＜概要／目的＞
Background：
Science communication is about the various practices that transmit scientific ideas, methods, knowledge, and research to both experts and non-experts in an accessible, understandable, and useful way. In recent times, social media has become a part of our daily lives including science communication. Many universities and organizations use different social media platforms to impart knowledge to the community about the latest news and events related to science. With this in mind, the Department of Biology started a new initiative in the form of social media accounts on Instagram and Twitter platforms. The accounts were managed by graduate students of the department and used to post information about events and activities organized by the department as well as new publications and interesting research findings of faculty members and students.
The Social media committee consisted of six graduate students under the guidance of Dr. Isaac and Dr. Ando. The committee oversees the design and publication of posts on social media platforms. The group also met weekly to discuss the contents of these posts. The committee members were divided into two groups with one handling Instagram posts and the other handling Twitter.
Purpose:
Committee purpose
-To raise awareness among the students, staff, alumni, and faculty members of TMU, and the general masses about the current events and publications of the department.
-To impart scientific knowledge through the means of social media platforms.
-To encourage future applicants to join the Department of Biology at TMU.
-To inform prospective applicants on how they can enroll in the Department of Biology at TMU.
- To learn the ability to communicate about the current scientific findings and events through the means of social media platforms.
-To be able to handle and manage properly social media platforms related to scientific research.
Personal purpose
【Lola Alyssa Marie Albo】
- Impart scientific knowledge through the means of social media
- Learn how to run a social media account
- Practice making infographics/posters for scientific purposes
- Practice English and Japanese communication within and outside the committee
Personal purpose
【Arisa Tamura】
- Learn how to run an social media account
- Learn to advertise scientific knowledge and news to non-expertise
- Practice English communication via social media and within the committee
- Improve creative thinking skills by coming up with interesting post.
Personal purpose
【Toshima Alexander】
-Improving skills in time management, content creation, networking and communication as well as the ability to plan ahead and achieve short term targets..
Target: Students, staff, alumni, and faculty members of TMU; General masses (potential students and the community in general)
Co-planner/Planning collaborators: Arisa Tamura, Miyu Enomoto, Bounsanong Chouangthavy, Toshima Alexander, Iori Kato
Date of Implementation: July 11-September 30, 2023 (Project will still continue.)
＜方法／企画としての特徴＞
The students will post every week about the current activities, events, and publications of the department on social media. Here are the following students who will handle the accounts on the different social media platforms:
Instagram
-Lola Alyssa Marie Albo
-Toshima Alexander
-Iori Kato
Twitter
-Arisa Tamura
-Miyu Enomoto
-Bounsanong Chouangthavy
＜活動内容／具体的成果＞
-Instagram (tmu.gradbiology) and Twitter (tmu_gradbiology) accounts for the department were made for the announcements and events.
(Instagram: 24 followers, Twitter: 14 followers (as of 9/6/23))
-Irregular in-person meetings to share progress and discuss about future plans of the project.
【Lola Alyssa Marie Albo】
-Overall, I made most of the infographics and edited some of the announcements that were posted in the social media accounts. I also accomplished the minutes of the meeting. Moreover, I helped in the distribution of our banners.
The sample infographics that I did can be seen below:
Link to fileWelcome infographic to all the new followers from Instagram (tmu.gradbiology) and Twitter (tmu_gradbiology) accounts.
Link to fileInfographic for the open seminar, the speaker was Dr. Adam Khalife.
Link to fileLink to fileLink to fileLink to fileLink to fileLink to fileThese are the infographics and pictures from the Open Laboratory organized by the Systematics laboratory.
Link to fileThis was another infographic posted for the open seminar. Dr. Florian Reyda was the speaker.
ファイルへのリンクファイルへのリンクファイルへのリンクファイルへのリンクTrivia infographics were also made relating to our very own Makino Herbarium and Dr. Tomitaro Makino.
ファイルへのリンクFurthermore, I did an infographic about the classroom seminar held last September 5, 2023.
-As of the moment, the social media engagement of both accounts were still low. Hopefully, we will get more engagements in the coming days.
【Arisa Tamura】
-I handled with creation of the posts, especially with the Japanese captions.
(Instagram: @tmu.gradbiology Twitter:@tmu_gradbiology)
-I was in charge of advertising the account.
①I created a banner to display and distribute around the campus.
ファイルへのリンク②I sent an email to inform biological students about the account with the help of Dr. Isaac.
【Toshima Alexander】
- I handled the responsibility of acting as the account manager for the Instagram account.
- My overall responsibilities included creating English captions and posting the content in the account in a timely manner as well as tagging the relevant individuals. Images of the relevantt post and caption can be seen below.
-I was also involved in the creation of two infographics for the open-lab and for a seminar by Dr. Emlen images of which can be seen below.
Link to file -I was also involved in troubleshooting for any issues in the account.When the original Instagram account (@tmu_gradbiology) we created was hacked and deleted I created the recovery account which is being currently used @tmu.gradbiology (Instagram) and reposted some of the necessary posts.
＜感想／課題など（企画力／評価力／自主性等の向上を含む）＞
【Lola Alyssa Marie Albo】
Overall, I was able to impart scientific knowledge through social media accounts. These days majority of the people all around the globe are using social media platforms. With this said, we can use these as our tools to spread scientific awareness. Moreover, as I made most of the infographics, I was able to improve my creative thinking skills. I really enjoyed making them. Additionally, since I am an international student, this project helped me in socializing with other Japanese and international students as well as staffs of the campus as we share our thoughts about the posts that we made and during the distributions of the banners.
I think this project is a good venue for scientific communication. I hope the department can help us in encouraging more students and faculty members to follow our social media accounts since we will continue this project until next year together with the guidance of Dr. Isaac and Dr. Ando. For the coming months, we plan to make more posts about the recent events, publications and trivia that are all related to our department. Surveys may be conducted once our number of followers increased in the coming days.
【Arisa Tamura】
In the first half of this project, I learned how to manage and run an official social media account. I am one of the people who use social media on a daily basis, though operating a university account was quite different since it requires more consideration and responsibility to become a source of the biological department of TMU. Moreover, coming up with post contents needed more effort than I imagined, since the target of our audience is diverse and the interest varies between people. I have been improving my creative thinking and English communication skills through meetings and messages with the committee members, to come up with different kinds of posts that attract a variety of audiences. I also used my creativity to design a banner that easily tells necessary information in a glance and attracts peoples’ attention.
For the latter half of this project, I need to practice science communication. I haven’t achieved my purpose to advertise science news to non-expertize, since the posts prioritize TMU students rather than future applicants or people outside of TMU. I will commit more to create scientific posts that make people without science backgrounds interested in science. Additionally, I want to manage and plan effectively in order to succeed in this one-year project.
【Toshima Alexander】
- I was able to meet all my personal goals for this project, I learned a lot about networking and communication between team members to get all the different components of the content such as the infographic , the Japanese caption and the English caption made by the other members ready in time and posting the content in a timely manner.
- For a newly created Instagram account we are slowly gaining traction and we managed to reach the goal of spreading scientific events and knowledge to individuals outside the direct university scientific community.
-Due to the issue of the account being hacked I gained a lot of experience in rapid troubleshooting and recovery and also learned more about account security and the risks of running an official social media account.
Link to imageLink to image- I was greatly inspired by our group effort to increase the reach of our posts and the amount of planning and fine tuning that took place during the creation of each post to ensure maximum interaction.
-It is my hope to continue this account with the team and improve the interaction of this account so that we can pass this torch proudly to our juniors so that they may keep this effort going.
