Faculty researchers: be a YouTube star!

Back in early 2008, OIRT started a web video series called The OIRT Faculty Research Spotlight. Its goal is to highlight the contributions our faculty make to the academic community through their research. If you'd like to get interviewed about your research, please read on to see how you can get involved!

Since the inception of the series, we've interviewed 50 faculty members in 36 departments across the university. We've published about 30 of these interviews so far, with more to come every few weeks.

You can see the videos on the Rutgers YouTube channel. I've embedded an example below for your convenience: Dr. Lee Clarke (Sociology) discussing disaster and the human response.



We do have a sizable log of footage left to edit, but we'd like more! If you're a faculty researcher here at the university and you'd like to showcase your work, send an e-mail to podcasting@rutgers.edu and we'll schedule a meeting with you to discuss your involvement in the project.

Your involvement in this project consists of about 20 minutes during the initial meeting (we'll come to your office for this) and about 40 minutes for the actual interview (which will also take place at your office, if you so desire).

OIRT is looking for a few outstanding undgergraduate researchers

Late last semester, OIRT and the Aresty Research Center started a video series called The Undergraduate Research Spotlight. The goal of the series is to recognize the contributions of those students who are at the heart of this university's strong research tradition. We asked faculty to nominate their outstanding undergraduate researchers, and we got an amazing response: 34 faculty nominated 87 students from 50 departments!

Check out some of the videos by clicking the links below (Quicktime required to view):
Aradia Herbst-Gervasoni - Pituitary cancer and its relationship to ethanol and estrogen
Preeti Khanolkar - Video gaming through the eyes of its practitioners

We're still buried in the editing process for all of these interviews, but we're looking for more undergraduate researchers to come in and talk to us about their research.

Nominees should be current or former undergraduate researchers here at the university. Nominees should also be comfortable (and excited to be) talking about their research in front of a camera!

If you'd like to nominate someone, please send an e-mail to podcasting@rutgers.edu with the student's name, e-mail address, and a bit about the nature of their research. You can even self-nominate, if you like!

The videos are being uploaded into the Rutgers iTunes U media repository as they are being completed. Check out the rest of the videos, and other great Rutgers content, by going to http://itunes.rutgers.edu and clicking the big red button (download iTunes).

RU faculty member empowers female inmates

I had the opportunity last week to film an event at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, NJ. The event, titled "Share the Wealth Expo Day", was the culmination of Community 101, a 14-week education/enrichment program being run at the facility. Dr. Nancy Wolff, director of the university's Center for Behavioral Health Services & Criminal Justice Research, runs the course and invited me to the Expo Day to see what it was all about.

Dr. Wolff is an economist by training, and she spent some time explaining the economics of all of this: 97% of all inmates are going to leave the penal system at some point in their lives, so it makes sense for us to help them become functioning members of society, contributing wealth back into the system, instead of spending taxpayer money only on retribution by simply punishing people for their crimes.

The goal of the program is to help inmates succeed once they leave the prison system. Among other things, inmates learn about anger management, money management, stress management, and how to get identification and other documentation once they leave the prison. They also learn interpersonal skills which will help them while they're incarcerated and once they've left the system.

The bottom line is that Dr. Wolff is trying to build empowerment for these women so that once they're released, they can show society that they are confident and pro-social individuals. She wants them to be able to step away from their labels and become what their potential will allow them to be.

We'll be publishing a Faculty Research Spotlight episode about her research once we've completed the video work that we were hired to do for this program. I look forward to sharing her work with the community.

New Undergraduate Research Spotlight episodes posted

I just posted a bunch of new episodes in the Undergraduate Research Spotlight section of our iTunes U site. The students are:

• Niti Mehta - Spanish & Portuguese
• Samantha Farris - Center of Alcohol Studies and Psychology
  
• Preeti Khanolkar - Sociology
• Kristin Howell - Center of Alcohol Studies
  

You can see the videos by going to our iTunes U repository, http://itunes.rutgers.edu. You will need iTunes in order to access the videos. Click here to download iTunes (Mac or PC).

Look for more episodes coming soon!

Lumifi - Organize Your Research

Lumifi is a web-based workspace for faculty, students, and other researchers to search for and organize their research information. It looks to be pretty helpful as an application. The short introductory video below can explain it much better than I can. Check it out: