using social media to build your academic career

Presentation by Brian Kelly, UKOLN on 25 October 2012 for an Open Access Week event at the University of Exeter

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Talk by Brian Kelly, Cetis, Bolton University on 11 September 2014 at a symposium on “How to Build an Academic Career” held in the Maria Baers Auditorium, Brussels

Using Social Media to Build Your Academic Career

Event hashtag: #tbc

Using Social Media to Build Your Academic Career

Brian KellyInnovation AdvocateCetisUniversity of BoltonBolton, UK

Contact DetailsEmail: ukwebfocus@gmail.comTwitter: @briankellyCetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

Slides and further information available at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/using-social-media-to-build-your-academic-career/

The slides are available with a Creative Commons CC-BY licencewith some exceptions for images

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You are free to:copy, share, adapt, or re-mix;

photograph, film, or broadcast;

blog, live-blog, or post video of

this presentation provided that:You attribute the work to its author and respect the rights and licences associated with its components.

Idea from Cameron Neylon

Slide Concept by Cameron Neylon, who has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights. This slide only CCZero.Social Media Icons adapted with permission from originals by Christopher Ross. Original images are available under GPL at:http://www.thisismyurl.com/free-downloads/15-free-speech-bubble-icons-for-popular-websites

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About Me

Brian Kelly:• Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton

since October 2013• Was UK Web Focus at UKOLN, University of Bath

from 1996 until July 2013• Long-standing Web evangelist (since 1993)• Prolific blogger (1,300+ posts since Nov 2006)• User of various social media services to support

professional activities• Prolific speaker (450+ talks since 1996)

Research profile:• Peer-reviewed papers published on Web

accessibility, standards, preservation, …• Largest no. of downloaded papers from Bath IR• Highly-cited papers in Web accessibility (e.g. W4A)

PAPER

Accompanying paper available at:• Opus, University

of Bath IR• ResearchGate• Academia.edu

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Share with colleagues and provide ‘real-time peer-reviewing’: http://bit.ly/sra13-kellyUsing Social Media to Enhance Your Research

Activities, Kelly, B. 3rd annual Social Media in Social research conference, 2013

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Summary of this Talk

Q. Should you use social media to support your research career?

A. Yes, but for particular purposes i.e. in order to:1. Develop your professional network

(potential colleagues, co-authors, funders, …)

2. Engage in discussions and exchange of ideas with your peers

3. Disseminate your research ideas to a wider audience

Q. How should I do this?A. To be revealed!

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An Alternative Perspective

Social media:• It’s full of trivia• You’ll embarrass yourself• You’ll undermine your future

career• It’s a time-sink• They (Facebook, Google, Twitter,

…) will steal your intellectual property

• They (your peers) will steal your ideas

• What else?

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Let’s explore the parallels of new media with traditional media

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• xx

xPrint media (newspapers)

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Chick lit

x Print media (books)

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Reality TV shows

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Media: TV and Internet

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What Can We Conclude?

The following media have no relevance to researchers:

• Newspapers: full of junk

• Books: inconsequential ‘chick lit’

• TV: Reality TV

• Internet: trivia about ‘celebrities’

And neither does a popular media access point:

• Libraries: where you can read the newspapers, borrow the books and the DVDs

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Science Journals

Science Journals

x

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BBC Documentaries

BBC Documentaries

x

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The ‘Tools’ to Support Our Research

The Library, where we access resources (physical and electronic)

x

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The ‘Tools’ to Support Our Research

The conferences where we present our ideas and discuss them with our peers

x

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The ‘Tools’ to Support Our Research

The conference dinner (and the bar) where we strengthen our connections

x

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The Tools to Support Our Research

Social media complements these (and related) real-world ‘tools’:

• Twitter: chat to your peers at conferences; share your research outputs with others

• LinkedIn: the electronic replacement for business cards

• ResearchGate: the repository with additional features

• Facebook: if you are happy combining your social and professional life

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Conclusions Social media is similar to traditional media: can be useful to support your professional activities and your social interests, but much will be irrelevant. Use wisely!

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Using the Tools

Personal examples of use of popular social media tools to extend my professional network and enhance the visibility of my research outputs:

• Twitter• My UK Web Focus blog• LinkedIn• ResearchGate• Slideshare

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PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

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Developing New Connections (1)Developing New Connections• Tweet asked researchers to complete

survey on use of Web 2.0 in research• Response from @slewth• Who is she?

