How researchers can benefit from blogging and other social media (original) (raw)
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Use of blogs, Twitter and Facebook by PhD Students for Scholarly Communication: A UK study
2012
This study explores scholarly use of social media by PhD researchers through mix-methods of qualitative interviews, participant observation and content analysis of a case study #phdchat. We found that blogs, Twitter and Facebook are among the most popular social media tools being used by researchers. They can be used by PhD students and early career researchers to benefit their scholarly communication practice, promote their professional profiles, disseminate their work to a wider audience quickly, and gain feedbacks and support from peers across the globe. There are also difficulties and potential problems such as the lack of standards and incentives, the risks of idea being pinched and plagiarism, lack of knowledge of how to start and maintain using social media tool and the potential huge amount of time and effort needed to invest. We found that respondents link different social media tools together to maximise the impact of the content disseminated, as well as to create a person...
Use of blogs, Twitter and Facebook by UK PhD students for scholarly communication
This study explores scholarly use of social media by PhD students through a mix-method approach of qualitative interviews and a case study of #phdchat conversation. Social media tools, such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook, can be used by PhD students and early career researchers to promote their professional profiles, disseminate their work to a wider audience quickly, and gain feedback and support from peers across the globe. There are also difficulties and potential problems such as the lack of standards and incentives, the risks of ideas being stolen, lack of knowledge of how to start and maintain using social media tool and the potential need to invest significant amount of time and effort. We found that respondents employed various strategies to maximize the impact of their scholarly communication practice.
What we blog: A qualitative analysis of research blogs
Traditionally, academic researchers have been using platforms such as conferences, academic journals and books to present their findings and engage in academic discourse with their peers. The development of Information and Communication Technologies provides researchers not only with new tools, but also with new means of interaction. Among the new platforms are also weblogs (blogs). Formerly defined as `online logbooks', blogs can be used for a variety of purposes. A small but growing number of researchers write research related blogs. In this paper we present a qualitative, explorative study, carried out with the aim of describing and structuring information provided by academic researchers in their blogs. We describe a framework for categorising blogs and blog posts as well as patterns of blogging behaviour we have observed in research blogs.
What we blog: A qualitative analysis of researchers’ weblogs
2010
Abstract Traditionally, academic researchers have been using platforms such as conferences, academic journals and books to present their findings and engage in academic discourse with their peers. The development of Information and Communication Technologies provides researchers not only with new tools, but also with new means of interaction. Among the new platforms are also weblogs (blogs). Formerly defined asonline logbooks', blogs can be used for a variety of purposes.
Blogging: Connecting Research Communities Online
2018
The demand for higher degree research qualifications is growing in response to the requirements of the knowledge economy, greater international competition for and mobility of students, and increased demand for research and researchers. As institutions struggle to keep up with the changing forms and requirements of doctoral education, students and supervisors appear to be turning to alternative spaces for learning and networking, notably in the sphere of social media. This chapter reports on the establishment of an academic blog on doctoral writing, DoctoralWritingSIG. We draw on notions of connectivism (Downes, Connectivism and connective knowledge: Essays on meaning and learning
“Finishing One Big Adventure in Order to Embark on Another”: Exploring University Research Blogs
Research in Language, 2019
The article focuses on blogs related to research activities of the academic community. Research-related blogs as components of university websites have developed into an array of sub-genres shaped by specific foci, their authors and the desired audiences. The data set consists of fifty posts from ten blogs of six universities. Drawing upon Swales’ methodology of genre analysis, the study explores the generic structure of the blog posts, reveals the communicative purposes they can fulfil within the landscape of university websites, identifies significant communication strategies, and explores the roles the blogs may serve in communicating science to the diverse audiences they potentially address. The analysis has shown that the blogs help accomplish the general goals of informing about the university and promoting it providing a personalized view and engaging the reader, manifest loose but recurrent generic structuring, and can be vehicles of knowledge dissemination as well as knowle...
Science blogs in research and popularization of science: why, how and for whom?
As the Internet emerged as an efficient channel for sending information and fostering collaborations on a global scale, this unanticipated phenomenon paved the way for a new era of science, namely e-science or digital scholarship. Massive data repositories moved online, academic publications (preprints and articles alike) became searchable across disciplinary boundaries, collaborations grew larger. But the Internet is now developing into so-called web 2.0, where active participation is replacing passive broadcasting: every user can become their own media maker and share videos, images or text. To date, the most popular form for the latter are blogs (short for web-logs). The blog format was originally used for online diaries but has rapidly evolved into a versatile publication and conversation tool. This shift is also being embraced by scientists, on a limited, albeit growing scale. First isolated, then grouped in communities, science bloggers (I use the term to include professional scientists as well as students, journalists, science amateurs, science museums, concerned groups…) have already demonstrated the potential to influence how research is done, results are communicated and the public is reached. Among the many topics that blogs discuss, I will focus here on science and the academic life, thus defining a type of “science blogging” that is effectively turning digital scholarship into conversational scholarship. But in concrete terms, how is that different? And where might this evolution be leading us? I try to shed some light on the matter in the following pages.
Social media for Academics and Early Career Researchers: An Interview with Dr Mark Carrigan
Cambridge Open-Review Educational Research e-Journal (CORERJ), 2018
Social media is becoming an integral part of academic life and more academics utilise platforms such us Twitter to communicate about their work. But how can social media platforms be used most effectively and what are some of the common pitfalls? How can early career researchers develop an academic narrative through social media? In this special paper, Dr Mark Carrigan, author of Social Media for Academics, will outline how academics and early career researchers can use social media to create an academic identity, promote their work, generate impact, and engage the public with their research.
Uncovering the scholarly use of Twitter in the academia: Experiences in a British University
Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science, 2017
The potential of social media such as Twitter has been seen as potentially transformational. However, most of these effects have been studied in the political, social or technological sphere. Its impact on scholarship remains under-researched. This paper explores how academics use Twitter as part of their scholarly activities. A qualitative approach based on an interpretative methodology was adopted for the study, and data gathered through 28 semi-structured interviews with academic staff who regularly use Twitter for academic and non-academic purposes. The findings uncover the rich benefits that enthusiasts gain from use of Twitter as an information source for scholarly communication-in the context of creation, usage and sharing of scholarly information. This was manifested in academics' information-seeking behaviour through links to networking and collaboration as part of scientific practice. Twitter's use as a micro-break is also described. The paper offers insights on how, despite these benefits, microblogging remains a minority activity.