Along with application materials, individual websites are an opportunity for philosophers to communicate research as well as a chance to convey suitability as a future colleague. In the time leading up to your active job search, a website offers a chance for philosophers to learn more about your research and consider you for certain professional opportunities like commenting on papers, attending conferences, and joining committees. (No one said these opportunities would all be fun.) Understandably enough, discussions and debates about how to build and maintain individual websites have taken place across the web.
The APA Handbook on Placement Practices offers some limited but apt guidance: “[I]t is to candidates’ advantage to make all works mentioned on their CV easily accessible. Personal web pages are ideal for this purpose. Candidates should be aware of their web presence. Members of hiring committees and university officials sometimes search the web for information about candidates. Personal web pages should be professional and graduate students should reflect on the fact that items put on the web are often difficult to remove. Candidates should review the privacy settings on their social networking accounts.”
Outside of APA guidance, you can get a sample of philosophers’ varying opinions in the following posts at The Philosophers’ Cocoon like “Elements of a good professional website?” and “Should candidates have a personalized website?” Or you might consider the advice of Prof. Dan Korman (UC-Santa Barbara) on the market: “Advice for the Philosophy Job Market.”
Why So Much Disagreement?
As the comment threads at The Philosophers’ Cocoon make clear, there’s ample disagreement about how to construct an individual website and even whether candidates ought to have one. Why, for example, not simply rely upon the functionality of PhilPapers and PhilPeople for conveying professional information and scholarly work? Well, for better or worse, your own website provides you the freedom to advertise yourself and your work as you see best. You can say more to contextualize your various research projects. You can discuss and explain certain distinctive elements of your teaching. A website also allows you to introduce aspects of yourself as a philosopher that cannot be captured by a CV—e.g., public philosophy you are engaged in, or in the age of COVID, videos of you presenting at conferences and giving talks. A website also makes it possible to present other sides of yourself altogether. Whether this is a good idea is a matter up for debate, but many philosophers find it appealing to get to know a bit of a personal aspect of you though others may find it wholly inappropriate (surprisingly, philosophers sometimes disagree). Lastly, graphic representation is often more memorable than text. Images of different kinds can help relay things that words cannot.
What are Some Options?
For those inclined towards the “barebones one-pager” website model, which is little more than an html version of a CV, including papers with pre-prints or journal website listings of the article (with DOI, preferably) is a good idea, if possible. In general, clear organization is mandatory and it would be wise to have your site vetted by your advisor, placement director, or colleague. Materials especially useful for search committees that go beyond a CV include an accessible and brief paragraph(s) describing your research (ideally an overview, but some also like to include paper summaries), some sample teaching materials to get a (highly partial) sense of your pedagogy, and some limited personal info to make you seem human. On all these fronts, it’s important to ensure that things are as up to date as possible and that, to whatever extent you can, your web presence is consistent across venues. Committees might be puzzled, for example, by a departmental site that lists your research interests as ethics when your newer CV lists your AOS as philosophy of mathematics.
Website Creation Options
There are primarily two technical features to consider when creating a website: the web address/domain (URL) and the platform/content management system (CMS). The URL or domain is the web address people use to find your website. The platform/content management system is the system you use to create, store, and populate your content, such as a biography, CV, teaching material, and a way to contact you. Below we’ve detailed a few options for these platforms, along with their benefits and complexities.
Using the School’s Website: Most schools offer their faculty a way to create a personal website for free. This is typically the most economical option. One benefit is that you probably don’t need to learn much, if any, coding, as it will often use the same CMS as your university website, which makes management easy. Another benefit is that your URL contains the .edu domain name, which gives additional credence to your website from search engines like Google and Bing. This makes it easier for people to find your website. However, for graduating students or faculty on the market, transitioning your website from one school’s CMS to another can be arduous. Once you leave the organization they may even shut off your access to the website, and you may lose the content. So using this option, while economical, isn’t entirely risk-free and, in the long run, might not be the most efficient use of your time.
Using Google Sites: Google Sites is another common way of creating a website. While you have to create a Google account, it is free, and they offer many ways to create a website, from template options to coding one entirely yourself. You may also restrict some content to specific users, or require them to ask permission before seeing some content. While you wouldn’t have the prestige of a .edu domain, a Google Site doesn’t require you to port over your website as you move across several schools, or if you hold appointments at several campuses and want a school-agnostic option. For graduating students, in particular, this may be the most appealing option.
Using Hosted Services: There are also several free and paid services like WordPress that offer website hosting and management. Wix is a common platform academics use, and its free option allows you access to templates that you can easily use to create a website. However, you will have to upgrade the account in order to use a custom URL (like yourname.com), or to remove advertisements from your site, which can make your site look less aesthetically pleasing. There are other sites, such as SquareSpace, which offer premium website hosting and management options that tend to be more expensive ($60-$200/year) but also provide a custom domain name and advanced templates that don’t feature advertisements. Using these premium hosts, you may get a better looking website, but it comes at a higher cost.
Using a Custom Domain: A custom domain like yourname.com often makes it easier for people to find your website. There are several options for using these. Using a premium service is often easiest, as the integration between the domain name and the platform is built into the management of the website. But for those who don’t want to use a premium service or would prefer to use the university’s platform, you can still use a custom domain but it will be a “forwarding domain,” or a domain set up to forward users who type in your custom domain to your actual website. In this case, users who type in yourname.com might be forwarded to yourschool.edu/yourname or something of that sort. While a bit messier, you can then use your custom domain to forward or connect it to any future website you create. Getting a custom domain is fairly cheap, typically around $8-$15/year.
When it comes to building a website, don’t forget that, as a student or faculty member, you should have access to some form of IT support. Reaching out to information technologists at your institution can often be a helpful step in dealing with the challenges that come with building a web presence. Regardless of where you end up hosting your website, it’s also a good idea to make sure that your department’s main site includes a link to your personal website. And, when it comes time to put stuff on your website, take some time to look at a range of different philosophers’ pages from across various areas and institutions to get ideas and a sense of what best suits you and your aims.
Academic Career Opportunities and Placement Committee
The Academic Career Opportunities and Placement committee embraces all activities of the association relating to the enhancement of academic career opportunities for philosophers, and placement. It works to facilitate the entry of philosophers into appropriate careers in teaching, research, and other work. Please contact the current chair, Sam Cowling, with any questions.