Twitter bio: disability researcher Link in bio to her blog Blog gives insights which

complement my research • Follow @slewth and have Twitter chat

Follow-up• Shall we write a paper?• Paper written and then accepted• Paper wins prize for best paper

See blog posts on “It Started With A Tweet” “You Have 5 Seconds to Make an Impression!”“Winner of John M Slatin Award at W4A 2010”

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Developing New Connections (2)Invited speaker at OzeWAI 2009 conference in Melbourne.Tweets received after talk:

@RuthEllison: “Enjoyed your presentation this morning about a holistic approach to accessibility” @scenariogirl: “Fantastic talk this morning, I will come up and say hi at lunch ;)”

We spoke, and they agreed to contribute to a paper. Paper published 6 months later

From Web Accessibility to Web Adaptability, Kelly, B., Nevile, L., Sloan, D., Fanou, S., Ellison, R. and Herrod, L. Disability and Rehability: Assistive Technology, Volume 4, Issue 4, July 2009, pp. 212-226

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BEING PRO-ACTIVE: AN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN

W4A 2012 Paper

Case study:• Paper on “A challenge to web accessibility metrics

and guidelines: putting people and processes first” given at W4A 2012 conference in Lyon in Apr 2012

Four co-authors agreed:• To collaborate in raising awareness of paper and

presentation of the paperHow:

• Writing blog posts on or just before conference with links to paper in repository

• Participate on conference Twitter hashtag (e.g. responding to comments while speaker is presenting)

Benefits:• Reaching out to a wider audience based on our 4

professional networks 23

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Paper in Repository

Paper uploaded to Opus repository

Note limited social features for repository: no discussions or ability to embed content and limited metrics

http://opus.bath.ac.uk/29190/

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Slideshare Note:

• Sharing icons• Discussion

(not shown)• Related content• Metrics• Embeddability

(not shown)

26Final slide provides (active) links to related work

TOPSY AND EVENT HASHTAG

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Buzz around event hashtag captured by Topsy+

TOPSY & DISCUSSION ABOUT SLIDES

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Topsy recorded discussions about slides

Twitter names suggest interest in accessibility:• They’ll raise visibility of my research

• I should follow them

TOPSY & DISCUSSION ABOUT PAPER

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Note tweets about event (25) and slides (20) more popular than paper (7)

Topsy recorded discussions about paper

Tweets during conference

Link to paper posted after event

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Use the Usage StatisticsOn 18 Apr 2012:• 1,391 views on

Slideshare• Other slides had 3

and 311 views By 6 Sept 2014:• 10,074 views on

Slideshare (up to ~3.8K from embeds)

“Lies, damned lies & statistics” but:

• My third most downloaded paper in 2012

• 3 citations in July 2013 and 12 in Sep 2014 (Google Scholar

Citations )

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AGGREGATE LINKS TO YOUR PAPERS (GOOGLE VALUES LINKS)

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Have Links to Your Papers (1)LinkedIn

LinkedIn is popular, so links from LinkedIn may be highly ranked.Therefore motivation to include links to papers.

LinkedIn is popular, so links from LinkedIn may be highly ranked. Therefore motivation to include links to papers as well as my CV.

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Have Links to Your Papers (2)ResearchGate

ResearchGate users may find my papers here and LinkedIn users in LinkedIn. Why would I not use RG and possibly miss out on 10K views?

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Academia.edu

Have Links to Your Papers (3)

My approach:• Initial experimentation • Provided links to IR

Subsequently:• Uploaded papers to both• Low maintenance effort

Academia.edu users may find my papers here. ResearchGate users in RG and LinkedIn users in LinkedIn. Why would I make it difficult for them to find my papers?

Maintenance:• Change profiles when new job• Add new papers when they’re published• Switch off email notifications (305)

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REVIEWING THE EVIDENCE

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Evidence: Personal

Is use of social media effective in (a) raising visibility of research outputs and (b) developing my professional networks?

Bath IR: number of downloads from 2005-2014

Author Downloads

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Evidence: From OthersProfessor Athene Donald, professor of physics, University of Cambridge concluded:“isn’t it time you considered blogging and tweeting as part of your professional activity, not just something you ascribe as being only suitable for teenagers or those with time to kill?”

x

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“Most of my papers, before I blogged and tweeted them, had one to two downloads, even if they had been in the repository for months (or years, in some cases). Upon blogging and tweeting, within 24 hours, there were, on average, 70 downloads of my papers. Now, this might not be internet meme status, but that’s a huge leap in interest.”

