blogging, open access and new forms of publishing in academic careers
TRANSCRIPT
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and new forms of publishing in career perspective.
Blogging, open access
Greg DowneyAssociate Professor of Anthropology
http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology
Career Development Session
Woolcock Institute of Medical Research
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My background: blogging for collaboration (conference, volume…)
Blogging trajectory from personal to network (PLOS Blogs)
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Why be online?
Community of researchers as well as public.The ‘public’ includes researchers in other disciplines.
Leverage online publication to increase impact
of publications.
Most photos from pixabay.com, public domain
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Clarifying the situation
• Quantification of research through
publication and grants (ERA).
• For science fields, citations crucial.
• All academics are time starved.
• Employment market for academics
varies, but not brilliant.
• Online activity (blogging, Twitter) is
a time waster, for those who have
time to waste — making sure it’s not
that for you with boundaries.
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What should I do first?
Capture your online identity.My Google problem was
this other ‘Greg
Downey’ (might be
embarrassing photos,
prior work ID…).
The more I create
valuable content, the
more I push my own
identity up in the search
algorithms.
Purchase website now
(use simple Domain
registration or even
WordPress c. $15/year).
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What should I do first?
Clean up your online identity(?)
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Establishing a basic presence
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Online CV +
business card
Personal webpage*not LinkedIn
Ground zero for an online identity is to produce basic forms of self-
archiving and distribution.
May help to crowd out less appealing online identity elements.
Google scholar
Citation tracking +
subject alerts
Publication pageAcademia.edu, Research Gate.
Sharing publications
+ non-published work
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Personal homepage
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Personal homepage
• Especially early in career,
better to have direct control
over your web presence
because of chance of
institutional move (unis will
delete your ID).
• Simplest way is to use
WordPress (blogging platform)
or free/low cost service (Wixx,
Weebly).
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Networking:
What platform
should I use?
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• Which platform to you use
regularly?
• All have drawbacks (commercial
motives, limited reach, etc.).
• One of my best experiences is
with a closed Facebook group. I
did not start it, but it’s become a
remarkable community to share
news.
• Approaching 5000 members,
with a couple dozen really active
posters.
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BloggingWhy? How? Getting the most out of it.
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Image from Bik HM, Goldstein
MC (2013) An Introduction to
Social Media for Scientists.
PLoS Biol 11(4): e1001535.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.100153
5
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• Australian innovation that’s now global (UK, US editions +).
• Monthly audience of 2.5 million BUT because of Creative
Commons licensing, 19 million readers of TC content.
• Not-for-profit, academics, no ads, free to the public.
• 20k+ academics are registered authors.
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• Audience is highly education but 80%
are NOT academics.
• Editors work with authors to get the
writing style correct (no jargon, links
rather than citations, etc.).
• Great training in writing for general
audience.
• Register as an author to pitch ideas to
the editors (they control who writes
and what gets published).
• Can lead to great knock-on public
outreach (republication, interviews,
and follow-up stories).
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But what about starting my own blog?
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Starting your own…
• Challenge to build an audience (consider guest post or network).
• Use blogging to increase impact of your academic publications.
• In some fields, majority of publications NEVER cited (no impact).
Blogging and Tweeting about science has been shown
empirically to increase impact & citation.
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Writing for a blog.
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Keep it short. Ideally <2000 words (really <1000 is better).
• Write early, write often, write short.
• Blog is conversation, not finished product.
• Choose the right platform (WordPress).
• Titles like headlines, not journal articles.
• Use aggregator (Science Seeker - LOC).
• Join a network? Guest post?
• Consider media — photos, infographics, YouTube/Vimeo videos,
podcasts.
• DON’T STEAL images or content (Pixabay, Flickr with attribution).
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If you’re going to blog…
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Get a comments policy (I’m controlling; zero trolls).
• Use targeted Twitter to maximise blog impact (and
impact of published work).
• Get good metrics (Google Analytics).
• Put blog post links into your online identity
(academia.edu, personal page, LinkedIn).
• Blog about your scholarly writing (timing).
• Blog generously (but don’t count on reciprocity).
• It’s okay to stop writing a blog!
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After you write the blog…
Getting a DOI for post (Figshare).
Reposting on sites like Medium.
I’m experimenting a lot with re-publication & even bundling for ebooks.
The Winnower.
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Making Twitter work for you.
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• In many fields, Twitter is powerful vehicle
for sharing new research.
• Use hashtags.
• Build following by targeted retweets,
acknowledgments, and use.
• Provide valuable information! (Include
fact, not just link…)
• Share bits of info from research.
• Twitter has essentially replaced
‘comments’ on blogs (very few).
• Comment on other people’s research.
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Image from Bik HM, Goldstein MC (2013) An
Introduction to Social Media for Scientists. PLoS Biol
11(4): e1001535. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
Online communication fears
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Open publishingWhy? How? Getting the most out of it.
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from Priem, Jason. "Scholarship: Beyond the paper."
Nature 495.7442 (2013): 437-440.
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Why open access?
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Estimated that 2 million articles published each year.
OA increases likelihood of being read & cited.
• It’s Australian Research Council policy (as of 2013)!
• Ethical and practical reasons to support OA.
• HOWEVER, profession demands certain forms of
publication.
• Find out the self-archiving options available at your
target journals.
• Become familiar with the ‘predatory publishers’ list.
Beall’s List: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
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http://aoasg.org.au/resources/benefits-of-open-access/
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Conclusion
Publishing with an eye to the future – yours & ours.
Intermission
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Conclusion
• New technologies creating new
opportunities, constrained by old structures
(including promotion & hiring).
• Change will come, so we can write on an
emerging landscape.
• Change needs to be driven by mid-career
academics (if junior academic, be smart:
balanced & leverage online writing; don’t
specialise in new media UNLESS that’s
your field).
• Exciting new opportunities & bright spots,
especially given how bleak some of
publishing is.
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Resources
• Blogging - WordPress, Blogger
• Science blogging aggregator: Science
Seeker (free registration required).
• Getting DOIs: Figshare, The Winnower.
• Creating publications pages:
Academia.edu or ResearchGate (RG more
for sciences; Academia for social sci).
• Public domain images: Wikimedia
commons, Pixabay.
• Google Scholar allows personal accounts
to easily track citations of your work (even
if flawed, good alert function).