by Juliane
I am almost done with reading the postdoc guidebook. This last part is about research. Let’s see if this covers more than RIMS.
Brownie points for mentioning the training courses, some links need updating and most trainings are now online, so the only a few times a month restriction doesn’t apply for lots of trainings.
This is followed by almost two pages about RCR (responsible conduct of research); even though I agree RCR is important, this is slightly too much, since all this information is available in a more updated version from RCR.
The next page is a handy list of research offices, which I find useful and might print out.
Then a long list of research policies, this is also useful, since it is always possible for postdocs to run into compliance issues, so it is good and useful to know who to contact.
But then the postdoc guidebook goes back to thinking postdoc are students: Links to university policies, which might be of interest to postdocs, but apply mainly to students, like the Drugs and Alcohol policy.
The chapter about funding and grants is a good compilation of links that are worth exploring for anybody, who is looking for their own funding. It is organized alphabetically, which makes it harder to find grants/societies relevant for each field, plus you have to click on every link to figure out if you qualify or not. Often we don’t, e.g. the national endowment for the humanities doesn’t help science postdocs.
I like the links to networking and career advancement websites, but again they need updating.
The postdoc guidebook isn’t a bad document, but it is not perfect. If you are completely new to BU and Boston, the postdoc guidebook can help, but so does the employee guidebook and ISSO. To get to the parts that actually matter for postdocs, after they have been around for more than two months, you have to scroll until page 30 out of 34. There is a table of content, but it is not linked to the appropriate pages, so whatever you want, lots of scrolling is necessary and the page numbers and the actual number of the page in the .pdf are not identical. This makes the guidebook harder to use. There is potential for a new edition, maybe not a .pdf this time. Any volunteers to write it?