PSY4314 – Research communication in cognitive neuroscience

This course teaches students how to reach an audience outside of academia.

Dissemination and communication of research to the general public constitutes one of the core functions of the university. Neuroscientists engage in conversations with society through writing, talks, and participation in media, thus benefiting various parts of our community. Communication skills also benefit scientists. Communicating your own work in a popularized way makes you more aware of what you are actually working on. Communicating general topics to people who are not familiar with psychology and neuroscience helps you broaden your scope and inspires new research questions. Communicating your skills may also come in handy when applying for jobs inside and outside of academia. In this course, you will learn some of the genres of research communication and dissemination within various media, e.g. popularized essays, op-eds, public talks and interviews. The choice of genres and media may vary from semester to semester. There will be assignments, both in writing and other media, on which you are given feedback from the teacher and fellow students. The course is set up as a series of workshops, with a lot of student participation

Knowledge:

You will

• know the characteristics of different genres of research communication
• have a theoretical foundation for your research communication

Skills

You will

• learn how to write about scientific topics in an easy-to-read manner
• be able to structure arguments
• learn how to talk about scientific concepts, methods and results with both integrity and accessibility to various audiences
• plan and arrange an event and/or a podcast episode featuring cognitive neuroscience or psychology

General competence

You will

• reflect on the significance of having a dialogue with society about scientific issues
• extend your scientific knowledge to new problems in life and society
• find ways to trust your own grasp of cognitive neuroscience as well as respect your own knowledge boundaries

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

6 seminars of 3 hours each.

The seminars will be a mix between introducing a topic, discussions about the curriculum, in-class exercises and feedback on assignments. Students are encouraged to submit all assignments.

Mandatory activity: submission of at least three assignments of the student’s choice. If a live event is one of the activities, participation in the event counts as an assignment. If a podcast is one of the activities, the recording counts as an assignment.

If you are sick or have another valid reason for not attending the regular exam, we offer a postponed exam later in the same semester.

See also our information about resitting an exam.