The Newsam Library & Archives

Social Media for Researchers

Nazlin Bhimani, Research Support

& Special Collections Librarian

Institute of Education, University of London

Today’s session

Introduction to Social Media

What, Why, How

Task(s)

Source:

Minocha, S. and Petre, M. Handbook of Social Media for Researchers and Supervisors: digital technologies for research dialogues Available at https://www.vitae.ac.uk/vitae-publications/reports/innovate-open-university-social-media-handbook-vitae-2012.pdf/view

What is social media?

Definition from the Social Media Handbook:

Social media is an online environment opened for the purposes of mass collaboration, where all invited participants can create, post, rate, enhance, discover, consume, and share content without a direct intermediary (Bradley and McDonald, 2011). The term media in this context is a collaboration environment characterised by storage and transmission of messages around and about content, while social describes the distinct way these messages propagate as one-to-many and many-to-many conversations.

Social media is a new form of communication that is changing behaviour and expectations of researchers, employers and funding bodies. It is transforming one-way monologues into collaborative dialogues and interactions thus democratising information and knowledge.

Why use social media?

This quote from an article by G. Small in Nature (2011), v. 479, p. 141 summarises how new technologies are changing the way in which the research dialogues are being conducted:

The real value of social media for scientists (aside from teaching us to communicate concisely) may be that we are forced to think about how to share ideas with a broader audience, one that ultimately pays for most of our research: taxpayers. Public conversations about our research make [social] scientists accountable for delivering something of value to those taxpayers. In an era of budget cutting, early-career [social] scientists will have to be effective ambassadors for the profession. This might manifest in conversations with family members or with strangers sitting next to us on a plane, or it might mean posting videos on YouTube or blogging about our ongoing research. The days of [social] scientists communicating only with each other, in the languages of our individual disciplines, and relying on [social] science journalists to translate for the public, are rapidly coming to an end.

Cognitive Surplus?

Clay Shirky believes that new technologies enabling shared online work and loose collaboration and taking advantage of ‘spare’ brainpower will change the way society works. Cognitive surplus represents the ability of the world’s population to volunteer, contribute and collaborate on large scale and sometimes global projects – and that this cognitive surplus can have societal benefits.

Source: Shirky, C. (2010). Cognitive surplus: creativity and generosity in a connected age, Allen Lane.

...that if you are passionate about a topic and argue your perspective in a compelling manner, you can begin to generate a following...If people find your opinions and perspective interesting, they will do a lot of the work for you. By design, social media is a conversation. When you post information, people like, comment on, or forward your thoughts. This means that not only can you put ideas out there but you can learn a lot as well.

Source: Boost your career with social media: tips for the uninitiated, http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2011/12/boost-your-career-with-social.html

[accessed 16 August 2012

Know the basics of putting your professional self online

Social media is not just for socializing. When handled correctly, you can use it to enhance your personal brand, establish your expertise, or demonstrate your digital fluency. Commit to using social media for professional reasons and be proactive about managing your activity and image. Consider what potential employers or colleagues will see - you don't want them to discover only pictures of you and your dog, or worse. Make sure at a minimum you have a LinkedIn account with a completed profile. Try tweeting or blogging about your area of expertise, thereby creating content that others can forward, re-tweet, or repost. This can help you establish yourself as an expert in your field.

Source: Harvard Business Review Management Tip, 9 March 2012,

http://hbr.org/tip/2012/03/09/know-the-basics-of-putting-your-professionalself-

online [accessed 16 August 2012]

How?

Researcher Workflow

I’m not an ‘out there’ typeof researcher!As a researcher, you are reading all the time, you’re evaluating information all

the time, you’re thinking all the time so blog about and use your blog to reflect and tell the world what you know. You are also publishing in traditional ways – books, edited books, chapters in books, journal articles, etc. .

Only 25% of academic research is published in mainstream avenues We now live in a world where we need to have a digital presence in order

to market ourselves – self promotion is a requirement not a choice (whether we like it or not)

Impact is no longer about just publishing in peer-reviewed journals but about ‘altmetrics’ – looking at what’s being talked about on the social web.

Digital footprint

Social networking provides you with the opportunity to create a digital identify for

Self promotion; to establish yourself as the newcomer and eventually the expert (see: http://libguides.ioe.ac.uk/socialmedia

To network and collaborate For employers to find you and find out about you Reach people you wouldn’t normally e.g. CEOs, funders etc.

but ...

Remember – your digital footprint is your professional identity so keep it PROFESSIONAL

Copyright and other IPRs

Be careful about what you put up – read the terms and conditions of the site carefully before you give away your life’s work e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube - find out who owns the copyright

Do not divulge personal names as you will be in breach of agreements you have either with individuals or with the institution’s ethics approval process see: http://www.bera.ac.uk/resources/ethics-and-educational-research to download the guidelines

Acknowledge content of others – understand the copyright law, the creative commons licenses etc. See: http://libguides.ioe.ac.uk/ipr