FAQ - Can you give me some advice on dissemination?

Answer

Dissemination is a means of delivering information to intended audiences to promote the reception, understanding, acceptance, and application of that information.

The dissemination process involves identifying and engaging with specific groups and networks and then working through identified strategies to try to change awareness, knowledge and practices - described as dissemination for awareness, understanding and action.

Tools for dissemination might include: logos and corporate identity, websites, newsletters, email updates, leaflets, networking, presentations and publications, hosting and attending workshops, seminars and conferences, reports, news items and media releases. These are usually organised into dissemination or marketing strategy which should be described in detail as early in the life of the project as possible as it will have dependencies such as project outcomes, milestones, and deliverables. All of these tools are organised in order to help generate ‘word of mouth’. If you can get people talking about you and your project, you are already involved in successful dissemination.

A dissemination budget should never be skimped on, as the ‘success’ of the project might very well depend on how it has been received by its intended constituency or audience - its best to start this process early, rather when you have come to the end of the project. If you can generate good word of mouth about your project right from the start you are probably halfway there.

“Dissemination has been successful when educational practice has changed in response to the disseminated excellent practice.” FDTL, 1997 (NCT website)

The National Coordination Team (NCT) website has a project briefing paper on dissemination available as a pdf document from http://www.ncteam.ac.uk/resources/project_briefings/briefings/brief02.pdf which articulates these three different types of dissemination.

'Creating an Effective Dissemination Strategy - An Expanded Interactive Workbook for Educational Development Projects' was written by Sally Harmsworth and Sarah Turpin for the TQEF National Co-ordination Team in July 2000 with additions by Alexandra Rees & Godfrey Pell in 2001.

Available from the Innovations, Bridging the Gap website as a pdf, the workbook was designed to assist projects to address the following questions:

• What is dissemination?
• What do we want to disseminate?
• Who are our stakeholders and what are we offering them?
• When do we disseminate?
• What are the most effective ways of disseminating?
• Who might help us disseminate?
• How do we prepare our strategy?
• How do we turn our strategy into an action plan?
• How do we cost our dissemination activities?
• How do we know we have been successful?

Dissemination can be thought of as a form of marketing and there is a wealth of information available via the worldwide web.

The UK's Chartered Institute of Marketing has a section on its website entitled ‘Marketing basics’ (http://www.cim.co.uk/cim/dev/html/mar.cfm) and series of ‘How to’ guides are freely available, including a useful 'Introduction to marketing' followed by a 'What is marketing?' briefing.

The CIM 'Rough guide to marketing strategies for small businesses' provides a starting point for developing a marketing strategy, and to help with jargon there is a marketing glossary on the site too at: http://www.cim.co.uk/cim/ser/html/infQuiGlo.cfm

One aspect or marketing is public relations and the NCT has published a briefing paper available as a pdf and entitled 'An Introduction to Public Relations'.

The 'Useful resources' section of the NCT website has a series of pdf documents including 'Publicity and Promotion: Media Relations'. To help with publication this section also has 'Getting into Professional Journals', and the LTSN centre for business, management and accountancy (BEST) has produced a briefing paper - 'From conference paper to publication' also available as a pdf from: http://www.business.ltsn.ac.uk/publications/PDF/Conversion2d.pdf

Peer reviewed journals usually produce a set of authoring guidelines either in the journal or on the www, which will help with getting into specific journals.

Once you have outlined a brief marketing /dissemination strategy specific to your project the LTSN-01 would be happy to help identify target groups, publications and presentation opportunities which may facilitate the dissemination of your project to its widest possible audience.

Please email enquiries@medev.ac.uk or call us on 0191 222 5888.

References:
Lacey Bryant, S., NeLH Management Briefing - Effective Dissemination of information: a guide for managers, http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/management/mantop/0211effecdis.htm, 2002
McLuhan, M. Understanding media: the extensions of man. 1964. Reprint edition by MIT Press, 1994
http://www.innovations.ac.uk/btg
http://www.ncteam.ac.uk
http://www.cim.co.uk

Author: This FAQ was written by Suzanne Hardy and does not reflect an official endorsement by the LTSN or any other organisation. Any questions or comments can be sent to: suzanne@medev.ac.uk

Last updated: 01 July 2011