BU URBAN Internship Course

February 12, 2024

• Share internship status/progress
• Review Syllabus and adjust dates as needed
• Assignments
  • Due Friday, February 23:
    • Complete pre-internship self-assessment
    • If you are interested, please sign up for PDPA’s “Creating and Curating Your Online Presence” workshop here. Join this webinar to learn more about how to create, leverage and curate your online presence through LinkedIn, your own website, and social media such as X. Postdocs will also learn about how to network and maintain relationships through these online platforms and share their research. 
      • Date & Time: Wednesday, February 28 from 12:30-1:45pm (1hr 15 minutes)
      • Location: Zoom
      • If you are unable to attend the PDPA “Creating and Curating Your Online Presence” webinar on February 28, please complete the Building Networks and Managing Online Identity Badge here prior to the class session on Monday, March 18. It will take approximately 55-65 minutes to obtain this badge. 

On Your Own: Between Tuesday, February 20 to Tuesday, February 26

• The Big Picture – on or before February 26
  • Read one of the papers below and provide a 200-300 word response (save as a Google doc to your folder in Google Drive) to the questions: “How do public-private partnerships in general contribute to planning healthy, sustainable, and equitable cities? What are key challenges, gaps in knowledge, and areas of opportunity?” In your response, please incorporate your prior knowledge, concepts from the paper that you read, and/or how your URBAN internship project relates to these partnerships. Your response will count towards participation in class meetings.
    • Ramaswami, A., et al. (2016). “Meta-principles for developing smart, sustainable, and healthy cities.” Science, 352(6288), 940-943. pdf
    • Harman, B.P., et al. (2015). “Urban partnerships and climate adaptation: challenges and opportunities.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 12: 74-79. pdf
• Assignments to complete before class on March 4:
  • Complete the following readings:
    • Policy Briefs
      • Review the Policy Brief Toolkit from IRDC
      • Policy Briefs – The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
      • Optional: Check out additional materials in the Policy Brief Guides folder
    • Public Comments
      • Public Comment on Pending Regulation from the MIT Policy Lab
  • Find an example of a policy brief written by a researcher, relevant to your field or internship and by 12pm on March 4, and email a copy of the policy brief to to urban@bu.edu. Please be prepared to share the following in class on March 4:
    1. How effective was the policy brief you chose at communicating the policy issue?
    2. How was the problem was presented?
    3. Which stakeholders were mentioned? Were there any stakeholders left out?
    4. How may the potential policy change impact the stakeholders?
    5. What is one way that the policy brief inspires you?
    6. What could you achieve with a policy brief that resulted from your internship? Who would you share it with and why (in other words, who should know what you’re doing and why?)? Identify 2 or more partners/stakeholders/experts who may be interested in learning about your internship project.
  • Optional: Take 10 minutes to explore BU PDPA’s PhD Progression Pathways here and bookmark and make a note of 2-3 badges that you would like to complete this semester or over the summer. “Schedule-send” an email to remind yourself of your goal! The PhD Progression timeline is here.

March 4, 2024

• Share internship progress
• PDPA PhD Progression Pathways – thoughts on which badges you would like to complete?
• Policy & Research Questions
  • Consider the environmental challenge that your internship project addresses. Come up with a policy question that relates to the environmental challenge. Come up with 5 research questions that can help inform the policy question that you have come up with.
• Share and discuss policy brief examples
• Review guidelines for policy briefs and public comments
• Assignment(s) for next class on March 18:
  • Review this explainer on Public Policy Communication from the MIT Policy Lab
  • Decide on whether you will complete a stakeholder presentation, policy brief, or public comment for your class deliverable.
  • Create a storyboard for your stakeholder presentation or create an outline of your policy brief or public comment (email to urban@bu.edu).
  • Reminder to complete the Building Networks and Managing Online Identity Badge (link here) prior to class on Monday, March 18. It will take approximately 55-65 minutes to obtain this badge.

Enjoy spring break!!! No class on March 11.

