Social Media as a Research ToolJon Curwin
Birmingham City Business School
Michael Schmidt
Centre for Academic Success
RESCON
15 December 2014
5. Engaging with the community
How to contact us:
4. Space for reflection
2. Informal interactions
1. Formal Dialogue
3. Documentation
Jon Curwin
Senior Learning and Teaching Fellow
Business School
http://www.linkedin.com/in/joncurwin
https://twitter.com/joncurwin
Michael Schmidt
Academic Skills Development Tutor
Centre for Academic Success
http://www.linkedin.com/in/schmidtuk
https://twitter.com/mschmidtuk
Poster available from:
http://www.slideshare.net/
michaelschmidtuk/
With Facebook having some 1.35 billion monthly active users, LinkedIn 187 million and Twitter 284 million, this worldwide phenomena of social media cannot be easily be ignored by a researcher wishing to share ideas and promote their interest.
These new forms of communication are changing behaviours and expectations – ask any politician caught out by Twitter.
Social media presents new tools for research itself and new ways to support the dialogue between student and supervisor.
Research has shown (Minocha and Petres 2013) that researchers and supervisors are using social media in six distinctive ways:
formal dialogue, informal interactions, documentation, space for reflection, engaging with the community and keeping informed.
In addition to a few academic papers,
why not:
Share progress to date on
academia.edu?
A LinkedIn group?
YouTube (even your own channel)?
Leave PowerPoint presentations on
slideshare?
Create a Prezipresentation?
6. Keeping informed
References
Minocha, S and Petres, M (2013) Handbook of Social Media for
researchers and supervisors, The Open University, [online] Available from:
http://oro.open.ac.uk/34271/1/Vitae-Innovate-Open-University-Social-
Media-Handbook-2012.pdf
[Accessed 4 December 2014]
Let others see a managed
public domain profile if they google your
name?
Give Ted Talks, YouTube, iTunesU, Twitter,
LinkedIn a go?
In addition to talking to a
few colleagues,
why not:
In addition to the usual
mechanisms of meetings and emails, why
not:
Skypeconferencing with two or
more researchers?
A wiki for building a joint understanding of the research
process and content?
Video progress statements
using kalturaor Vimeo or other similar
platform?
In addition to the usual
mechanisms of meetings and emails,
why not:
Try a discussion forum using Moodle or
similar?
Use a social media
platform like Facebook?
Tweet to build up an
interest group?
Blog new ideas using
WordPress?
In addition to the usual mechanisms
of email attachments and external USB
drive, why not:
Dropbox, googledrive,
icloud, onedrive, skydrive?
Blogging software like WordPress?
Use an academic referencing system
like EndNote?
Create electronic pages using a
system like Mahara?
In addition to the usual mechanisms of trying to hang on to
memories or scraps of paper, why not:
Mindmap using MindGenius or
similar?
Blog, Tweet or use a Wiki?
Plan using DropTaskor similar?
A diagram using Visio?
Use Wordle to generate a word
cloud?
Introduction
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