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Using Social Media to Build Your
Academic Career
Brian Kelly Innovation Advocate
Cetis
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
Contact Details Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @briankelly
Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
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Slides and further information available at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
events/using-social-media-to-build-your-academic-career/
The slides are available with a Creative Commons CC-BY licence
with some exceptions for images
Event hashtag: #howtopursue
About Me
Brian Kelly:
• Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton since October 2013
• Was UK Web Focus at UKOLN, University of Bath from 1996 until July 2013
• Long-standing Web evangelist (since 1993)
• Prolific blogger (1,300+ posts since Nov 2006)
• User of various social media services to support professional activities
• Prolific speaker (450+ talks since 1996)
Research profile:
• Peer-reviewed papers published on Web accessibility, standards, preservation, …
• Largest no. of downloaded papers from Bath IR
• Highly-cited papers in Web accessibility (e.g. W4A)
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PAPER
Accompanying
paper available at:
• Opus, University of
Bath IR
• ResearchGate
• Academia.edu
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Share with colleagues
and provide ‘real-time
peer-reviewing’:
http://bit.ly/sra13-
kelly
Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research Activities, Kelly,
B. 3rd annual Social Media in Social research conference, 2013
Summary of this Talk
Q. Should you use social media to support your
research career?
A. Yes, but for particular purposes i.e. in order to:
1. Develop your professional network (potential
colleagues, co-authors, funders, …)
2. Engage in discussions and exchange of
ideas with your peers
3. Disseminate your research ideas to a wider
audience
Q. How should I do this?
A. To be revealed!
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An Alternative Perspective
Social media:
• It’s full of trivia
• You’ll embarrass yourself
• You’ll undermine your future
career
• It’s a time-sink
• They (Facebook, Google, Twitter, …)
will steal your intellectual property
• They (your peers) will steal your ideas
• What else?
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x
Let’s explore the parallels of new media with
traditional media
• xx
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x Print media (newspapers)
Chick lit
7 x Print media (books)
Reality TV shows
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x
Media:
TV and Internet
What Can We Conclude?
The following media have no relevance to researchers:
• Newspapers: full of junk
• Books: inconsequential ‘chick lit’
• TV: Reality TV
• Internet: trivia about ‘celebrities’
And neither does a popular media access point:
• Libraries: where you can read the newspapers,
borrow the books and the DVDs
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Science Journals
Science Journals
10
x
BBC Documentaries
BBC Documentaries
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x
The ‘Tools’ to Support Our Research
The Library, where we access resources (physical and
electronic)
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x
The ‘Tools’ to Support Our Research
The conferences where we present our ideas and
discuss them with our peers
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x
The ‘Tools’ to Support Our Research
The conference dinner (and the bar) where we
strengthen our connections
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x
The Tools to Support Our Research
Social media complements these
(and related) real-world ‘tools’:
• Twitter: chat to your peers at
conferences; share your research
outputs with others
• LinkedIn: the electronic replacement
for business cards
• ResearchGate: the repository with
additional features
• Facebook: if you are happy
combining your social and
professional life
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x
Conclusions Social media is similar to
traditional media: can be useful to support your
professional activities and your social interests,
but much will be irrelevant. Use wisely!
Using the Tools
Personal examples of use of popular social media tools
to extend my professional network and enhance the
visibility of my research outputs:
• My UK Web Focus blog
• ResearchGate
• Slideshare
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PERSONAL EXPERIENCES OF
BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Developing New Connections (1)
Developing New Connections
• Tweet asked 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 and then accepted
• Paper wins prize for best paper
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See blog posts on “It Started With A Tweet”
“You Have 5 Seconds to Make an Impression!”
“Winner of John M Slatin Award at W4A 2010”
Developing New Connections (2)
Invited speaker at OzeWAI
2009 conference in Melbourne.
Tweets received after talk:
@RuthEllison: “Enjoyed
your presentation this
morning about a holistic
approach to accessibility”
@scenariogirl: “Fantastic talk this morning, I will
come up and say hi at lunch ;)”
We spoke, and they agreed to contribute to a paper.
