Professor Donald Mitchell Jr. from Grand Valley State University is taking advantage of the powerful tools on the new SelectedWorks platform to promote his scholarship, and his profile looks amazing. Professor Mitchell says, “I love the new site because the website is interactive, the updates are immediate, and the look is dynamic for the reader.”
Professor Mitchell adds, “I use ScholarWorks [GVSU’s instance of SelectedWorks] to connect to my peers across the nation and to direct students to my work.” He uses ScholarWorks for his academic profile, and also uses a personal website for speaking engagements—he sees them as complementary.
When he first began at GVSU in 2012, Professor Mitchell met with the library and was introduced to the repository and SelectedWorks. He soon began to maintain the site on his own and keeps it updated because he finds it so useful. “The site is very intuitive to use,” he reports, adding that the thumbnail images associated with each document are easy to upload and make the site that much more appealing for readers.
His work drives his use of SelectedWorks as an open access platform. Professor Mitchell’s research centers on race, gender, and identity intersections in higher education. By using SelectedWorks, he can share his scholarship with the communities he studies and serves. Through this work he strives to improve their experience as they move through the educational system. As Professor Mitchell puts it, “It is important when you are studying race and gender to offer open access to various populations who are affected by this scholarship. Your site gives me the platform to do that.”
Professor Mitchell’s SelectedWorks page