Why do people join communities, and what makes them stay?

We want to create vibrant and safe community spaces. Spaces where people are heard, understood, and feel supported. We also want our communities to succeed. Whether that’s working together to solve shared problems, improve student outcome, or challenge out-of-date thinking. By creating resources and sharing good practice together for everyone’s benefit. How do we meet […]

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How innovation helps our communities

What does it mean to innovate? What happens when communities are free to experiment? I have been tackling these questions to look at how we support community growth in education and research, raise their profiles and keep ahead of the next big thing. Community rarely grows without experimentation. Trying new things can be daunting, but […]

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Tips for facilitating online community meetups

I was recently asked to run a workshop for community facilitators to help with fresh thinking about facilitating online meetups. These are people who regular facilitate meetings of our members, and want to keep improving what they do. They are looking to avoid those ‘tumbleweed moments’ and maximise engagement. When writing the session, I turned […]

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Community spotlight: Engaging with Jisc’s research community around the UKRI Open Access policy

  UKRI launched their new open access (OA) policy in April 2022, and Jisc committed to work with UKRI and the research sector, including a diversity of research organisations, researchers, research support and management offices, and representative bodies, to develop an understanding of the challenges around open access, to share and develop best practice, and […]

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Ten ideas for online community engagement

Anyone who has tried to build an online community knows that it’s far from ‘build it and they will come’. That idea is a myth. Behind every successful online space there are people working hard to create the energy needed for engagement to thrive, particularly in the early days. But I promise you it’s worth […]