Social Media for Research Communication

Social Media for Research Communication Anand Sheombar Lectoraat Process Innovation & Information Systems @anandstweets

Contents

What are Social media Social Media for Research Communication Academic Research Cycle Examples Managing your Digital Profile

Social Media’s Many Varieties

What are Social Media? The terms social media, social networks

(SNSs) and web 2.0 are often interchanged (Parameswaran, 2007; Iriberri & Leroy, 2009).

Definitions share characteristics: openness, participation, connectedness and community (Mayfield, 2008).

Social media in the context of RESEARCH also has these attributes: connecting; collaborating; creating and sharing; finding, using, organising and reusing.

Social Media Across The World

Social Media & The Netherlands

Source:Newcom Research & Consultancy

Benefits of Social Media for Research Communication

• promote your research and increase its visibility

• communicate directly and quickly with others who have an interest in your research

• develop new relationships and build networks

• reach new audiences, both within and outside academia

• seek and give advice and feedback

• generate ideas • share information and links,

e.g. journal articles and news items

• keep up-to-date with the latest news and developments, and forward it to others instantly

• follow and contribute to discussions on events, e.g. conferences that you can’t get to in person

• express who you are as a person.

Source: Economic and Social Research Council

Building a social media presence

Building an online presence relevant and interesting for fellow researchers and other audiences

Use your online presence to promote yourself and your research

Invest some time in building this presence, particularly at the outset when you are trying to build initial interest in your work

Sustain your social media activity

Source: Economic and Social Research Council

Building Blocks of the Networked Scholar

Source: Academics’ online presence

Which social media resources should you use?

Social media that work for you and that you have time to devote to them

Most common & effective: blogs & Twitter Other that are appropriate to your research,

e.g. YouTube channel for videos, or Flickr or Pinterest for sharing image collections.

Networking, career development e.g. LinkedIn Think of your goals and identify the social

media building blocks…

Source: Economic and Social Research Council

What social media tools do academics use in their research?

CIBER, University College London report 2010

Academic Research Life Cycle

Source: Jisc

Suggestions for use of Social Media in Research Life Cycle

Brainstorming

Find partners & Collaboration

Reaching out Crowd sourcing Data collection Preparing writing up

Disseminate published Articles. Find research papers

Assess your articles online

Google Scholar Academia.edu ResearchGate.net

potential uses: Disseminate on the web your published

articles Find research papers Search for collaboration Share ideas

Online Referencing & Knowledge Sharing on Literature

Mendeley Zotero Refworks EndNote

potential uses: Disseminate on the web your published

articles Find research papers Search for collaboration

Using Twitter for research projects

Tweet about each new publication, website update or new blog that the project completes

Use hashtags (#) to make your materials more visible

Twitter provides many opportunities for ‘crowd sourcing’ research activities

Reaching out to external audiences Showing the growth in your followers and the

number of people who read your research blog can also be helpful for funding applications.

Source: Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities. Mollett et. al, 2011

Example: Social Media useful for research discussions PhD students Twitter #phdchat Promovendi Netwerk

facebook group YouTube

Me Using Social Media as a PhD student

Curating [FB, Scoop.it; Pinterest] Networking (trust building)

[Twitter; facebook; Linkedin] Knowledge exchange [Facebook;

scoop.it; Research data collection [Twitter;

facebook; YouTube, etc.]

4-Step Approach

Academics’ online presence

Why manage your digital profile? Goodier and Czerniewicz 2012

Wednesday, June 04, 2014 20

Academics’ online presence Goodier and Czerniewicz 2012

Useful Resources Goodier and Czerniewicz (2012) Academics’ Online

Presence: A four step guide to taking control of your visibility, Open UCT Initiative, University of Capetown http://openuct.uct.ac.za/sites/default/files/Online%20Visibility%20Guidelines.pdf

LSE blog on impact of social sciences (resources for social media) http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/resources/

Mollet et. Al (2011) Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2011/11/Published-Twitter_Guide_Sept_2011.pdf

Cann et. Al (2011) Social media: A guide for researchers http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers

Anand Sheombar @anandstweets nl.linkedin.com/in/anandsheombar

www.facebook.com/groups/SoMe4D anand.sheombar@hu.nl

mmu.academia.edu/AnandSheombar