This presentation was given as part of a seminar on the topic at the BecA 'technical/research paper writing' workshop, held in ILRI Addis campus, 15-18 November 2010. We also got the participants to try writing blog posts.
TrustArc Webinar - Stay Ahead of US State Data Privacy Law Developments
Beyond the scientific article making your research social bec-a writing workshop_nov2010-nmt
1. BEYOND THE SCIENTIFIC
ARTICLE-MAKING YOUR
RESEARCH SOCIAL:
SOCIAL MEDIA AS TOOLS FOR SCIENCE
COMMUNICATION
At: Be cATe chnical/re se arch pape r writing wo rksho p,
By Nadia Manning -Tho m as (CG IAR ICT-KMPro g ram /ILRI)
& Jane Hawtin (Be cA)
We dne sday 1 7 th
No ve m be r 20 1 0 , 1 3: 0 0 -1 4: 30
ILRIAddis Ababa
2. This workshop is about…
Communication of research findings in peer-
reviewed journals is the standard by which
scientists and their findings are evaluated by
the scientific community
Publication in high-impact journals ensures
that research findings are accessible to the
scientific community for use in related studies
and translates into agricultural improvement
throughout the region and around the world.
Enhancing the impact of African science
3. But is this enough…?
To make your work visible?
To ensure research is available and
accessible? And applicable?
To reach other stakeholders other then
researchers? Or even to all researchers?
To translate into agricultural improvement and
have impact?
4.
5. Changing the toolset and the mindset
To collaborate better and ‘make the PIGs fly’
means:
Looking for ways to improve the way we have
conversations and share knowledge
Embedding knowledge sharing and collaborative
tools and approaches in the research project cycle
Looking for ways to improve the way information is
shared
E.g Communicating research with the use of social
media
6.
7.
8.
9. Website : www.ciard.net
The CIARD Vision
“To make public domain agricultural research
information and knowledge truly accessible to all”
10. Social media for research
uptake
Definition (Wikipedia): ‘Social media is online content
created by people using highly accessible and scalable
publishing technologies.’
Agricultural research and development organizations
stand to benefit greatly from using social media tools as
vehicles to get their message across.
Social media is about conversations enabled by tools
such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, social networks,
newsfeeds, photo and video sharing platforms.
The true value of social media lies in the social networks
orcommunities that form within these social media tools.
11. ‘Spaces’ where people interact
User-generated and ‘re-mixed’ content - anyone can be an author, publisher,
or broadcaster;
Tools that enable interaction and collaboration;
Redefinition of established roles
Social media tools
13. Step 1:Think about key stages/activities in your work
Step 2: What would you like to achieve, but is lacking in knowledge sharing, collaboration for each stage?
Step 3: Turn them into goals…
Step 4: Identify who to share, collaborate and engage with at each stage…and their capacity
Step 5: Look at the functionality of various tools—show them examples
Step 6: Match the tools to your stages and goals…keeping in mind the people!
Choosing the right tool/pathway, achieving the
right goals– The Knowledge Sharing in Research
Framework
online surveys,
wikis, blogs,
RSS,
discussion
forums
online
surveys,
wikis, blogs,
discussion
forums,
mindmapping
, shared
calendars,
decision
support
systems
wikis, blogs, photo
sharing, google docs,
discussion forums,
intranets, shared
calendars,
shared reference list
wikis, blogs, photo
sharing, google
docs, discussion
forums, intranets
wikis, blogs,
microbloggi
ng,
discussion
forums,
RSS, photo
sharing,
google docs,
podcasting,
shared
reference
list
websites, wikis,
blogs,
microblogging,
discussion
forums, online
surveys, RSS
wikis, blogs, google docs,
microblogging, photo
sharing, social networking
sites, intranets, instant
messengers
14. A blog (or "web log") is a type of website with regular entries of commentary,
descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as
more personal online diaries.
A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other
media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive
format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although
some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (
MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting).
So urce : Wikipe dia - http: //e n. wikipe dia. o rg /wiki/Blo g s
Social Media > Blogs
15. Why blogs?
As informal ways to interact and share
information on a project or piece of research
Extend the reach of a research output such as
an article
Blogs can attract people with similarthoughts
and questions, people who can validate your
ideas and also challenge you by sharing
varying opinions.
