--> (Shared) Research Cloud: We’ll provide an online platform of all the research tools so researcher’s don’t have to worry about having a super fast “CPU” or enough “Gigabytes” for their data! Check out resbaz.cloud.edu.au today for tools like RStudio, iPython, Octave and many more to come!
So what are you waiting for, get involved and say you want to participate! At the very minimum you’ll have a great time learning new skills and meeting new fellow like minded researchers who want to change the world!
resbaz.edu.au/participate