Paper published 6 months later
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From Web Accessibility to Web Adaptability, Kelly, B., Nevile, L., Sloan,
D., Fanou, S., Ellison, R. and Herrod, L. Disability and Rehability: Assistive
Technology, Volume 4, Issue 4, July 2009, pp. 212-226
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Th
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BEING PRO-ACTIVE:
AN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
W4A 2012 Paper
Case study:
• Paper on “A challenge to web accessibility metrics and guidelines: putting people and processes first” given at W4A 2012 conference in Lyon in Apr 2012
Four co-authors agreed:
• To collaborate in raising awareness of paper and presentation of the paper
How:
• Writing blog posts on or just before conference with links to paper in repository
• Participate on conference Twitter hashtag (e.g. responding to comments while speaker is presenting)
Benefits:
• Reaching out to a wider audience based on our 4 professional networks
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Paper in Repository
Paper uploaded to Opus repository
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Note limited social
features for repository:
no discussions or ability
to embed content and
limited metrics http://opus.bath.ac.uk/29190/
Slideshare Note:
• Sharing icons
• Discussion (not shown)
• Related content
• Metrics
• Embeddability (not shown)
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Final slide provides (active) links to related work 24
TOPSY & DISCUSSION ABOUT
SLIDES
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Topsy recorded
discussions about slides
Twitter names
suggest interest
in accessibility:
• They’ll raise
visibility of my
research
• I should follow
them
TOPSY & DISCUSSION ABOUT
PAPER
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Note tweets
about event
(25) and
slides (20)
more popular
than paper (7)
Topsy recorded
discussions about paper
Tweets during conference
Link to paper posted after event
Use the Usage Statistics
On 18 Apr 2012:
• 1,391 views on Slideshare
• Other slides had 3 and 311 views
By 6 Sept 2014: • 10,074 views on
Slideshare (up to ~3.8K from embeds)
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“Lies, damned lies &
statistics” but:
• My third most
downloaded paper in
2012
• 3 citations in July 2013
and 12 in Sep 2014
(Google Scholar Citations )
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AGGREGATE LINKS TO YOUR
PAPERS (GOOGLE VALUES LINKS)
Have Links to Your Papers (1)
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LinkedIn is popular, so links
from LinkedIn may be highly
ranked.
Therefore motivation to include
links to papers.
LinkedIn is popular, so links
from LinkedIn may be highly
ranked. Therefore motivation to
include links to papers as well
as my CV.
Have Links to Your Papers (2)
ResearchGate
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ResearchGate users may
find my papers here and
LinkedIn users in LinkedIn.
Why would I not use RG
and possibly miss out on
10K views?
Academia.edu
Have Links to Your Papers (3)
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My approach:
• Initial experimentation
• Provided links to IR
Subsequently:
• Uploaded papers to both
• Low maintenance effort
Academia.edu users may find my
papers here. ResearchGate users
in RG and LinkedIn users in
LinkedIn. Why would I make it
difficult for them to find my papers?
Maintenance:
• Change profiles when new job
• Add new papers when they’re published
• Switch off email notifications (305)
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REVIEWING THE EVIDENCE
Evidence: Personal
Is use of social media effective in (a) raising visibility of
research outputs and (b) developing my professional
networks?
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Bath IR: number
of downloads from
2005-2014
Author Downloads
Evidence: From Others
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Professor Athene Donald, professor of physics, University of Cambridge concluded:
“isn’t it time you considered blogging and tweeting as part of your professional activity, not just something you ascribe as being only suitable for teenagers or those with time to kill?”
x
“Most of my papers, before I blogged
and tweeted them, had one to two
downloads, even if they had been in the
repository for months (or years, in some
cases). Upon blogging and tweeting,
within 24 hours, there were, on average,
70 downloads of my papers. Now, this
might not be internet meme status, but
that’s a huge leap in interest.”
