Over The Fence: lessons from participating in the OED Appeals and WWI vocabulary initiatives

Having utilised crowdsourced, collaborative, research from its inception, the Oxford English Dictionary, recently, built on its experience with two series of the "Balderdash and Piffle" television series, and launched the "OED Appeals" initiative - to ?involve the public in tracing the history of English words?, its editors ?soliciting help in unearthing new information about the history and usage of English, including the earliest examples of particular words?. Since the New Year, the OED has been targeting this twin-pronged approach to both public engagement and global promotion, on "Words From The First World War". Hence, emerging Research Clusters at Southampton Solent University can learn from this initiative, as they plan their own approaches for success with REF 2020. Offering initial insights gained from having been a non-subscribing, public, contributor to the "OED Appeals" initiative - which has seen some word searches achieve global media coverage and others zero contributions - this session seeks to generate debate amongst its audience, as to how different Research Clusters might take full advantage of the full range of Public Engagement with research