1. Social Media for Researchers
#sotondiglit workshop
7th November 2012
Nicole Beale - @nicoleebeale
#sotondiglit
2. This workshop
• Define social media
• Why we use social media
• Social media in the context of the research
cycle
• Social media tools/platforms
• Strategic Approaches
– Evaluating credibility; Analytics; Digital
professionalism; Ethical Considerations
#sotondiglit
3. This workshop
• Define social media
• Why we use social media
• Social media in the context of the research
cycle
• Social media tools/platforms
• Strategic Approaches
– Evaluating credibility; Analytics; Digital
professionalism; Ethical Considerations
• Spreading the word
#sotondiglit
4. What is social media?
• Decide on a definition for social media in your
group
• Identify key terms
#sotondiglit
5. Social media is…
• “Internet services where the online content is
generated by the users of the service.”
– Quinnell, 2012
• “Social media are online communications in
which individuals shift fluidly and flexibly
between the role of audience and author. To do
this, they use social software that enables anyone
without knowledge of coding, to post, comment
on, share or mash up content and to form
communities around shared interests.”
– Thronley, 2008
#sotondiglit
6. This workshop
• Define social media
• Why we use social media
• Social media in the context of the research
cycle
• Social media tools/platforms
• Strategic Approaches
– Evaluating credibility; Analytics; Digital
professionalism; Ethical Considerations
#sotondiglit
7. Why use social media?
• Identity
• Connection
• Sharing expertise
#sotondiglit
8. Social media can…
• Expand your research network to increase
opportunities for
collaboration, employment, funding, discussion and
research
• Access collective intelligence to become more
knowledgeable about your own fields of research
• Establish a reputation that demonstrates your
expertise and the significance and relevance of your
research
• Practice your debating, discussion and thinking skills
• To conduct research
-- Gillaspy, 2012
#sotondiglit
9. This workshop
• Define social media
• Why we use social media
• Social media in the context of the research
cycle
• Social media tools/platforms
• Strategic Approaches
– Evaluating credibility; Analytics; Digital
professionalism; Ethical Considerations
#sotondiglit
10. How do you do it?
1. How do you make sense of your academic /
professional practice? i.e. what do you do?
2. How can social media support what you do?
3. How can social media disrupt what you do?
#sotondiglit
11. Research cycle
Identification
Dissemination Knowledge Creation
Quality
Assurance
#sotondiglit
12. Knowledge identification
• Sharing information with many networks
simultaneously and consistently will help to
identify, manage and sort relevant knowledge
– Audience
– Wider dissemination
– Many to many networks
– Manage and organise
– Quality of access for others
-- Nelson, 2012
#sotondiglit
13. Research cycle
Identification
Dissemination Knowledge Creation
Quality
Assurance
#sotondiglit
14. Knowledge creation
• Utilizing and engaging multiple tools to create
knowledge and develop skill sets to manage
the information that has been identified.
– Gathering information for collaboration
– Build something
– Create original content
– Use different networks
-- Nelson, 2012
#sotondiglit
15. Research cycle
Identification
Dissemination Knowledge Creation
Quality
Assurance
#sotondiglit
16. Qualifying Knowledge
• Overcoming unknown hurdles of quality(REF for
current reference), which is in flux, and validating
its use and quality for knowledge.
– Ownership / Access
– Authorship, social media footprint - expert? Publishing
record?
– What determines experts or measuring quality
– Seeing comments then sharing that information
– Integration and interaction between author and
comments
-- Nelson, 2012
#sotondiglit
17. Research cycle
Identification
Dissemination Knowledge Creation
Quality
Assurance
#sotondiglit
18. Knowledge dissemination
• Engaging with a range of social media tools and censoring
ideology, knowledge and content amongst a variety of
audiences in and outside of academic institutions.
– How you spread information and how it is framed.
– How is knowledge discussed – legal considerations
– Exchanging information in the social sphere. - anonymous
sources.
– Terms and conditions on the social networks – Who owns the
content?
– Blogging as a way of individualizing yourself
– Branding / social media strategy
-- Nelson, 2012
#sotondiglit
19. This workshop
• Define social media
• Why we use social media
• Social media in the context of the research
cycle
• Social media tools/platforms
• Strategic Approaches
– Evaluating credibility; Analytics; Digital
professionalism; Ethical Considerations
#sotondiglit
20. (Some) Social Media Tools
• (Micro) Blogging
• RSS
• Social Bookmarking
• Social Citation Sharing
• Media Sharing
• Collaborative Writing
• Synchronous Meetings
• Academic Networks
• Content Curation
• Open Access
#sotondiglit
23. Using Twitter
• IN YOUR GROUP: 5 ways academics can use
Twitter
• BY YOURSELF: Your research in 140 characters
• IN YOUR GROUP: Read out your research in
140 characters to your group. Any changes
suggested?
#sotondiglit
24. Blogging
• Regularly
– Become disciplined
• Informality
– Opportunites to explore different writing forms
• Generality
– Conveying complex information to non-specialists
• Contexts
– Risk (free)?
