EURAXESS Conference in Dubrovnik, April 2013: Workshop Marketing Strategies and Social Media

1. Meet the “social”
researchers
Milan Zdravković
Who are EURAXESS “customers”?

2. ◦ One study1
has found that happiness tends to be
correlated in social networks. When a person is
happy, nearby friends have a 25 percent higher
chance of being happy themselves.
1
James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis. 2008. "Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years
in the Framingham Heart Study." British Medical Journal. December 4, 2008: doi:10.1136/bmj.a2338.
How long does it take to publish?

3. How long does it take to publish a..
◦ Book?
◦ Paper?
◦ Post?
As time goes by..

4. As time goes by..
What happens when you tweet a paper?

5. What Happens When You Tweet a Paper
it’s been downloaded 535 times since it went live
Melissa Terras, The Impact of Social Media on the Dissemination of Research: Results
of an Experiment, Journal of Digital Humanities, Vol.1, No.3, 2012

6. ◦ “The internet and social media have created a
super-Guttenberg press for the academic sector,
allowing researchers to crowdsource edits and
feedback”
◦ “It is when you move from merely consuming to
producing social media that you are likely to notice
some of the biggest changes”
Why researchers are social online?

7. Why researchers are social online?
◦ Social networks are changing the way in which the web is
used, today and will be used, tomorrow
– Users generate their own content
– The number of published patent applications on social
networks in USA has been growing at about 250% per
year over the past five years
◦ Virtual environments for rapid, cost-effective sharing of
knowledge and information
◦ Social networks also play a key role in hiring, in business
success, and in job performance.
– Networks provide ways for companies to gather
information, deter competition, and conspire in setting
prices or policies.
Why researchers are social online?

8. Why researchers are social online?
◦ Social intelligence
– More open networks, with many weak ties and social
connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas and
opportunities to their members than closed networks with
many redundant ties
◦ They earn the social capital
– the value that an individual gets from the social network
– Instant peer-review
◦ Social media can lead to the creation of a higher public profile
(which then needs some management)
– This might deliver crowd-funding for your research
Key problem of a research today?

9. Key problem of a research today
◦ Fragmentation
– Research results are not shared or evaluated
across scientific disciplines
– One of the most favorable benefits of the social
networks for researchers is cross-sectoral linking
of researchers and scientists, helping, for
example, a biologist to find a statistician for
highclass data analysis
Academic research cycle

10. Academic research cycle
Researchers are using social media to..

11. Researchers are using social media to
◦ Connect with other researchers around the world
◦ Discover the latest research and trends
◦ Collaborate with others on their research projects
◦ Promote their research work even beyond the
academic world
◦ Engage and seek feedback (peer-review) from
researchers, venture capitalists, public, etc.
◦ Share their research in creative ways to inspire
more interest
Social tools for researchers

12. Social tools for researchers: Examples 1/2
◦ store, manage and share references & citations
◦ generate citations and bibliographies
◦ ask or answer to a question
◦ find who is reading the content you are interested in
◦ search & discover content (articles)
◦ read & annotate articles
◦ add, organize and share papers (self-archiving)
◦ import papers from other research software
◦ provide and receive personal recommendations
Social tools for researchers

13. Social tools for researchers: Examples 2/2
◦ getting reputation score
◦ follow other people contributions
◦ request access to articles
◦ create or participate in public and private discussion groups
◦ manage identity
◦ create personalized workbench (by using widgets)
◦ gain access to analytical report regarding access to papers
◦ submit or find and browse research jobs
◦ submit or find and browse event announcements
◦ submit or find and browse scientific data
◦ organize lab data and materials
◦ whiteboards
Problems

14. Problems
◦ Trust
◦ Multiplicity of platforms
– Identity management
– Critical mass of researchers on a single platform
needed
◦ Privacy issues
◦ Online social research is different from
“conventional” one
– Research process is today driven by the journal
industry
– Researchers are not social? Culture of “secrecy”,
“sharing” is not an incentive?

15. ◦ “The real value of social media for scientists (aside from
teaching us to communicate concisely) may be that we are
forced to think about how to share ideas with a broader
audience, one that ultimately pays for most of our research:
taxpayers. Public conversations about our research make
scientists accountable for delivering something of value to
those taxpayers ... The days of scientists communicating only
with each other, in the languages of our individual disciplines,
and relying on science journalists to translate for the public,
are rapidly coming to an end.”
G. Small in Nature, vol. 479, page 141

16. What do you think
researchers need?