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Kathryn Eccles

, humanist historian turned digital, touts the benefits of career to remain open, connected

"What in the world is a historian by an institute internet?" This is a question I have been asked repeatedly - by colleagues, students and friends -. And I wondered more than once too

Over the past four years, I worked in a research center dedicated to understanding the social implications of the Internet. Research colleagues are engaged is rooted in the here and now, the very recent past, and often in the future. I feel very lucky, but as this recent post by Sarah Werner (@ wynkenhimself) suggests, sometimes you have to make your own luck and keep an open mind when you develop your academic career.

How did I get here? After completing my Ph.D., I did what many doctors humanities and took a teaching job while applying for jobs. I was asked to give a lecture for new graduate students, teaching my 10 tips to get you through the process of doctoral and it made me think about how the process has changed since that day 'I started my own doctoral studies. Many of these changes are related to the apparent ubiquity of digital technology.

When I started my PhD, I always had to meet the demands of the Bodleian Library books on a piece of paper, and most of my classmates took notes during conferences and seminars with a laptop - the guy who wrote with a pen. When you have finished all my notes were taken on a computer, and I would order my books online from the comfort of my home in the middle of reading online journal articles, and browse digital files. So when I saw an opening for a researcher to study the impact of digital resources on humanities research, I had to know more.

marked a turning point in my academic career. I have followed the history of part-time education for the first six months that I spent at the Oxford Internet Institute, thinking that this research project would be interesting diversion of my interests and valuable "real" research. Six months later, I was hooked. The pace of research is necessarily very fast, much more work is collaborative, and I love being at the forefront of advances in research and technology, if not as an observer. I am extremely fortunate to have met an exciting area of ??research because it emanated from the ordinary and using the digital humanities are full of traditional humanities scholars who have made the jump itself. I often find myself talking about my 'old' research interests and the new connections and do them. My first steps in academic career has led me in a direction very different from what I expected, but once again, the academic life has reinvented itself in the digital age, offering opportunities for researchers in disciplines. New tools and technologies have opened new areas of research and methods, with more space for interdisciplinarity.

In turn, these new methods and data sources that require new institutions ethical, legal and social efforts and consider some of these issues have encouraged collaboration and communication across disciplinary boundaries and reveal areas of common interest and expertise. There are new ways to communicate with scholars and thinkers, both inside and outside the academy (the Twitter hashtag # ECRchat to start) the effects arising from non-traditional but powerful.

If all this sounds a bit utopian, I have to say, of course, not all of these changes have been positive. But the positives generated by this digital transformation of the past decade have been, in my opinion, outweigh the negatives, and apply in particular to early career academics. access to online resources, social networks and the media have the potential to transform the process of doctoral researchers to come and participate in university networks often easier and more dynamic than ever. Access to digital resources can transform the research process and the creative use of social media allows graduate students to build their academic reputation much earlier in his career.

In the current economic climate, universities and research councils are feeling the pinch, and the competition for jobs and research funding has never been more acute. With the range of new technologies at our disposal, it is more important than ever to keep an open mind on the road, and every opportunity. Dr. Kathryn Eccles researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute

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