– Shape ideas and formulate thoughts and concepts
– Work in progress
– Raw material for thesis/conference/journalpapers
– Emphasis on personal experiences/perspectives/opinon
– Quinnell, 2012
#sotondiglit
25. RSS
• Google Alerts
• Google Reader
• Google Analytics
• NetVibes
• FeedDemon
#sotondiglit
26. Wisdom of the crowds
Surowieck’s principles essential for wisdom of
crowds:
1. Independence
– Everyone’s working on their own project
2. Diversity
– Drawn from a range of different
backgrounds/disciplines
3. Decentralisation
– Bringing people together who are funded and
managed in different ways
-- Surowieck, 2004
#sotondiglit
31. Collaborative working
• Who do you collaborate with at the moment?
• What collaborative tools do you use and for what
purpose?
• How might social media tools improve your
collaborative practice?
• Are there any potential risks to using
collaborative working tools in an
academic/professional context?
– Ethical/Legal?
– Practical/Logistical?
– Quality assurance? -- Gillaspy, 2012
#sotondiglit
32. Collaborative writing
• Ning
• Disqus
• Dropbox
• Zoho Office Suite
• Etherpad:
– sync.in
– PrimaryPad
• Google Docs
• Wikis (WikiMatrix Wiki Choice Wizard):
– Wikispaces
– MediaWiki
– Wikia
– PBWorks
#sotondiglit
34. Academic / professional networks
• What does your research network look like at the moment?
• Who are the weak ties?
• How do you want your network to expand?
• Where are the greatest concentrations of people you want
to talk to?
• What value do you bring to the network?
• What are the risks of using social networking tools
(Ethical/Legal? Practical/Logistical? Quality assurance?)
-- Gillaspy, 2012
#sotondiglit
37. Open access
• Open access journals
• Figshare
• Academia
• Scribd
• Eprints
• Nanopublishing
#sotondiglit
38. Using tags
There are some things to consider when using tags:
• Personal:
– Personal organisation / management of bookmarks, searchable
tag list / cloud
• Group:
– Participatory / democratic knowledge base
• Social:
– Use as search engine, keyword / user search other user
bookmarks, subscriptions / networks
intrapersonal & interpersonal
– Quinnell, 2012
#sotondiglit
39. This workshop
• Define social media
• Why we use social media
• Social media in the context of the research
cycle
• Social media tools/platforms
• Strategic Approaches
– Evaluating credibility; Analytics; Digital
professionalism; Ethical Considerations
#sotondiglit
40. Social media analytics
• Personas
• Tiny.ly – real time sharing and usage stats
• Bit.ly
• Ow.ly
• Google Analytics
• Klout
• TrustCloud
• Twuffer
• TweetStats
#sotondiglit
41. Digital professionalism
What not to share:
• Think of two things that you would share
about your research, and two things that you
wouldn’t share about your research.
• Discuss in the group why you made these
decisions.
#sotondiglit
42. Ethical considerations
• Intellectual Property
• Copyright
• Creative Commons Licensing
• GNU General Public License
#sotondiglit
43. Evaluating credibility
• Use citation metrics – e.g. Publish or Perish
• Use advice – e.g. Twitter Journalism
• Use network curated content – e.g. Public
Insight Network
#sotondiglit
44. Social Media Card Game
Acknowledgements: Tim Davies. Originally from David Wilcox:
http://socialmedia.wikispaces.com/Communications+game
#sotondiglit
45. Social Media Research Cycle
Card Game
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Select some social media tools Identification
2. For each tool:
• Write a description of the tool.
• Write questions to help the
Dissemination Knowledge Creation
player think about
opportunities/problems with
this tool.
• Give the tool a cost score from Quality
Assurance
1 to 5. Explain that score.
#sotondiglit
46. Card Example
Group: Knowledge Dissemination
Tool: Twitter
Description: Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that provides
a way to share news, resources and information quickly and
easily in short profile updates.
Q: Do you have the time required to update this platform on a
regular basis?
Are you going to share enough content to make your profile
attractive to other users?
Score: 3/5
Score justification: Requires regular use. Need to collect
followers. Requires reading and sharing of other users’
content to achieve full advantage.
#sotondiglit
47. Social Media for Researchers
#sotondiglit workshop
7th November 2012
Nicole Beale - @nicoleebeale
#sotondiglit
49. Filtering
Judgement
Naive Expert Network
Based Filtering:
Amount of information
Mechanical Heuristic Algorithmic
Filtering:
-- Kastelle, 2010
#sotondiglit
50. Strategy
Aggregating Filtering Connecting
Synchronyous
Social Meetings
RSS
Bookmarking
Collaborative
Writing
Social
Academic
Citation Content
Networks
Sharing Curation
#sotondiglit
51. Strategy
• Team
• Primary Goals
• Measuring Success
• Audiences
• Current Conversation
• Content
• Name and Design – Branding, Affiliation
• Evaluation (timeline, realign)
-- Research Impact Project, KMb Unit, University of
York, 2012
Social Media Governance – social media policy
database, including some universities.
#sotondiglit
52. This workshop
• Define social media
• Why we use social media
• Social media in the context of the research cycle
• Social media tools/platforms
• Designing a strategy
– Finding and filtering; Evaluating credibility; Analytics;
Digital professionalism; Ethical Considerations
• Spreading the word
#sotondiglit
53. What we could do
• Raise awareness of range of tools and their
usefulness for different scenarios
• Examples of successful use and good practice
• Guidelines for training, enabling informed
decision making
• Standards for and advice on curation and
preservation.
-- University of Bath, The Connected Researcher
project
#sotondiglit
54. Get Involved
Email me nicoleebeale@gmail.com
Tweet me @nicoleebeale
#sotondiglit