Evidence: From Others
Athene Donald’s article cited evidence from Melissa Terras
experiment in tweeting links to her peer-reviewed papers:
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Note that a researchers’ Twitter followers are
more likely to have related research interests.
There a download from a tweet may more
relevant than a download from a random
Google search for, say, “Digital curiosities” or
“Virtual tomb”
Online collaboration: Scientists
and the social network
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Online collaboration:
Scientists and the social
network, Nature, R. Van
Noorden, 13 Aug 2014
Nature article
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WHAT CAN I DO?
Getting Started
Ways of getting started:
• Get a Twitter account and use it regularly for 2
weeks. Then decide whether to continue.
• Tweet when you’re away at a conference. Follow
other delegates (& don’t miss out on social events).
• Grow your Twitter network (100+). Remember how
@messages work:
@john Have you seen this, it’s interesting. www...
@paul Interesting. It’s amazing!!
If you follow @george but not @ringo you’ll only
see the first tweet.
• Share your papers, slides, data, etc. on service
which are popular and Google-friendly. 40
From @george
From @ringo
Monitoring Twitter Usage
(Free) analytics tools can help to understand (a) your
patterns of use & (b) how your peers use Twitter.
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Analytics.twitter.com
Tweepsmaps
Twtrland
Remember that
analytics may provide
a proxy indication of
engagement and
outreach but (a) may
be flawed and (b) are
not an aim in
themselves.
Also see Twitonomy
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MANAGING INFORMATION
OVERLOAD
Managing Twitter
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Managing Twitter
• Remember: it’s a stream you can dip into
• Use grouping: A-list; B-list; currently of interest; event hashtags; topic hashtags; …
• Mute users if they’re too noisy (e.g. during World Cup)
• Clear tweets after holidays
Managing Other Social Networks
Managing notifications
from LinkedIn and
ResearchGate
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ResearchGate has notification
settings for Profile, Network, Q&A,
Publications and Job: email alerts
for over 60 activities can be
managed
Note that social media services
typically send alerts by default.
They rely on publicity provided
by users who don’t change
default settings
What About The Barriers?
But what about:
• Legal, ethical & privacy concerns
• My boss doesn’t approve
• My institution doesn’t approve
• It doesn’t work in my discipline, my country, my language
• It doesn’t work for me
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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)
Still not for you? Then
consider use of social media
for the research group (and
don’t act as a barrier!)
A Personal Manifesto
I will:
• Learn how social media can enhance my
research activities
• Make use of social media in an ethical fashion
and communicate with an authentic voice
• Support use of social media in my organisation if
it’s not for me
• Gather and interpret social media metrics (but will
be aware of their limitations)
• Be prepared to ‘unlearn’ what I’ve learnt if social
media becomes irrelevant!
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Does this work for you?
Questions?
Any questions, comments, …?
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Relevant papers and articles cited in this talk:
• Using Social Media to Enhance Your Research Activities, B. Kelly,
Social Media in Social Research 2013 Conference
• Can LinkedIn and Academia.edu Enhance Access to Open
Repositories?, B. Kelly and J. Delasalle, OR2012: the 7th
International Conference on Open Repositories, 9-13 July 2012
• Empowering users and their institutions: A risks and opportunities
framework for exploiting the potential of the social web, B. Kelly and
C. Oppenheim, CULTURAL HERITAGE online conference 2009
• Online collaboration: Scientists and the social network, R. Van
Noorden. Nature News article, 13 Aug 2014
• Tweeting and blogging aren’t wastes of academics’ time – they can
be valuable outreach, A. Donald, Physics Focus, 12 Nov 2013
• The verdict: is blogging or tweeting about research papers worth it?,
M. Terras, LSE Impact blog, 19 Apr 2012
This presentation, “Using Social Media to Build Your Academic Career”
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.
48
Slides and further information available at:
• http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/using-social-media-to-build-
your-academic-career/
Accompanying blog post:
• https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/using-social-media-to-
build-your-academic-career/
Licence and Additional Resources
