2.3 Support to service to society
The scholarship of engagement (service) promotes the application of
academic knowledge and prevents its societal irrelevance. As put it by
Boyer, it consists of “service activities… tied directly to
one’s special field of knowledge” in the form of “serious, demanding
work, requiring the rigor - and the accountability - traditionally
associated with research activities” [36]. Even though analysis
carried out for example at European universities in 2014 found that
Europe’s academics largely prioritized research and teaching, with only
3 h per week dedicated to societal engagement activities [37], today
a rapidly increasing number of scholars are active in community-engaged
scholarship [38].
In other words, after a prolonged period in which the “historic
commitment to the ‘scholarship of engagement’ has dramatically
declined” [39], in the last decade (2012-2022) with the emergence
of environmental, financial, economic, energy and geopolitical problems
of intrinsically global nature the role of academic intellectuals
acquired again broad societal relevance [40].
A personal academic website critically supports this part of the
academic work by making publicly available past and ongoing activities
aimed to the non-academic community, including activities such as public
engagement, providing expert opinions, and consulting. The website may
thus conveniently include public presentations, interviews, articles in
the general press, consulting and expert witness reports, and videos
aimed at the public. The aforementioned life scientist Olumuyiwa
Igbalajobi, a post-doctoral researcher at Canada’s University of British
Columbia, launched his personal academic website in mid 2021. Besides
presenting his research in the field of fungal diseases, the website
supports his societal service academic work spanning from fund raising
to aid in the processing of passports for prospective graduate students
from Nigeria [41].
3. Perspectives and conclusions
A personal website is a tool by which the effectiveness andscope of communication with all the “stakeholders” of academic
work is enhanced. Through the website, for example, a scholar canfreely and personally communicate with prospective
students, young researchers, colleagues, journalists, prospective
employers, research funders and interested citizens, offering a coherent
presentation of her/his overall work and approach to research.
For example, the website of neurobiologist Kay Tye created in the early
2010s included a “philosophy” web page describing her expectations for
all lab members emphasizing “the importance of having a positive
attitude, communicating honestly, supporting other lab members and
taking care of oneself (for example, by making time to socialize and
exercise)” [42]. Many applicants, underlined Tye in 2014, cited the
philosophy statement “as a reason they wanted to work with her”
[43]. On the other hand, “people who don’t identify with this
philosophy won’t apply” [43]. This single example shows why a
personal academic website developed from a mutually beneficial
perspective (in which users can readily find the information of
relevance to their needs, and scholars present their own expectations),
will stand the test of time. The latter website indeed is still online
and retains the same “Philosophy” statement in 2023.
Most researchers are not aware that for over two decades since the Web
introduction, until collaboration between publishers and search engine
companies was established, academic articles stored in publishers’
databases were actually part of the “academic invisible web” [44].
In other words, managing a personal academic website should not be seen
as an obsolete activity that can be replaced by the use of academic
social network websites, such as ResearchGate or Academia.edu, chiefly
used to maintain a personal profile, posting links to published papers,
tracking read (and recommendation) metrics, and finding recommended
research papers [45]. Nor a personal academic website loses its
value because social networks such as Twitter allow (beyond a threshold
of 1,000 “followers”) to readily disseminate scientific messages to a
broader audience comprised of journalists, members of the public, and
decision-makers [46].
Thirty years after the introduction of the web [10], most world’s
researchers do not have a personal academic website either in
high-income [11-12] and in economically developing countries.
Opportunities therefore abound.
The few, selected examples of the scholars briefly reviewed in this
study show that having a personal academic website is worth the effort,
with respect to each of the three main dimensions of scholarly work:
research, education, and societal service [1]. Only a personal
website, furthermore, can aggregate the research, educational and
societal service activity of a scholar, as well as the aforementioned
“scattered professional profiles” [15], making said
activity freely and openly accessible to anyone having access to the
internet (5 billion people by the end of 2022) [47].
An academic willing to start her/his own website does not need to learn
the HTML 5.0 standard or the CSS style language, nor is required to
learn search engine optimization (SEO) for proper positioning. The main
technical guideline to follow should be to create a highly usable
website, namely a website presenting information in a clear and concise
way being at any stage of the website development easy to access and
“navigate” [48].
Effective mentorship of students and young researchers requires to teach
them how to write scientific manuscripts “in a manner that draws and
maintains the interest of the intended scientific audience” [49].
Hence, it is of high educational value to involve young researchers in
the joint development of the personal academic website, giving students
for example the task to draft the news communicating to the public their
research findings.
In conclusion, owning and managing a personal academic website provides
clear benefits the research, education, and societal service activities
of any scholar, whatever may be the scholarly field. As with any other
online activity, the main risk associated with maintaining a website is
related to unproductive use of time. The aim is to provide users with
accurate, relevant, targeted, and updated content. This requires to
focus on producing said content by allocating enough, uninterrupted time
[50] to produce such content and publish it online.
Keywords: personal academic website; open science; academic
profession; scholarship of engagement; self-archiving