Learning - issues and considerations

People have increasing pressures on their time. There may be reluctance to join networks, or contribute information to a central website if it's not clear why the network or website exists, and how it will benefit them personally. 

People who do public engagement, particularly those who do it in their spare time, are often protective of their projects. They can view other groups as competition for limited funding and may not be willing to share resources and/or experience. 

People may feel defensive about their experience in public engagement. ‘Best practice’ events need to be handled sensitively.

Networks need a core of active members, but it is also important to advertise the existence of established networks and encourage new people to join to ensure it covers a whole institution and not limited to those ‘in the loop’.

Professional Development, rather than training, is perhaps a more useful way of describing what’s needed. Training implies participants can attend a day, or course, and leave knowing ‘how to do’ public engagement.  Realistically, to create successful layers and types of public engagement staff, students and researchers need to understand more about the ethos and principles of public engagement as well as the pragmatics.

Bad or inappropriate technology often derails good intentions. Involving a focus group of potential users during the development stage can provide useful insights and result in a system that is more intuitive to use and much easier to keep up to date.