Maximizing your personal impact
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Transcript of Maximizing your personal impact
Alan CannSchool of Biological Sciences
University of Leicester
Find me here: bit.ly/AJCann
Social Media For ResearchersMaximizing your personal impact
Social media: A guide for researchers
Cann, Dimitriou& Hooley (2011)
Social media: A guide for researchers Research Information Network
What is Impact?• “the demonstrable contribution that
excellent research makes to society and the economy” (RCUK)
• What about personal impact?• “Continual publishing across journals,
blogs and social media maximises impact by increasing the size of the ‘academic footprint’ ” (LSE Impact blog)
What are social media?
Social media for researchers
The “academic research cycle”
There is no “right way” but:• Identification of knowledge• Creation of knowledge
– more effective collaboration– opportunities to forge new collaborations– drawing on expertise to help with research– receiving feedback as you go– raising the profile of your work more rapidly than conventional publishing
• Quality assurance of knowledge– competitive funding– ethical approval– academic line-management– peer scrutiny at conferences– peer review– publication– post-publication review, citation
• Dissemination of knowledge
Clay Shirky (2010): "Participants are different. To participate is to act as if your presence matters, as if, when you see something or hear something, your response is part of the event."
It’s not information overload, it’s filter failure
Criticisms of social media
• Growth of technology – technodeterminism?• Privacy• Banality• Peripherality• Loss of an authoritative perspective• Work/life balance
What could possibly go wrong?
• Opening the kimono?• Ethics?• Peer review?• The media?• And? Murphy’s Law?
despair.com
Making an Impact:Beyond Citations
The Digital Scholar: How Technology Is Transforming Scholarly Practice
It’s not about tools, it’s about creating the right network
Bad networks!
Good networks!
A tale of two networks