Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research Activities

Brian KellyInnovation AdvocateCetisUniversity of BoltonBolton, UK

Contact DetailsEmail: ukwebfocus@gmail.comTwitter: @briankellyCetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

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Slides and further information available athttp://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/daad-conference-2013/

Twitter hashtag: #daad2013

See licence details

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Social Media: Tools for Busy Researchers!

Social media:• Isn’t (never was) just for young people• Can help in developing one’s professional network• Can help in raising awareness of one’s research outputs

In this session I will:• Give examples of social media for researchers• Provide evidence of the benefits• Listen to and respond to concerns

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About MeBrian Kelly:

• Innovation Advocate at Cetis, a national Centre for Educational Technology, Interoperability and Standards

• Formerly UK Web Focus at UKOLN from 1996 - Jul 2013• Prolific blogger (1,200+ posts since Nov 2006)• User of various devices to support professional (and

social) activities• Prolific speaker (400+ talks since 1996)

Research profile:• Peer-reviewed papers published on Web accessibility,

standards, preservation, …• Largest no. of downloaded papers from Bath repository• Highly-cited papers in Web accessibility (e.g. W4A)

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About YouIn small groups:

• Introduce yourself and say: Who your are and where you study What your research interests are What you hope to gain from the session

• Share with everyone: What you hope to gain from the session Any interesting or surprising facts you

learnt about other participants

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What Do You (Collectively) Do?Exercise:

• In a few bullet points summarise what you do.

• What do you do which is similar to researchers in other disciplines?In

trod

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What You (Collectively) DoI think you (as a researcher):

• Talk to colleagues and exchange ideas• Go to conferences, listen to speakers and discuss

their ideas with them and with your peers• Have an idea for a paper, a project, … and discuss

it with potential co-authors & collaborators• Write the paper, project proposals or submission

jointly with others• Listen to and ask questions of the stakeholders• Do the work with project partners & collaborators• Ensure that the work is known about by

Your peers (they may cite you) Others, including general public, in order to

enhance the impact of your work

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What You (Collectively) DoI think you (as a researcher):

• Talk to colleagues and exchange ideas• Go to conferences, listen to speakers and discuss

their ideas with them and with your peers• Have an idea for a paper, a project, … and discuss

it with potential co-authors & collaborators• Write the paper, project proposals or submission

jointly with others• Listen to and ask questions of the stakeholders• Do the work with project partners & collaborators• Ensure that the work is known about by

Your peers (they may cite you) Others, including general public, in order to

enhance the impact of your work

Intr

oduc

tion

Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge that applies the general philosophical constructivism into social settings, wherein groups construct knowledge for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings. When one is immersed within a culture of this sort, one is learning all the time about how to be a part of that culture on many levels. Its origins are largely attributed to Lev Vygotsky.

Social constructivism, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_constructivism

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What Can Help These Processes?These areas of work can be supported:

In established ways:• Events, such as conferences• Swapping business cards at conferences• Email, letters and memos!• …

In new ways:• Use of social media• Embracing open (educational) practices• Participating in ‘amplified events’• Blog posts, status updates and tweets!• Using ‘interactive business cards’• …

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About This Session

Draft timetable:• Introduction• The Relevance of Social Media for Researchers• Key Services:

▪ Twitter ▪ Twitter environment ▪Lanyrd▪ Researcher profiling services (ResearchGate, Academia, …)▪ Slideshare ▪ Blogs ▪ LinkedIn▪ What else?

• Evidence of Benefits• How Does it Work?• Concerns, Risks and Limitations• What Next?• Open Discussion

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About The Session RulesDuring this session:

• Feel free to ask questions, make contributions, etc. at any point!

• Put your mobile phones on silent mode• Feel free to tweet, use the Web, Google

stuff, …• Feel free to share ideas, thoughts,

observations, etc. openly.• But respect others’ privacy

By working collaboratively, the learning during the session should be enhanced and the session should be more effective than one in which you were all ‘silos’.

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You are free to:copy, share, adapt, or re-mix;

photograph, film, or broadcast;

blog, live-blog, or post video of

this presentation provided that:You attribute the work to its author and respect the rights and licences associated with its components.

Idea from Cameron Neylon

Slide Concept by Cameron Neylon, who has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights. This slide only CCZero.Social Media Icons adapted with permission from originals by Christopher Ross. Original images are available under GPL at:http://www.thisismyurl.com/free-downloads/15-free-speech-bubble-icons-for-popular-websites

Risk management: I reserve the right to change my mind at the end of the session!