Blogging is a good way for researchers to
share their research ideas with others and gain
20. Most blogs contain the following elements:
• a main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top;
• an archive of older articles, to browse by month and/or category
• an option for people to leave comments about the articles;
• a "blogroll“ listing links to other related sites
• a tagcloud of the tags used in the posts
• one or more RSS feeds
Blog anatomy: Main elements
21. How you blog
• Decide on type of content and what topics you
want to post about
• Think about who you want to write for
• Assign time and responsibilities for creating quality
content
• Create linkrolls (lists of your favorite links) and
tagrolls (links of your most commonly used
keywords).
• Make sure your blog is on local or thematic blog
directories
• Use RSS feeds
• Create a readership
22. Microblogging involves posting short
sentences to promote your journal article or
a useful website, act as a reminder for an
activity, or even ask questions.
Social media > Microblogging
23. When and why to use microblogs
• Updating ‘status’
• Supporting communities of practice, distribute questions
to a large group of people
• Getting instant feedback about issues common to your
network
• Reporting live from events, and engaging remote
participation
• Promoting promote articles, blog posts, new publications
and content from your website(s)
• Discussing ideas, posting news, asking questions, and
sharing links and other information with co-workers
• Connecting to and engaging with like-minded colleagues
outside your organization
• Discovering upcoming events, new happenings,
interesting sites/links and tools
24.
25.
26.
27. How you use twitter
• Register a free account at http://twitter.com --Use a simple, short name
• Set up your profile and share a link to more about yourself
• Share your location
• Share a photo
• Follow to be followed
o You can start by following the different CG Centers
• Build your network
• Ask questions and share the things you are doing
• Re-post valuable messages
• Don’t spam
• Embed/reuse feed information in other websites
28. A feed is a regularly updated summary (“syndication”) of contents –
blog entries, headlines, publications, multimedia – in the form of
metadata about the source and the contents. It includes links to the
full versions of those contents at their original location.
So urce : http: //www. ciard. ne t
Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content
automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely
updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many
sites into one place.
So urce : http: //e n. wikipe dia. o rg /wiki/Rss
Newfeeds
29. When and why to use newsfeeds
• As a way to track research and news from
colleagues and across the internet
• To keeping the users of your website and repository
up to date with the latest developments (feeds are
also particularly useful in low bandwidth
environments)
• To publish your content on other web sites and
services you have a presence on
• To let other services re-publish your content
30. NEWSFEEDS ANATOMY: MAIN ELEMENTS
Rural Climate Exchange http://cgiarclimatechange.wordpress.com/
36. Delicious is a Social Bookmarking service, which means you can save all your
bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are
bookmarking. It also means that we can show you the most popular bookmarks
being saved right now across many areas of interest. In addition, our search and
tagging tools help you keep track of your entire bookmark collection and find
Social Bookmarking----Del.icio.us
37. Academic social network---Mendeley
Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can
help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the
latest research.
Automatically generate bibliographies, Collaborate easily with other researchers
online, Easily import papers from other research software, Find relevant
39. Want to know more about social media
and Web 2.0? Sources, resources and
credits
Search any
of these
sites for
resources
on particular
tools and
methods
Credits:
ICT-KM
program
staff for
some slides
• ICT-KM Website/ Blog –
http://ictkm.cgiar.org/
•
• KSToolkit –http://www.kstoolkit.org/
• iMark – Web 2.0 and Social Media for
Development
• CIARD Pathways - http://www.ciard.net/
• Blog Tips (blog)-http://www.blogtips.org/
Notas do Editor
This seminar is aimed at giving you some food for thought and inspiration about how scientific research can be conducted these days, working in a virtual environment and adopting new web tools that can increase the efficiency of your work, and improve impact of your research outputs.
We’ll look at your specific context . We’ll talk about possible ways to collaborate with others, in the research project cycle and we’ll look at information and communication processes at the different stages of the project cycle, to see how they can be supported and improved by the adoption of online collaboration tools and social media.
Papers, articles etc are very important. But should not be the end of the line or the only thing we do!
We have to keep in mind another important element. Related to the overall mission of the CG centers, according to Robinson and Elliott. [Meta-evaluation of External Program and Management Reviews (EPMRs). Washington DC: CGIAR. ww.cgiar.org/pdf/agm07/agm07_epmr_meta_evaluation.pdf] “The comparative advantage of the Centers is seen to be in contributing to poverty reduction in the provision of international public goods (or significant regional public goods).”
Research organizations like the CGIAR (and its centers) not only have to produce high quality science. Indeed, it is critical that the research outputs are well communicated and disseminated. Further, they need to be put into use where needed.
