Tell us what you think      Forward this to a friend      Subscribe now      Not a member? Join here

The Online Academic Advisor

Sunday, May 13th 2007
Contents

  1. Online Academic Advisor has made it into the finals of Venture Further Competition at the University of Manchester, UK
  2. 100% community growth from 15.03.2007 - 15.04.2007
  3. Discussing Academics Wanted!
  4. "Unfriendly" Google Adverts

1. Online Academic Advisor has made it into the finals of Venture Further Competition at the University of Manchester, UK

The University of Manchester, UK has a Manchester Science Enterprise Centre. Its mission is to empower people to exploit ideas and knowledge. The centre has run a business enterprise competition in Spring 2007 referred to as Venture Further.

Before long, we submitted our entry with The Online Academic Advisor to the competition. All entries were judged by an initial judging panel who selected the best teams and asked them to give a short presentation to the final judging panel.

Luckily, we were selected, made it into the finals of the competition and got a chance to present our community to final judging panel! The judges were impressed by the way we operate and asked lots of exciting questions, which will undoubtedly influence the way our community will evolve.

The whole Online Academic Advisor team want to thank you for being part of the community. We would not be able to get this far without your enthusiasm and participation. Keep it up!

2. 100% community growth from 15.03.2007 - 15.04.2007

Our community grew 100% in the period from the middle of March till the middle of April this year. This remarkable growth was acknowledged by So, you can trigger your local marketing, communications or PR people to report about it as well. If they need more info about our community, just refer them to us.

3. Discussing Academics Wanted!

We have been contacted by a number of students from our community who would love to take part in research discussions on the site. But... They do not know where to start. They say that academics are not really keen on starting active communities and groups on their research topics. The students themselves are not doing research but would like to get in the field. They want to follow the discussions first, get a hint of research topics and then join in as well.

So, therefore, a call on all academics from our community: please, start communities and groups on your research interests and invite other users to join.

Probably the best way of doing this is to use The Online Academic Advisor as a free research collaboration platform. Invite your research students and colleagues from around the world to join the site and use it for ongoing do-to-day discussions. You will be surprised how many interested people there are out there who would like to contribute as well!

And you know for sure: the best way of making progress in research is to get as many heads as possible think about a research problem.

So, what are you waiting for? Make The Online Academic Advisor your day-to-day tool of communication with colleagues. It is free. And just let us know should you miss a feature!

4. "Unfriendly" Google Adverts

You probably have noticed Google Ads on our site. The ads are related to academic matters and usually promote other academic sites, universities, courses, scholarships etc.

However, there is another kind of ads that sometimes show up on our site. These ads promote plagiarism and other behaviour that is forbidden in academia. Therefore, we regularly inform Google about this and ask them to filter those ads and not to place them on our portal, which they do.

However, they can only filter the adverts that are reported to them. The adverts vary depending on your geographical location. We are UK-based. The adverts we see in the UK may be different from those you see in the US, Australia or China etc. Therefore, we cannot report all "unfriendly" ads to Google for filtering. We have to ask you, our users, to report the ads to us and we will report them to Google. Some of you have already started doing this. Thank you very much for your help. This way, we will ensure that our site is an excellent academic portal without any hint whatsoever to plagiarism and the like.

How to report an "unfriendly" advert?

If you see an ad that you think might be unfriendly, please, send us all the information you see. It usually consists of 3-7 lines: Title, Description and Link. You do not need to click on the ad to report it to us.

I am not sure if an advert is "unfriendly"?

If in doubt, just report the ad to us. We will discuss it and report it to Google should we find it "unfriendly".


Thanks for being part of The Online Academic Advisor, the world's strongest, and soon largest, academic community growing daily.

Happy Researching!
The Online Academic Advisor Team

Want to unsubscribe from the newsletter?
If you are a member, change your profile details here.
If you are not, reply to this email and put "unsubscribe" in the subject.

Copyright © 2007 The Online Academic Advisor. All rights reserved. You may not copy or publish excerpts, but you are welcome to forward this newsletter in its entirety.

Tell us what you think      Forward this to a friend      Subscribe now      Not a member? Join here