Building Your Personal Program at an SRAI Conference: What Are Tracks and How Can I Use Them?
A wonderful benefit of being an SRAI member is the wide range of available educational opportunities, both online and in-person. These opportunities are offered in many different formats throughout the year, allowing flexible access to exemplary continuing education regardless of time constraints and budget.
When faced with so many different opportunities for ongoing learning, it can be confusing to figure out the professional development program best for you. One way SRAI helps research administrators navigate the sessions at their conferences is through tracks. These can be used to organize and build the educational program you need from any conference you attend.
SRAI uses tracks to categorize established topic areas within the research administration field. Conference programs identify the specific track(s) for each session and workshop, making it easy to locate the best session(s) for you. As the Society notes, “Tracks are designed to develop the content in a way that assures value-added opportunities for attendees” by allowing people to “effectively plan their educational time.”
Perhaps you need to learn more about ethics or science and security or you may want to focus on financial management. Maybe you want to attend sessions geared to research law. Tracks allow you to identify which sessions meet your targeted needs. Conversely, you may have a goal to attend sessions on as many different topics as possible to gain a broader view of research administration. You can also use the track designations for this purpose.
Specific conference tracks will vary across different meetings, but here are some tracks frequently offered:
• Financial and Post-award Administration
• Management and Operations
• Professional Development
• Research Impact and Communications
• Research Ethics and Compliance
• Research Law and Regulations
• Sponsors and Agencies
• Sponsored Programs Planning, Development and Deliveries
• Technology Solutions in Research Administration.
Although some tracks appear similar to the SRAI Certificate Program, which was discussed in an article last month, remember that conference tracks are simply a way to help identify what topics sessions fall under so you can effectively organize your schedule.
When the educational program is available at a conference, you can see the track the session represents. In the image below, the session description shows the tag for Financial and Post-Award Administration. This tag is the track.
In conclusion, SRAI conference attendees can and should use tracks to curate personalized education programs. Tracks will help you select specific topics needed to improve your knowledge base, as well as help pinpoint professionals for networking. Another important feature is that tracks allow you to reinforce travel requests for professional development activities that align with your department/division priorities as well as your personal performance goals.
Kimberly Read, PhD, CRA, Assistant Chair for Operations
University of South Florida
SRAI Distinguished Faculty, SRAI Southern Section Immediate Past President
Amanda Seymour, CRA, Manager
Attain Partners
SRAI Southern Section President
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