There is a plethora of digital tools and practices we can employ in our research. Watch the recording from our first session. We explored research tools across the research lifecycle through 101 Innovations in Scholarly Communication - discovery, analysis, writing, publication, outreach, and assessment. We also looked at research workflows to see which tools work well together.

Once we’ve taken a step back to look at various research workflows, we can take a moment to review our own. Which tools and methodologies do we use? What is happening in our respective research fields? What is happening across the research lifecycle in our own work? What do other people in our community do? Use our reflection template to think about your own workflows and practices.

The next step is to consider what we would like to change in our research workflows? What might have the largest impact in the short term - the next few weeks or months? What do you need to learn to complete a project that you’re working on? What new skill or tool could be a stepping stone to the next thing? Think through these questions at the hand of our learning path template.

Throughout it all, we’ll help to embed you in a community of women on the same journey. Although each of us will be following a personalised learning path, learning different tools and skills, each at our own pace, we’ll be learning together. We will also introduce you to other online learning communities that could provide tool- or methodology-specific support. Join us now.

Use our templates to help with designing a SMART plan for learning the new skill or tool you identified in the previous steps. We’ll help you set goals, provide support throughout the planning and learning process, and celebrate your success. This eight-step process can be repeated to continue upskilling yourself now and in the future.

As part of the SMART plan, you will identify ways to incorporate what you’ve learned in your work in the short term. We will help you to identify opportunities for applying your new skills and making it part of existing research workflows.

EMPOWER offers an online learning community where you can learn from presenters and peers, and share your own expertise and experience. You can join our co-working sessions to try new things out, get feedback, show others what you’re working on, where you’re getting stuck, or what you have accomplished.

We know the women in our community have diverse needs based on career stage, research topic, personal situation, access to infrastructure and other resources to name only a few. We also know that everyone learns at their own pace. Some may take the rest of the year to learn their new skill/tool, others may set new goals every few weeks or months. We look forward to embarking on this learning journey with you!