Emily's Marketing Internship with UEA's Research and Enterprise Services -- Weeks 1 and 2

Week 1 11^th-14^th March

My role on my 12 week Marketing Internship is to support the Marketing and REN department with the roll-out Marketing strategy of PURE. This is a system that provides real time information to individual staff and their academic managers. The University has purchased PURE from the software company Atira. PURE allows data about research projects, publications, research students and enterprise projects to be displayed in one place on a web portal rather than having access to many different databases.

The first week included being welcomed to the Research and Enterprise Services department. I was given a tour of various offices that I may need to use during my time here. In order to market this product, a clear understanding is essential.  I have been researching PURE documentation that the UEA have written and have access to the PURE portal in order to familiarise myself with it.

I have met with the Marketing and Communications manager from the Admissions Recruitment and Marketing department, who gave me an overview of the department. I had a practical session from the Marketing Administrator who gave me a run through of where information is on the UEA portal that I may need to access. I also had a meeting with the Communications Officer for internal communications within the University, who gave me a guide on the writing style of the University and explained her role.

I had a necessary Firewalk of the Arts corridor which is standard health and safety with anyone that is new to working in the building and had a meeting with the Science and Research Support Librarian to discuss her role with PURE and the current system of EPrints.

I had a meeting with a PURE working group. This was a discussion of the technical side of PURE. My week is split on working at two different desks in both the REN and ARM department. I found this a bit difficult finding my way in my first week but also refreshing being able to work in two different offices. I take every opportunity of being outside to enjoy the UEA surroundings in my lunch breaks.

Week 2 19^th-22^th March

In the second week of my internship I learned more about the PURE system and EPrints. I had a meeting with a Super user of PURE who discussed her role and involvement of EPrints, which is giving me a broader understanding of the move from EPrints to PURE and the way in which the product works. 

I also received some Life Ray Training from the Web Content Administrator from the Marketing department, which involved a practical workshop of how to use the CMS system. There were some technical problems when I received the training on the computer I was using; so I shadowed with a member of staff. However, I was assured that if I needed any help when using Life Ray in the future then I would get full support.

For part of my week I worked in the Admissions Recruiting and Marketing department so I have been settling in and getting to know more of the team. I had a weekly PURE user meeting where the technicalities of PURE were discussed. The system seems to be going ahead successfully which allows me to plan the marketing around the launch of it. I have spent some time drawing up a timetable of the work I will be doing for the duration of the Internship. It is a bit strange planning the next 10 weeks of your life; but I can see the benefits of writing down what you would like to achieve in a short amount of time. Part of my plan involves designing dummy printed marketing materials so looking forward to putting my creative hat on in the coming weeks.