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

alan.cann@le.ac.uk

It’s not about tools, it’s about creating the right network

Bad networks!

Good networks!

A tale of two networks

Workshop:

Your Personal Impact

alan.cann@gmail.com