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LSE Impact blogWhat Do You Know About?

The LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog

Open Access research publications

Use of Twitter

Sharing using social media (Twitter & Facebook)

RSS feeds & RSS readers

Creative Commons licences

How a tweet ….can lead to a peer-reviewed paper!

Twitter hashtags

Twitter metrics / alt.metrics

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New Scholarship About the paper:

“That one Tweet got me thinking about the kinds of sessions I would like to see and the things sociologists should be studying”“so I wrote a blog post about it. As I usually do now, I shared that blog post via Twitter.”“I did a series of blog posts that expanded on initial post.”“I combined all of the blog posts into one paper and thought about what my critique of the field might be.”“paper went into an extended peer review process .. and appeared in 2012”“Except for the very end of this process – submitting the paper to the journal for peer-review – none of this way of working bares the least bit of resemblance to how I was trained to be a scholar.”

$25!

Google ScholarSharing services

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What’s It Mean For You?We’ve seen:

• Blogs • Twitter • Hashtags • alt.metrics• RSS • Social sharing • Google Scholar

• Open Access • Creative CommonsHow could you use these yourself?

• Write a brief summary of how you could use one of these examples (or other social media services)

• Share your example with a neighbour• Put your example on a notice board. We will

all discuss a few examples

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What Can Twitter Offer?Twitter:

• A waste of time for those with time to waste!• A valuable communications & dissemination

channelTwitter can be regarded as:

• An interactive business card: “Here’s my business card” vs “Here’s my Twitter ID”

• The bar where everybody knows your name:“Feeling a bit down about my PhD #phdchat”

• An essential tool for conferences:“On my way to #daad2013. Who else is going?”

• An emergency hotline:“Arrived at Egham station. No taxis. Help!”

Exam

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The Conference Twitter Hashtag

Twitter is useful at events when an event hashtag is used (e.g. #daad2013)• Anyone can use a

hashtag in their tweets• Best if organisers

announce hashtag• Enables relevant

tweets to be searched and aggregated

• Many Twitter archiving tools (e.g. Twubs)

• Note difference between Twitter ID (e.g. @daadlondon) and hashtag (#daad2013)

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When Twitter At Conferences Takes Off

Twitter use is well-established at the ILI (Internet Librarian International) conferenceSharing images provides visual memories of eventNumbers of Twitterers has reached critical mass“Wow” – spotting what people found interesting

Shared memories

Sharing across different languages

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Using Twitter: Tweetdeck

All tweets (from the 1,400 people I follow)

Current conference hashtag I’m interested in

Tweets to me (or about me) Interactions

(e.g. new followers, favourited and retweeted tweets)

Tweets from a group I created

Tweets from another group I created

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Exam

ples Curating Tweeted Links: RebelMouse

RebelMouse:• Automatically curates

visual summary of tweeted links

• Can create pages based on preferred hashtags

See https://www.rebelmouse.com/briankelly/

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Using Storify Storify:

• Manual curation of tweets

Useful for:• Archiving tweets about

one’s own talks, workshop sessions, … (Archive of realtime user feedback, areas of interest and concerns)

• Preparation of conference reports, based on collective insights

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Using Storify Storify:

• Manual curation of tweets

Useful for:• Archiving tweets about

one’s own talks, workshop sessions, … (Archive of realtime user feedback, areas of interest and concerns)

• Preparation of conference reports, based on collective insights

Is Wikipedia session relevant?

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Using Storify Storify:

• Manual curation of tweets

Useful for:• Archiving tweets about

one’s own talks, workshop sessions, … (Archive of realtime user feedback, areas of interest and concerns)

• Preparation of conference reports, based on collective insights

Did users find session useful?

Did users find Twitter useful?

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TweetchatsTweetchats:

• Focussed Twitter discussion

• #phdchat Tweetchats take place on Wednesdays from 19.30-20.30

See blog post on “#uklibchat, #ECRchat, #PhDchat, #Socialchat and Other Tweetchats”

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TweetchatsTweetchats:

• Focussed Twitter discussion

• #phdchat Tweetchats take place on Wednesdays from 19.30-20.30

• Look at the archives to see what you missed.

