It may seem an odd think to mention in a course like this but networking is a key component of all academic work and that is what a postgraduate course is concerned with, learning how to do academic work.
There are a number of ways to think about this notion.
1. You are part of a class of 20-30 experienced, interesting and talented professionals. Part of the reason for asking you to pop an introduction up online is to encourage you to talk to one another and not just about this course. It is likely you will be colleagues in a number of other units so it will be useful to get to know each other. Remember the notion of being part pack rat, part librarian and part Good Samaritan. If you know the interests of colleagues then when you stumble upon something that you think might be useful or is important, you can always mention it to them, flick them the URL or reference or whatever. That's how the game is played.
2. I know a number of students who blog about their postgraduate study. It's easy to set one up. There are any number of sites who will host a blog for free1. Blogging does two things: it gives you yet another excuse to work on your writing (as do the notebooks) and, if you write about your issue or interests other people with similar interests will find you and may want to discuss things further. And, they could be anywhere on the planet.
3. If you prefer a slightly more organised way of doing this you could try the Academia site. Academia is like Facebook for academics2. You can opt to be an independent scholar or attach yourself to Griffith, it does not matter a lot. What you will find is that academics and postgraduate students list their interests and many put copies of their papers online as well. You can follow people in a manner that you become 'friends' with someone on FaceBook. There is a small trick to using Academia. When you log on, under the Academia logo top of the page, left hand side is a small line that says: follow research. If you click on that you will see a record of all of the activity that the people you have chosen to follow. That might include links to recent papers, questions, new people they are following etc.
Networking is not often explicitly spoken about in Education post graduate spaces. It is, in my view, one of the most important things you can begin to do.
None of this is mandatory. You could take the view that postgraduate courses are things to be done on two wet weekends. But if you are interested in getting more from this and other courses, I'd encourage you to at least have a look at some of these sites.
