How to use social media to build an academic identity online

1. Using Web 2.0 for research:
building an online academic
identity
Dr Lorraine Warren, Southampton
Research workshop, NTNU, Trondheim,
March 2, 2010
[acknowledgements to Lisa Harris, Southampton;
Kelly Smith, Huddersfield; Charlotte Carey, BCU; Jas Dhaliwal,
Microsoft]

2. First and foremost
 I am a researcher!
 http://www.doclorraine.com/cv/
 http://www.doclorraine.com/publications/
 http://www.doclorraine.com/paper-
abstracts/http://www.doclorraine.com/project
s/
 http://www.doclorraine.com/uncategorized/is
be-2009-creative-industries-track-winner/

3. Topics
 Innovation [open/disruptive]
 Technologies [new/emerging]
 Online (entrepreneurial)
identity/webscience/digital economy
Huge topic!!

4. Online Identity
 Upside – proactive, reach new people,
appear bigger than you are
 Downside – issues of security, privacy,
IP
 Sociological take: Goffman, Giddens
 Narratives: stories of self, narratives
and ante-narratives [Boje]

5. Web 2.0
 Social media
 Blogs, wikis, twitter, facebook, flickr,
slideshare, youtube, ning
 Sites such as Digg, Delicious
 Music sites such as blip.fm, spotify
 How to set in academic context

6. Is it...?

7. Overview:
Building an academic identity
 Rapidly build high value networks
 Build up a community of interest around
your work
 Quickly identify and share breaking
news, new resources, current issues
 Benefit from new forms of publishing
 AT NO COST
 Making your work work for you NOW

8. For a researcher...(1)
 Highlighting material useful to colleagues
 Seeking collaborators
 Sourcing co-authors
 Networking with colleagues prior to
conferences
 Feeds from colleagues at conferences that I
cannot attend
 Research discussions
 Meeting new contacts
 Follow calls for funds (JISC)

9. For a researcher (2)..
 Ask questions to quickly gauge opinion
(crowdsourcing)
 Follow sources such as Times Higher in real
time, key journalists in my area [eg Jack
Schofield/Guardian]
 Post links to Digg and Delicious sites
 Put out calls for papers outwith your sphere
of influence
 Use eprints [repositories]

10. What is your style?
 Passives
 Use what is there, use email, access information, maybe
register accounts on FB, watch youtube, maybe use in
presentations, text on mobile, largely individualised activity
 Creators
 Use and create what is there, create video, sound, upload,
keep a blog, update, use FB for social events, use smart
phone, access, join and participate in existing networks
 Disruptor
 Create new networks, develop activities based on real-time
events and breaking news, main space of professional
identity is online, rigorously maintained, download apps onto
smartphone and extend

12. For me...
 It’s where my future contacts and
networks lie, and increasingly where I’ll
be influencing thinking [velocity]
 Also managing interface between work
and play

13. Some examples
 http://www.liberatemedia.com/blog/tim
-greenhalgh/
 http://www.doclorraine.com/
 Next: Twitter demo
 www.twitter.com [www.itweet.net]