social media: an introduction to useful tools for academics
TRANSCRIPT
Social media: introduction to useful tools for academics
Friday 28th November 2014Tanya Williamson
Overview
1. About social media
2. Discussion: The potential benefits
3. Introduction to useful social media tools
4. Practical: Exploration of tools
5. Feedback to group
6. Discussion: The potential pitfalls
7. Engagement and impact
About social media
Social media
Digital services, websites,
apps, cloud-based
Sharing and
creating content
Create user
profiles
Networking and communicating
Generates usage data
• Connect and share with others
• Reduce isolation of solo researchers
• Keep up to date
• Improve traffic to your other web content
• Continue to use if/when you leave this Institution
• Break down hierarchies
• From broadcasting to engagement
What are the potential benefits?
One which stands out is Twitter
Communication(All social media are about communication!)
• Follow interesting accounts @lancasterunilib
• Keep up to date• Search tweets and save
searches• Aggregate tweets or take
part in ‘tweetchats’ using hashtags #acrwri
• Make lists of accounts• Share, converse, ask, link
to other web content
Has anyone heard of YouTube?!
Video sharing
• Subscribe to and create channels
• Upload and share videos• Very popular information
source for ANY topic• Search for and share useful
videos• Share your own knowledge
and comments
Aimed at academics and researchers:
Academia.edu ResearchGate Piirus
Profiles and networks
• Find others with similar interests• Share outputs, expertise, posts, questions and answers• Build social networks based on affiliation, discipline,
methodology• Increase opportunity for collaboration• Analytics
SlideShare
Presentation sharing
• Easily upload your presentation to share with others
• Search for other interesting presentations
• Use alongside other social media tools
Creating, storing and sharing presentationsPrezi, Emaze
Gather, store, share and cite your reading. Both require additional download of software.
Mendeley Zotero
Reading and referencing
Figshare
Data and code sharing
• Easily upload your datasets, figures, images etc
• Each will be assigned a DOI and will be easy to share and cite
• Search for data (including negative data) and figures
Github Collaborate and share code
Eventbrite Lanyrd
Events
• Find and create events in your area or on a topic• Easily manage events• Tie in with other social media tools• Lanyrd enables sharing of presentations, profiles and follow up
Practical
Timing Activity
15 minutes • Choose a tool to explore• Read the ‘About’ page or take a tour of the features• Create a profile• Explore!
• Try searching for people, your department, association, or activity in an area of interest to you.
• Was it easy to find something interesting?• Did you find anything useful?• How could YOU use this tool?
15 minutes Feedback to the group
• Share with the group your first impressions of the social media tool you explored
• Would you go back to explore it further?
• Can you anticipate any drawbacks?
Feedback
• Privacy and the blurring of boundaries between personal and professional use
• The risk of jeopardising their career through injudicious use of social media
• Lack of credibility
• The quality of the content they posted
• Time pressures
• Social media use becoming an obligation
• Becoming a target of attack
• Too much self-promotion by others
• Possible plagiarism of their ideas
• Commercialisation of content and copyright issuesFrom Lupton, 'Feeling better connected' Social media us by academics' (2014)#
• Be aware of University advice: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/iss/security/training/social-networking/
What are the potential pitfalls?
• Altmetrics: metrics based on the social web
• Track how many times a research paper (or any other digital content with a DOI) receives ‘attention’
Engagement and impact?
ImpactStoryAltmetric