Social media: introduction to useful tools for academics

Friday 13th February 2015Tanya Williamson, Assistant Librarian

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

Freeor

‘freemium’

• 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?

Blogging: Now an established medium

Communication(All social media are about communication!)

• Many platforms to choose from e.g. institutional, academic, publishers, personal e.g. using Wordpress, Blogger

• Record your thoughts, findings, experiences, insights

• Link to full publications/reports

• Hub linking to your other social media content

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 #acwri

• Make lists of accounts• Share, converse, ask, link

to other web content

‘This isn’t rocket science. It isn’t even information science. If you tell people about what you’re doing, more people

are going to have a look, and see it, than if you stick it in an institutional repository

and leave it be.’

Melissa Terras, Digital Humanities Scholar

http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/blogging-and-tweeting-about-research-papers-worth-it

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

Aimed at all professionals: LinkedIn

Profiles and networks

• Make connections: university, industry, business, practitioners…

• Living CV• Skills and endorsements• Beware of importing

your email address book!

Institutional profile

Individual profile

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, Haiku Deck

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

• 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

Discussion

Questions, concerns, experiences

References

References

Lupton D. (2014) ‘Feeling Better Connected’: Academics’ Use of Social Media. http://www.canberra.edu.au/faculties/arts-design/attachments/pdf/n-and-mrc/Feeling-Better-Connected-report-final.pdf [Accessed 27th November 2014]

Terras, M. (2013) Is blogging and tweeting about research papers worth it? The Verdict. Melissa Terras' Blog. http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/is-blogging-and-tweeting-about-research.html [Accessed 12th February 2015]

Terras, M. (2013) Is blogging and tweeting about research papers worth it? Engage Social Media Talks, University of Oxford. http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/blogging-and-tweeting-about-research-papers-worth-it [Accessed 12th February 2015]