Looking for a way to engage people with your research online? Find out more about the I'm a Researcher - Ask Me Anything! events.
I’m a Researcher – Ask Me Anything! is a one-hour online chat-based question and answer event on social news website Reddit. Reach a large international audience from the comfort of your own home or office, all you need is a laptop and an hour of your time during the event and an extra 30 minutes a few days later
These events allow you to talk to a global audience, find out what people think about your work, answer unexpected questions and share why your work is important and interesting.
If you would like to take part in a I’m a Researcher – Ask Me Anything! and know about another festival or event that we coincide with, please let us know. This could be a specific day, week or local / national event relating to your topic area.
How does the event work?
To start, you need to provide a short title and description for your Reddit AMA post. This will include some information about yourself, your area of research, and what kind of topic you can answer questions on. The moderators will then add this to the Reddit board, and users will post questions for you to answer.
At an agreed time, you can log into Reddit and answer the questions left by users. Reddit users ‘upvote’ the most popular questions and these will appear at the top of your page. Normally researchers spend around an hour answering questions before logging off, but this can be adjusted to fit your schedule.
This is a great opportunity to learn what parts of your research are most interesting to a public audience and understand the relevance and importance of your research as well sharing your knowledge with people from around the world.
We've also found that returning to the post for half an hour the next day lets you answer any questions that came through after you left or didn't have time to answer.
This is a great opportunity to learn what parts of your research are most interesting to a public audience, understand the relevance and importance of your research, and share your knowledge with people from around the world.
Who is the audience?
Reddit is divided into subreddits. These are communities based on a shared interest such as science, politics or video games. Each subreddit has its own community, guidelines and moderators.
The audience depends on which subreddit you are using; r/IAmA has 24.3 million users, mostly based in the USA with a wide variety of interests. If you are interested in reaching different audiences, you can look for different topic specific subreddits who might be interested in your topic area. For example, you could try r/UKPolitics or r/Science or another subreddit related to your research area.
Get involved
If you’re interested in participating in a I'm a Researcher - Ask Me Anything!, the Public Engagement Unit can help arrange it and support you in getting the most out of the event. Contact us to arrange a Reddit AMA.
Rob Cooper is Public Engagement Officer at the University of Bath.
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