App Report: Retrospective on Useful Accounts with UK Access

Dear UK Colleagues (& Those With General Nerdy Interest),

Custom-designed Chuck Taylor All-Star Converse
("Chucks") by & for Dr. AnthroBone, Class of 2021

I'm pleased to report that I finally finished and defended my dissertation, completed my PhD, and graduated from the University of Kentucky (UK) this semester! There is much to reflect upon and write about this experience, and I will share various lessons learned in the future. Meanwhile, as I depart UK, there are several free websites and resources related to writing/professional development through UK's institutional membership that I have taken advantage of over the years that I hope are also valuable for continuing graduate students.

• Aurora/Beyond the Professoriate: From the institutional login page, select UK from the short drop-down menu of participating schools. This is career tool includes a large database of interviews/webinars and other resources on both faculty and professional careers, including a jobs board. There are general resources as well as some streamlined for STEM and Social Sciences/Humanities, and there's a handy note-taking tool for saving useful information gleaned from videos/webinars.
• Dissertation Planner: The UK Libraries site includes several apps and other resources for grad students. The Dissertation Planner (no login required) is a good set of general resources for all stages of the dissertation process that I have found useful in thinking about how to manage the smaller pieces of a large (yet focused) project. There is also a “Data Management Tool” that is available through UK LinkBlue login.
• National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD): Last winter, I completed the (at-your-own-pace) 12-week online "Dissertation Success" Curriculum with daily writing goals and accountability. The curriculum focuses on establishing a daily writing practice of 30 minutes a day minimum (which I found extremely helpful to jumpstart/maintain momentum) with an online community of peers in the DS Forum (which I found inspiring at first and then more overwhelming than helpful). There are short videos that introduce helpful strategies each week, and the focus is on writing in the various forms it takes for an academic manuscript or dissertation. (I found NCFDD founder Kerry Ann Rockquemore's cheerful, sincere encouragement and the mesmerizing lemon trees outside her office window such a comforting companion that I rewatched some of the videos after I completed the program!) I also participated in multiple 14-Day Writing Challenges, watched some great webinars on the NCFDD website, and draw inspiration and practical tips from the weekly "Monday Motivator" e-newsletter.
  
• Pivot Funding Database: Click on "Use login from my institution" and select UK. This is a great tool for searching, filtering, and "tracking" funding opportunities from a wide range of sources and disciplines. I totally forgot about this until recently, so I updated my account and did some day-dreamy searches for my (then future) post-doctoral-self before losing UK access upon graduation.
  
• Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAAA): I'm not sure whether UK institutional access is still open for this (or how to find out), but grad students who participated in the virtual "Publish & Flourish" workshop in October received a free year of TAAA membership and a free e-book by presenter Tara Gray. (There is an excerpt of her 12 very helpful writing steps on the publisher site.) I also downloaded several other e-books and templates from the TAAA website, which also includes some worthwhile dissertation-related resources. Overall, this is a tremendous resource for anyone who wants to publish a journal article and/or is considering publishing parts of their dissertation research as books.
• VersatilePhD: The first time you access the site through logging in to MyUK, clicking the "My Info" tab, then "Versatile PhD" from the left-hand menu, which will open a separate window to login or create an account through UK. It includes job listings, discussion forums, networking directory/"meet-ups," webinars, and more. I haven't used this much yet, but it looks useful for exploring post-doc career opportunities.

This is by no means a complete list, but these are just some of the valuable UK-access tools I have enjoyed and benefited from. Take advantage of those university resources while you can, and feel free to share other useful accounts/sites through UK in the comments. I'll post again soon with additional updates.

Be Kind, Be Kin,

*Dr. AnthroBone

P.S. Some of my summer writing projects include sharing posts about additional apps, methods, writing tips, and other resources for academic research and writing. For now, I updated the AnthroDashboard to reflect a couple of additional UK-related resources I became aware of recently.