CGIAR research on IPGs – or PIGs, Public Information Goods - needs to generate outputs that can and will be used by others to provide local, national and regional benefits. This means CGIAR research outputs should be easily accessible to other actors that will adapt, build on and apply this knowledge. This is the objective we should always keep in mind when conducting our research.
We therefore then have to look at how to address the needs and challenges in our work with all the various actors. There are very real, practical needs within our everyday work all the way to achieving our larger goals. We therefore need to think about how to map our knowledge sharing and collaborative tools onto a framework which represents our research processes and practical needs.
This seminar is to look at the new opportunities that exist for communicating, sharing, co-creating and developing research. The social media and many new Web2.0 tools as we have seen are useful at all stages of the research cycle. Particularly social media has been used to help us with promoting research (millions fed), social reporting of research meetings (Twitter, blogs etc)
How can we address these challenges?
Start with this: dare to be different
What does this imply? Bottom line, it’s about adopting a new paradigm and changing the way we work – with a different toolset and mindset that enables new forms of science sharing, communication, and information
We as ICT=KM Team are working on this and supporting the move towards this new way of collaboration and communication along the research project cycle and making use of social media to enhance your communication, sharing and visibility. Indeed, the ICT-KM Program helps the CGIAR develop and sustain a culture of active information and knowledge sharing. This involves timely yet cost-effective multi-directional communications, the know-how to collaborate, and the tools to support multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams. The Program also supports champions of these changes throughout the System, explores and encourages incentives for change, and sponsors projects that show demonstrable value and impact.
Introduce ways to ‘publish’ posters, presentations and pictures in ways that make other parts of their research more accessible ad visible
Triple A framework
In this regards, CG committed to the CIARD Manifesto and adopted the Triple A – availability, accessibility, applicability – framework to make the most out of research outputs.
The Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD) initiative is working to make agricultural research information publicly available and accessible to all.
With the Triple A framework, the objective is to make research outputs:
Available: Research outputs are stored in appropriate open digital formats and described using public metadata standards so they can be found through structured search and access systems. Availability means assembling and storing content so it will be permanently accessible, and describing it in systems so others know, and can find, what outputs have been produced.
Accessible: Research outputs are publicly available online using accepted public formats and appropriate licenses so they can be queried, viewed, and obtained in full. Accessibility means making outputs as easy to find and share and as open as possible, in the sense that others are free to use, reuse, and redistribute them, with appropriate acknowledgement and without restrictive legal, technological or financial barriers.
Applicable: Research processes are open and inclusive so that all perspectives and knowledge are taken into account during research design, planning, implementation and communication. Applicability means research and innovation processes that are open to different sources of knowledge, and outputs that are easy to adapt, transform, apply and re-use.
Source: Ballantyne, P. 2008. Making CGIAR Research Outputs Available and Accessible as IPGs
http://www.sciencecouncil.cgiar.org/fileadmin/user_upload/sciencecouncil/EVENTS/AGM08IPG_WRKSHOP/BallantyneW.ipg4sciencecouncil.pdf
Looking at Pathways
One pathway is social media!
There are a lot of tools and methods out there now but often it is hard to figure out what tools to use for what purpose at what time, where and with whom
Introducing blogs
Anyone seen, used, read or has a blog?
We will get back to this more at the end of this presentation
Why blogs?
The reasons to use blogs in research can be very different:
- you can think about blogging to create spaces for discussing issues and having conversations without being filtered by size or editorial limitations;
- you can use blogs to expanding your audience;
- by blogging on a regular base, you can document the research process as it happens;
- you can make your research findings and outputs more open and available for different stakeholders;
- you can offer your reader quick informal updates on your domain of interest
Organize research, collaborate, and discover new knowledge
Mendeley Desktop organizes your research paper collection and citations. It automatically extracts references from documents, generates bibliographies, and is freely available on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Mendeley Web lets you access your research paper library from anywhere, share documents in closed groups, and collaborate on research projects online. It connects you to like-minded academics and puts the latest research trend statistics at your fingertips.
Be the dj
Brew your own beer
We can help you to find your way in this new environment and move towards ‘science 2.0’ but ultimately, it’s all about you. You are the one responsible for engaging in conversations with other users, for opening up your data, for exposing your knowledge and find the right pathways for collaboration, information and knowledge sharing. “We have to move towards the next generation of science communication where individuals and groups are empowered to document and communicate their own activities in different channels and social media.”