See blog post on “#uklibchat, #ECRchat, #PhDchat, #Socialchat and Other Tweetchats”

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Lanyrd Lanyrd: your online presence at events

Lanyrd:• Can provide

a speaker profile

• See who else attends events you speak at / attend

• Authentication by Twitter

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LanyrdLanyrd:

• Could provide an event’s web site

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LanyrdLanyrd:

• Could provide an event’s web site (provides social aspects)

• Slides hosted on Slideshare can be embedded

• Note encouragement to use Twitter event hashtag

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Observing Patterns of UseTools such as SocialBro provide an understanding of how Twitter is used

• Most tweet daily

• Most follow >100

• Most tweet 2-5 times/day

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Observing Patterns of Use

Note this is the ‘potential’ no. of impressions. Reality will be much less!

Crowdbooster is a Web-based Twitter analytics tool

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Researcher Profiling ServicesRelevance for you:

• You’re a researcher: shouldn’t your research interests and outputs be freely available?

• You’re a young researcher: shouldn’t this information be decoupled from your (current) institution?

• You want your information to be easily found: shouldn’t you use a global service with high Google visibility?

Relevant services:• ResearchGate• Academia.edu• (ORCID)

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PaperPaper presented at Social Media in Social Research 2013 Conference) available from:• Opus, University

of Bath IR• ResearchGate• Academia.edu

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Share with your friends and provide real-time peer-reviewing: http://bit.ly/sra13-kelly(and I can see real-time stats using + suffix)

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• xxx

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Institutional Repository

My (former) institutional repository:• Hosts copies of my papers• No longer able to maintain

information• Concern that after I left, my

records may disappear

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Academia.eduAcademia.edu:• Initially used

to provide a list of my papers (which I could maintain)

• Then uploaded open access versions of papers

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Academia.eduAlerts provided:• How people

found my papers

• Peers who have started following me

• Can manage alerts

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ResearchGate:• Initially used to

provide a list of my papers (which I could maintain)

• Then uploaded open access versions of papers which I can maintain e.g. embed ORCID ID

ResearchGate

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OrcidEx

ampl

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Orcid:• International

standard for researcher ID

• Aims to save time and simplify work flows

• Takes 30 seconds to create!

• See orcid.org• Get one!• You can then

add your publications

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Slideshare

Slideshare:• Boring

repository of slides?

• Simple & effective way of raising visibility of conference resources?

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SlideshareNote how:

• Usage statistics are available

• Slides can be embedded in other web sites

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SlideshareNote how:

• Usage statistics are available

• Slides can be embedded in other web sites

• ‘Liking’ and commenting are available

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SlideshareWho liked and downloaded my recent slidedeck?

• Associate professor from Moscow• Interests in open education & open

data• Has an About.me profile

Read her blog. Looked at her slides, … Possible collaborator?

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Exam

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UK Web Focus Blog

UK Web Focus blog:• 1,400+ posts

since Nov 2006• My open notebook• Comments

encouraged• “It works for me”

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LinkedInLinkedIn:

• Your online CV – and more

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LinkedInLinkedIn:

• Your online CV – and more

Can include details of:

• Project activities

• Publications

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LinkedInNote that LinkedIn profiles:

• Tend to be easily found using Google

• Can be maintained by you (unlike institutional profile)

NB note risk of empty profile

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Content SyndicationContent posted in one environment can be syndicated to others, such as LinkedIn:

• No need to manually create content in all social networks

• ‘Likes’, comments and ‘shares’ can be sent by email

New slides added to Slideshare automatically appear in LinkedIn activity stream

New blog posts automatically appear in LinkedIn activity stream

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Content Syndication

New blog posts automatically appear in Facebook status update stream

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Importance of EvidenceHow might we gather evidence of the value of use of social media for researchers?

• Provide some examples of approachesFour examples of evidence of benefits of use of social media:

1. As part of the research process2. For identifying and making contact with new

collaborators3. To raise the visibility of research4. Looking at the numbers

Evid

ence

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LSE Impact blogEvidence 1: Role in the Research Process

From post on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog:

• Evidence of how a tweet led to a series of blog posts which became a peer-reviewed article

• Evidence of how the blog post about this become popular

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Evidence 2: Making New Connections

Developing New Connections• Tweet sent asking for researchers to complete

survey on use of Web 2.0 in research• Response from @slewth• Who is she?• Twitter bio: disability researcher• Link in bio to her blog• Blog gives insights which complement my research • Follow @slewth and have Twitter chat

Follow-up• Shall we write a paper?• Paper written• Paper accepted• Paper wins prize for best paper • Sarah later told me she knew of my research

See blog posts on “It Started With A Tweet” and “Winner of John M Slatin Award at W4A 2010”

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Evidence 3: Raising VisibilityBlog post by Melissa Terras, 19 April 2012

The findings

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Evidence 4: Looking at the Numbers

What do download statistics tell us?

