Recently, the team from the GIER Autism Centre of Excellence took disseminating and translating research to a whole new level.

Have you ever thought about live streaming a webinar about your research findings to engage and inform a public audience? The Autism Centre of Excellence team did just this, and were inundated with viewers.

With such potential for reaching the autism community, the Autism Centre of Excellence team recently trialled a new format for sharing their research findings.

Facebook live was successfully implemented. This one-hour research-informed webinar was aimed at people who live with or support an individual on the autism spectrum.

Prior to the Facebook live session, participants were invited to send in questions or topics to the team to cover in their presentation.

According to Associate Professor Dawn Adams, the goal of this approach included,

‘The presenters provided the participants with specific information on what they needed, rather than what we (as researchers) think that people need to know’.

She added,

‘The end result was incredible – 3,100 people tuned in to watch the webinar live – and 2,900 of them stuck with it through the whole hour!

‘The comments, emails and messages that followed the talk were so humbling – people appreciated us delivering a talk that answered the real-world questions they had and in a way that was accessible to them.

‘The recording of the webinar has now been watched 30,000 times by people across the world and has “reached” almost 100,000 through Facebook shares.’

Associate Professor Adams invites other researchers who might be thinking about live streaming presentations about their own research findings to get in touch with the Autism Centre of Excellence. The team members learnt a lot during the process and are able to share their experiences about this highly effective way of engaging the community.

Watch the recording of the Facebook live event:

 

Regular updates about research conducted through GIER’s Autism Centre of Excellence will be available through the GIER Insights Blog. Subscribe to the blog to receive regular updates.