Janine Dunlop

University of Cape Town/University of Pretoria

August, 2013

THE SOCIAL SCHOLAR

THE ESCAPE CLAUSE:

THIS IS NOT A ‘HOW TO USE ALL THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

FOR YOUR RESEARCH IN 3 EASY STEPS’ TALK.

The what scholar?

• social scholar• digital scholar• open scholar• networked participatory scholar

“the open scholar is someone who makes their

intellectual projects and processes digitally visible

and who invites and encourages ongoing criticism of their work and secondary uses

of any or all parts of it – at any stage of its development.” (Burton)

Czerniewicz

Czerniewicz

Can social media really be used for serious research?

Czerniewicz

How can social media be used in

academia?

Rowlands

…for social and professional networking

…for dissemination, sharing

…for discussion, open reflection

…for collaboration, crowdsourcing:

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/aroundthemall/2011/04/facebook-friends-of-social-networking-scientists-help-identify-fish/

…and more crowdsourcing: iSpot

“Informal” peer review: Altmetrics

2 case studies

SCHOLAR 1

“social scholarship is the future of research, but at this stage, it has only added another dimension to research, rather than changing it fundamentally”

SCHOLAR 2

“the potential for the use of social media in research is enormous. It has already changed scholarship: tweeted contributions get more citations, and alt.metrics can have a huge impact on the visibility of research”

GO FORTH AND SOCIALISE!• Social media: a guide for researchers:

• http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers

• The digital academic: social and other digital media for academics

• http://www.slideshare.net/dlupton/e-academia-20688345

• Twitter for academics:

• http://ots.evansville.edu/support/training/twitterforacademics.pdf

• Handbook of social media for researchers and supervisors:

• http://www.slideshare.net/fred.zimny/vitae-innovate-openuniversitysocialmediahandbook2012

“Whether we decide to be regular participants, occasional contributors or intermittent readers, the days when social media competence was optional…are running out. Social media have become the single most effective way of gathering research news and commentary and many debates preceding and following publication take place online. Social media are currently a frontier for scientific discussion.”

Stafford, Tom, and Vaughan Bell. "Brain network: social media and the cognitive scientist." Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2012).

REFERENCES

• Czerniewicz, Laura. "Power and politics in a changing scholarly communication landscape." (2013).

• Pearce, Nick, et al. "Digital scholarship considered: How new technologies could transform academic work." in education 16.1 (2012).

• Rowlands, Ian, et al. "Social media use in the research workflow." Learned Publishing 24.3 (2011): 183-195.

• Veletsianos, George, and Royce Kimmons. "Networked participatory scholarship: emergent techno-cultural pressures toward open and digital scholarship in online networks." Computers & Education 58.2 (2012): 766-774.