Social media and career development

Branwen Hide

March 23rd, 2010

University of Southampton School of Humanities Postgraduate Researcher Career Events

Outline What do we mean by social media Social media as information source Using social media to build a personal ‘brand’ Creating an online research profile General Issues

Who uses or have used the following Google Facebook RSS reader

E.g googlereader, bloglines LinkedIn Writes their own blog Responds to others blogs Twitter Social bookmarking sites

E.g citeUlike, zetero or Mendeley Academia.edu Other social networking sites

E.g Researchgate, H-net, Graduate Junction,

What do we mean by social media Sites that are based on user participation and

user generated content Such as twitter, citeUlike, de.li.cious, blogs

Encourage large scale discussions among users with similar interests

Enable access and dissemination of information to a wide audience

Types of social networking sites of particular relevance to researchers• Microblogging sites

• Like a traditional blog but the content is much shorter • Friend feed, twitter

• Social networking sites• E.g. Facebook - but there are a large number of specialist sites that may be

more appropriate• Bookmarking sites

• These allow you to bookmark either websites or web content and share them with your network

• Del.i.cious, connetae• Referencing sites

• Similar to Endnote, but free and you have an online component• Some allow you to also store the PDF document• Share content with your network

• Aggregators • Pull content together from a number of different sources

• RSS feed readers

Traditional job search

Use job boards to find opportunities

Read the job vacancy pages of relevant literature

Monitor a number of job sites Email lists

Cold send out of resumes Passive networking

Web 2.0 job search Career news and vacancies

come to you RSS feeds, Twitter etc.

Specialist search engines and subject sites

Use meta sites – these collate information from a variety of sites

Develop a personal ‘brand’ Create a virtual resume/profile be ‘discovered’ Expanded active network

Using social media to find a job AHRC Funding Opportunities

Available via Twitter and RSS feed ESRC Funding Opportunities

Available via RSS H-Net

Designated job opportunities section of the website ResearchGate

Career Opportunities in Research, Science & Higher Education. European Commission

Share funding opportunities and store via social bookmarking sites

Jobs.ac.uk Available via RSS feed

Creating an online presence Self-marketing

Web presence

Why go online Meet others with similar interests Keep up-to-date with information from your

field Expand your horizon Market yourself Develop and showcase specific skills Find out about:

upcoming conferences/seminars Funding, job and intern opportunities

Research life cycle

Research Production

Publication

Development of a research idea

Post-publication and distribution

Pre-publication dissemination

Literature reviews, online data bases, online archival material, online discussions

Text mining, virtual lab equipment, online-analysis, reuse of existing data

Blogs, wikis, networking sites, on-line forums

E-journals, e-books, open access publications, subject specific repositories

Blogs, wikis, online-forums, networking sites, slideshare, Flicker, YouTube, institutional repositories, reference sharing sites, subject specific repositories, Society web pages

Times Archives Online, UKPMC, UKDAEMBL,H-net.org, Economists online

myExperiment, Ensembl

MyExperiment, arXiv, FriendfeedResearchgate, H-net.org

Mendeley, citeUlike, Connotea, Twitter, Omeka, ScholarPress

PLoS, open humanities press, EBI, PDB, UKDA, UKPMC

Creating an online profile Think of it as an online CV Develop your own website, utilize existing social

networking sites, create a profile on your institute’s research pages etc.

Make sure you include up-to-date contact details including email address

short statement of current work and why it is relevant Collaborations Publications or publication plans Conferences/papers/talks you have presented or will be

presenting at include details of the event

Teaching commitments and resources (if you have them) Society memberships List groups or committees you are involved with

e.g post graduate representative on committee X at your university Other related interests and experiences

Particularly if changing fields or leaving academia Future research plans or career plans

And why Let people know it exists

Include the address in your email signature Include URL on other social media sites

Populate multiple platforms This will allow as many people as possible to see you

Things to bear in mind Know where your audience is

Ask colleagues where they are Spend some time searching Develop existing links Use multiple platforms

Professional vs personal image Want this to be a true reflection of who you are

Do not post anything you would not want a potential employer to see

Use privacy settings Its important you interact in the environment as much as

you feel comfortable Building and maintaining a network takes time and energy Make use of tagging and keywords

You want people to be able to find you

Social media sites Zotero citeUlike Conneta Mendeley Del.icio.us Diggo Digg Reddit Newsvine Omeka ScholarPress open humanities press Institutional repositories

FacebookAcademia.eduLinkedInNature NetworksResearchgateH-netEconomists onlineArts-humanities.netGraduate JunctionMethodspaceBiomed Experts Scispace.net

Institutional research pages

Personal websites Research wikis Flickr YouTube ScienceStage Bloglines Google reader Twitter Friendfeed Ning

References Digital researchers - presentations, blogs and discussion

http://www.vitae.ac.uk/researchers/219961/Digital-researcher-blog.html

Wired For Work, Elizabeth Wilkinson and Alex Hardman http://manchesterpgcareers.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/slides-pathways/

Social Media – Creating an Online Research Profile, Emily Bannister http://pgrdocblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/social-media-creating-an-online-research-profile/

Adventures in career development, Tristram Hooley http://adventuresincareerdevelopment.posterous.com/

Branwen HideLiaison and Partnership OfficerResearch Information Network

Branwen.hide@rin.ac.uk, http://rin.academia.edu/BranwenHide

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