12 Dec 2013

Download figures for my papers

Least Downloaded Papers

Will papers in a repository be seldom seen?What can be learn from approaches taken for the popular and unpopular papers?

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“It’s About Nodes and Connections”

Cameron Neylon keynote at OR 2012: “Networks qualitatively change our capacity”

• With only 20% of a community connected only limited interaction can take place

• This increases drastically as numbers of connected nodes grows

Examples:• Phone networks (no use with only 1 user!)

• Tweeting at this event• Galaxy Zoo

How

Doe

s It

Wor

k?

“Filters block. Filters cause friction”Need for client-side, not supply-side filters.

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SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

Summary of key approaches:Apply various techniques to Web resources to make resources easier to find in Google, …

Resources may include organisational Web suites, third party Web sites, databases, …

Databases (e.g. IRs)

Web sites

Real world

Directories

Google(Bing,

DuckDuckGo, …)

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Beyond SEO, SMO

Summary of key approaches:Make use of social networking

services which people may use of discuss your services

Services may include Facebook, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Twitter, …

Databases (e.g. IRs)

Web sites

Directories

Social Services(Facebook, Slideshare, Twitter, …)

Real world

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Risks, Limitations, Concerns

Over to you:• What concerns do you have?• What risks do you envisage?• What limitations might social media

have for your in your area of research?

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“It Doesn’t Work in Humanities”“They1  found,  for  example,  that  science  researchers … are more likely to use Twitter, while mathematicians and computer scientists are more predisposed to archive their own material, and, like classicists, to disseminate their research outputs themselves. Social scientists on the other hand are more reluctant to use new technologies, for example they are less likely to Tweet or use a laptop at a conference.”1 Connaway  and  Dickey, 2009. Quoted in Re-Skilling For Research, RLUK Report, http://www.rluk.ac.uk/content/re-skilling-research

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“It Doesn’t Work For Me!”Thoughts:• It’s fine not to be

good at everything!

• But what if you don’t like speaking in public?

• Perhaps there’s a need for a social media role in research team

• Avoid deprecating social media just cos you don’t like it!

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The Social Web and the Belbin Model, UK Web Focus blog, 27 May 2009

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The Service May Not Be Sustainable

But what if: • Facebook goes out of business?• Google withdraws (‘sunsets’) its services• Slideshare is taken over and changes its

terms & conditions and operational practices?But also need to consider:

• ICL is taken over by Fujitsu• IBM sells it PC division & stops making

computers• You developed departmental systems based

on dBase III• UMIST merges with Manchester University • …

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A Risk Management ApproachBut what about:

• Legal, ethical & privacy concerns• My boss doesn’t approve; my institution doesn’t

approve• It doesn’t work in my discipline• It doesn’t work for me• I’m worried GooFace isn’t sustainable; is evil.

Risks and opportunities framework:• It’s not about ‘social media’ it’s about

‘social media for a particular purpose’• Be clear of potential benefits & associated

risks• Remember the risks of not doing things• There will be costs (but may be small)• Adopt risk minimisation strategies• Base decisions on evidence• Be aware of biases and subjective factors

See Empowering users and their institutions: A risks and opportunities framework for exploiting the potential of the social web, Kelly & Oppenheim, 2009

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What Next?From the Hyperlinked Library MOOC, develop:

• A plan for your Online Professional Learning Network: Goals; scope; resources and maintenance plan See http://hyperlinkedlibrarymoocbriankelly.wordpress.com/

2013/11/06/assignment-4-my-online-professional-learning-network/

• An action brief: Convince ______ that by _______ they will

________ which will ________ because _______. Complemented by a risk assessment See http://hyperlinkedlibrarymoocbriankelly.wordpress.com/

2013/11/20/assignment-6-the-directors-brief-library-use-of-wikipedia-and-other-wikimedia-projects/

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Conclusions: Top 10 Tips 1 Be pro-active2 Monitor what works for you3 Don’t forget the links4 Don’t forget the Google juice5 Develop your network6. Encourage feedback and discussion 7. Understand your network8. Know your limits9. Seek improvements10.Participate

See Top 10 tips on how to make your open access research visible online, JISC Inform, 35, Winter 2012

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Questions?Any questions, comments, …?

Continue the discussion: blog post about this presentation to be published at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2013/12/

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This presentation, “Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research Activities” by Brian Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence

Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Quotations may have other licence conditions.

Images may have other licence conditions. Where possible links are provided to the source of images so that licence conditions can be found.

Slides and further information available athttp://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/daad-conference-2013/

Licence and Additional Resources