March 18, 2024

• Share internship progress
• Stakeholder Presentations
  • Identifying key stakeholders: Who are the key stakeholders for your URBAN internship project?
  • Tools for stakeholder analysis- considerations of power, equity, inclusion
  • Discussion: best practices for presentations to non-experts
  • Data Visualization
    • Data to Viz Tool
    • Johns Hopkins Data Visualization Guide: Guide for technologies, techniques, and best practices for data visualization
• Go over guidelines for peer review and come up with a peer review timeline based on your internship timeline – when will you have your first draft done by? when will you need feedback from your reviewer?
  • Peer Reviewing for Graduate Students by David P. Carter Inquiry of the Public Sort Medium.pdf
  • Peer Review Information and Guidelines
    • Peer Review of trainee internship products is included in the internship course as a way to improve the quality of the product and provide an opportunity to practice and improve peer review skills. Peer review is helpful for two major reasons. First, this process should help the writer by providing them with constructive criticism so that they can improve their product. The second purpose is for the reviewer to see commonly made mistakes so that they can avoid them in their own writing.
    • Given that each internship timeline is unique, each peer review timeline will also be unique and should be agreed upon by the writer and the reviewer. The goal is that eventually, each trainee receives peer feedback. Please communicate with your peer reviewer about a feedback timeline that works for your internship. If you are able to follow the timeline below, that’s great, but not necessary.
    • When initiating peer reviewer, the writer should identify what exactly they would like feedback on. Examples could include ideas and assumptions, grammar and spelling, clarity and concision, or a general sanity check. It can also be helpful to explain what you don’t want feedback on, so that the reviewer doesn’t waste time focusing on the wrong thing. A helpful strategy could be for the peers to agree upon how much time they will spend on the review (e.g., 1 hour) and therefore what the priority should be during that time.
    • The course instructor will also provide feedback on your product.
• Assignments:
  • Work on stakeholder presentation, policy brief, or public comment.
  • ASAP: Decide on your internship product/deliverable and agree on a timeline for sending the draft to and receiving input from your reviewer. If product size or complexity differ between reviewers, agree upon portions of products that result in a fair amount of work done by each party. Please write up the details of this plan and email to each other and cc urban@bu.edu.
  • Before April 8:  Send a draft of your product to your peer reviewer and the course instructor.
    • Within 2 weeks (unless a shorter turnaround is requested and agreed upon), receive feedback on draft internship products/deliverables.
  • April 22: Provide/receive feedback on draft internship products/deliverables via email on or before this date. Meet with your review partner to go over feedback (optional).

Asynchronous Sections: March 25 to April 15, 2024

• Share progress on internships in response to automated emails from Heather (reply all)
• Peer Review
  • Continue to work on your internship product (stakeholder presentation, policy brief, public comment) draft and send to peer reviewer based on timeline you agreed upon
•  Developing Your Online Presence
  • After completing the PDPA webinar or earning the badge on creating/curating/managing your online presence, continue to explore your online presence and set goals for developing it
    • Ask:
      • What is my current online presence? (Hint: Google your name in incognito mode, in quotes)
      • Reflect on the four questions here, under “Why have a web presence?”
    • Decide:
      • What are my goals for this semester? Do I want to focus on Networking platforms (twitter, LinkedIn) or Marketing platforms (personal website)?
      • What can I do by the end of April? What can I do today? Formulate a plan for creating and curating your online presence this semester–what will you accomplish by May 15? 
      • Low-hanging fruit
        • Update your bio on BU URBAN website, lab website, social media, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, etc.
        • Update your email signature and include links to programs and departments
        • Google a few researchers you admire (current PhD students or recent graduates) and explore their online presence
        • Additional Examples:
          • http://www.evopropinquitous.net
          • https://www.ruhabenjamin.com
          • https://yunzhousociology.com
          • https://www.jenanni.com
          • http://www.zachwhalen.net
          • https://www.douglasvanbossuyt.com
          • https://manilsuri.umbc.edu
    • Bookmark:
      • You can make a personal website through BU
      • Slides from BU Research Panel on Crafting Your Online Scholarly Persona
  • Work session: 25 minutes improving your online presence
• Developing your Online Presence, Part 2
  • Questions to consider
    • What do you stand for? What are your goals?
    • Start from scratch…
    • Choose three keywords
    • Map it out with evidence & actions
    • Write a mission statement
      • I am a ____
      • I work towards ____
      • I believe/am committed to _____
    • Work session: 10 minutes working on your bio
  • How do you want to position yourself?
    • Traditional vs. Available
    • Who is your audience and what are the conventions?
  • Considerations
    • How are you unique?
    • Make it evergreen (“PhD student”)
    • Articulate your research paradigm
  • Work session: 15 minutes working on your bio
• Assignments due April 22:
  • Email your plan for creating and curating your online presence to Heather at urban@bu.edu. Be sure to include a bio that you want to upgrade, or share a platform where you want to start a new bio.
  • Prepare a 3-minute internship lightning talk for the Intro Workshop (download template here). We will practice the lightning talks during Session Seven and you will record your talk so we can share it with incoming trainees in advance of the Intro Workshop. Your recording will ultimately be public – posted on the URBAN website and our YouTube channel. Plan accordingly. If are things you can’t share are aren’t ready to share, aim for something higher-level that still explains the problem and that you did something useful.
  • Provide/receive feedback on draft internship products/deliverables via email on or before this date.
  • Meet with your review partner to go over feedback (optional).

April 22, 2024

• Share progress on internships
• Give practice talks for Intro Workshop
• Assignments due Monday, May 6 by 5pm (or agreed-upon time with Heather)
  • Record a video of your internship lightning talk
    • The easiest method is to start a new meeting with your personal zoom account, hit “Record on this Computer,” and send the video file to urban@bu.edu. Please set up the recording so that we can see the slides and your face while you are presenting and please watch the video first before sending it, in case you wish to make updates and re-record.
  • Submit the final draft of your stakeholder presentation, policy brief, or public comment by emailing to urban@bu.edu
  • Complete post-internship assessment (click to access survey)
  • Complete Internship Course Write-up Assignment and email to urban@bu.edu

Introductory Workshop for incoming URBAN Cohort

Date and Location TBD

• Internship discussion with first-year trainees