Evidence: From Others

Athene Donald’s article cited evidence from Melissa Terras experiment in tweeting links to her peer-reviewed papers:

Note that a researchers’ Twitter followers are more likely to have related research interests. There a download from a tweet may more relevant than a download from a random Google search for, say, “Digital curiosities” or “Virtual tomb”

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Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network

Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network, Nature, R. Van Noorden, 13 Aug 2014

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Nature article

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WHAT CAN I DO?

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Getting Started

Ways of getting started:• Get a Twitter account and use it regularly for 2

weeks. Then decide whether to continue.• Tweet when you’re away at a conference. Follow

other delegates (& don’t miss out on social events).

• Grow your Twitter network (100+). Remember how @messages work:

@john Have you seen this, it’s interesting. www...@paul Interesting. It’s amazing!!

If you follow @george but not @ringo you’ll only see the first tweet.

• Share your papers, slides, data, etc. on service which are popular and Google-friendly.

From @george From @ringo

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Monitoring Twitter Usage

(Free) analytics tools can help to understand (a) your patterns of use & (b) how your peers use Twitter.

Analytics.twitter.com

Tweepsmaps

Twtrland

Remember that analytics may provide a proxy indication of engagement and outreach but (a) may be flawed and (b) are not an aim in themselves.

Also see Twitonomy

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MANAGING INFORMATION OVERLOAD

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Managing Twitter

Managing Twitter• Remember: it’s a stream you

can dip into• Use grouping: A-list; B-list;

currently of interest; event hashtags; topic hashtags; …

• Mute users if they’re too noisy (e.g. during World Cup)

• Clear tweets after holidays

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Managing Other Social Networks

Managing notifications from LinkedIn and ResearchGate

ResearchGate has notification settings for Profile, Network, Q&A, Publications and Job: email alerts for over 60 activities can be managed

Note that social media services typically send alerts by default.They rely on publicity provided by users who don’t change default settings

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What About The Barriers?

But what about:• Legal, ethical & privacy concerns• My boss doesn’t approve• My institution doesn’t approve• It doesn’t work in my discipline, my country, my

language• It doesn’t work for me

Risks and opportunities framework:• It’s not about ‘social media’ it’s about ‘social

media for a particular purpose’• Be clear of potential benefits & associated

risks• Remember the risks of not doing things• There will be costs (but may be small)• Adopt risk minimisation strategies• Base decisions on evidence (be aware of

biases)

Still not for you? Then consider use of social media for the research group (and don’t act as a barrier!)

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A Personal Manifesto

I will:• Learn how social media can enhance my

research activities• Make use of social media in an ethical

fashion and communicate with an authentic voice

• Support use of social media in my organisation if it’s not for me

• Gather and interpret social media metrics (but will be aware of their limitations)

• Be prepared to ‘unlearn’ what I’ve learnt if social media becomes irrelevant!

Does this work for you?

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Questions?

Any questions, comments, …?

Relevant papers and articles cited in this talk:• Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research Activities, B.

Kelly, Social Media in Social Research 2013 Conference • Can LinkedIn and Academia.edu Enhance Access to Open

Repositories?, B. Kelly and J. Delasalle, OR2012: the 7th International Conference on Open Repositories, 9-13 July 2012

• Empowering users and their institutions: A risks and opportunities framework for exploiting the potential of the social web, B. Kelly and C. Oppenheim, CULTURAL HERITAGE online conference 2009

• Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network, R. Van Noorden. Nature News article, 13 Aug 2014

• Tweeting and blogging aren’t wastes of academics’ time – they can be valuable outreach, A. Donald, Physics Focus, 12 Nov 2013

• The verdict: is blogging or tweeting about research papers worth it?, M. Terras, LSE Impact blog, 19 Apr 2012

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This presentation, “Using Social Media to Build Your Academic Career” by Brian Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence

Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Quotations may have other licence conditions.

Images may have other licence conditions. Where possible links are provided to the source of images so that licence conditions can be found.

Slides and further information available at:• http

://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/using-social-media-to-build-your-academic-career/

Accompanying blog post:• https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/using-social-m

edia-to-build-your-academic-career/

Licence and Additional Resources