Reusable materials, curriculum, and instructor guidelines for the Communication and Advocacy for Research Transparency at FSCI@UCSD 2017.
Communication and Advocacy for Research Transparency
April Clyburne-Sherin, Campaign Manager, AllTrials USA at Sense About Science USA (Linkedin profile)
Beginner. No previous knowledge is required.
Slides can be downloaded for reuse from GitHub or accessed online through Google Drive.
Anyone with an interest in research, communication, or advocacy is welcome. This course is especially useful for those looking to become more involved in advancing research policy and practice in their organization, institution, or discipline.
Advancing better research policies and practices in our communities requires effective communication and strategic advocacy. This train-the-trainer course is an interactive and practical workshop to build skills in communication and advocacy with a focus on research transparency issues.
Over two sessions, the course will arm participants with the practice, resources, and community of support they need to improve their skills and to train their peers in the same areas. In the first session, we will share tools, tricks, examples, and frameworks. We will also practice profiling, mapping, and targeting content to audiences. In the second session, we will create and critique personalized plans for communicating, advocating, and evaluating success that will help you advance transparency in your community.
A participant in this course will at the end of the course be able to:
- Create compelling and targeted messages that engage their audiences.
- Learn effective communication and advocacy strategies.
- Create a personal communication and advocacy plan with support and feedback.
- Be familiar with essential information and resources on research transparency.
This course will cover the following topics:
- Advocacy and communication plans.
- Best practices for research transparency advocacy.
- Research transparency policies and resources.
- Introducing research transparency and advocacy.
- Defining your advocacy issue and advocacy goal.
- Identifying key decision-makers and influencers.
- Identifying opponents and partners.
- Selecting your advocacy objectives and activities.
- Creating an advocacy plan.
- Developing compelling messages.
- Creating a communication plan.
- Evaluating advocacy and communication success.
- Transparency Advocacy Toolkit
- Transparency Advocacy Workbook
- Strategies for Success: Open Access Policies at North American Educational Institutions (Fruin & Sutton, 2016)
- Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies (ROARMAP)
- Increasing value and reducing waste in biomedical research: who’s listening? (Moher et al., 2015)
- Four Proposals to Help Improve the Medical Research Literature (Moher & Altman, 2015)
We will spend most of Monday’s class creating an advocacy plan for your advocacy issue. If possible, review the "Choose an advocacy issue" section of the Transparency Advocacy Toolkit in advance of the class so you have an issue in mind from the start.