Social media: A guide for researchers
Social media is an important technological trend that has big implications for how researchers (and people in general) communicate and collaborate. Researchers have a huge amount to gain from engaging with social media in various aspects of their work.
This guide has been produced by the International Centre for Guidance Studies, and aims to provide the information needed to make an informed decision about using social media and select from the vast range of tools that are available.
One of the most important things that researchers do is to find, use and disseminate information, and social media offers a range of tools which can facilitate this. The guide discusses the use of social media for research and academic purposes and will not be examining the many other uses that social media is put to across society.
Social media can change the way in which you undertake research, and can also open up new forms of communication and dissemination. It has the power to enable researchers to engage in a wide range of dissemination in a highly efficient way.
Web materials 1: Links and resources
Audio and video tools
Blogging and Microblogging tools
Examples of academic and research blogs
Social networking services
Location based tools
Social bookmarking, news and social citation tools
Research and writing collaboration tools
Presentation sharing tools
Project management, meeting and collaboration tools
Information management tools
Virtual worlds
You can access the full list of the above resources here, or download below.
Web materials 2: Researcher case studies
The guide is rooted in the practical experience of its authors and that of the ten social media users that we interviewed as part of the project. You can read their individual case studies below:
- Andrew Coverdale (PhD student, Education)
- Anna Croft (Lecturer, Organic Chemistry)
- Alexander Davenport (Research Assistant, Hemato-oncology)
- Elena Golovuskina (PhD student, Education)
- Pat Heslop (Professor, Molecular Cytogenetics and Cell biology)
- Chris Jobling (Lecturer, Engineering)
- Constantina Katsari (Lecturer, Ancient History)
- Cameron Neylon (Senior Scientist, Biophysics)
- Alun Salt (Archaeoastronomist)
- Ruth Filery Travis (PhD, Archaeology)
- Terry Wassall (Principal Teaching Fellow, Sociology)
You can download the guide below, as well as documents listing Web materials 1 and 2. To request hard copies of the guide, email contact@rin.ac.uk
This guide follows on from a related RIN project, If you build it, will they come? (published in 2010), which looked at the extent of adoption of different web 2.0 tools in different subject fields and disciplines, and the different types of researchers who are using them.
Comments
Anonymous (not verified) said on 16 February 2012 at 5:43pm:
I am doing a critical and creative practice in Media/Film/Music at the University of Sussex. Social media has been the bedrock of not only my case study, but my research as well. It is a challenging role as a researcher to incorporate new forms of media, because there’s just so much of it. But ultimately through my research and creative practice, I have learned to dissiminate the information and evaluate it for quality assurance, as well as filter through a lot of the noise. Archiving and cataloging my research has also been an exciting journey, once I learned to manage, filter, catagorize and organize. I have a multitude of information now at my fingertips; and with the social media links, it leads to updates and new information constantly.
www.21stCenturyFeminist.com
Jodi Nelson
Anonymous (not verified) said on 14 February 2012 at 3:44pm:
This was an interesting read, I agree that social Media has an enormous impact on our culture and the way we communicate. The inventions and new types of sites when it comes to social media are also rapidly increasing. I think by the time we look at the 2013 calendar as our calendar year we will probably have a new website/invention that nobody knows about right now!
Anonymous said on 21 November 2011 at 1:09pm:
Indeed, social media have big implications for how researchers (and people in general) communicate and collaborate. Researchers have much to gain from engaging with social media in various aspects of their work. Given the buzz in the media, you may feel that social media are aimed at teenagers and mainly used to discuss celebrity culture. But this guide proves it is a false statement. What i especially liked about this guide is the fact that it aims to provide a broad overview of the ways in which social media can be used in research. It isn’t about teaching you the details of how to use a particular tool (like Twitter) but it is about explaining why researchers would want to bother with something like Twitter. This is a valuable gift for research minded people. I am presently gathering information and I am very sure when I shall reach the research phase, theese resources would be immensely useful.
Anonymous said on 23 October 2011 at 6:29pm:
This is a fantastic resource thank you. It’s fascinating the way we all interact online and through social media. I often wonder the impact of popular social news sites like Reddit and how they shape our culture.
Anonymous said on 20 September 2011 at 7:02am:
Anonymous said on 23 August 2011 at 10:07pm:
I have found in another link with this same website, a social description and search of the environment.
But i couldn’t found it.. If you could give to me the link for show again this article please.
Best, Jeu de combat
Anonymous said on 23 August 2011 at 4:21am:
I think than this method of search for the social media are so evolve.
Recently, i have found some information about Andrew Coverdale, this information say’s so many thinks about his Nottingham research in another article between this same website.
Best, jeux de caca
Anonymous said on 23 August 2011 at 4:09am:
Catherine, what an author !
I’m totally agree, social medias are usefull for researchers. I enjoyed the full valuable content of your article, so I bookmarked the page. Pat Heslop, is THE guy that you have to talk with to master the social media.
Best,
jeux de tracteur
Anonymous said on 14 August 2011 at 11:43pm:
Thanks for the post. I’ve seen Chris Jobling before and he’s got some really interesting stuff. It’s definitely worth taking a look at for anyone wanting to master social media.
Trisha
Anonymous said on 06 August 2011 at 4:46am:
i find some really useful information about how to use social media for promotional point of view very thankful to you about this
regard
Anonymous said on 19 July 2011 at 2:16am:
Based on the fact that Google has said it plans to refer more to social media as a search engine metric and Google is still the most popular site on the planet, it is only a matter of time before we see even more social media affecting business. We certainly appreciate you guys leading the way by integrating social media into the learning experience. It’s absolutely a necessity for students nowadays to learn for moving forward in the business world.
Frankie
Anonymous said on 09 June 2011 at 12:37pm:
Hi,
good blog, thanks. Anyway, does anybody know where I could get raw data about social media sites, particularly about business one, such as LinkedIn. I am doing a research in business studies and innovation!
Thanks and regards,
M
Anonymous said on 12 May 2011 at 2:28pm:
I am a educational doctoral candidate at the University of Oklahoma and I am interested in finding a set of competencies for social media applications. Does anyone know if these have been created? If so, how may I be in contact with these measures.
Thank you!
Stacy
Anonymous said on 17 March 2011 at 7:40pm:
Thanks for this. You might also be interested in the Impact 2.0 iGuide - New mechanisms for linking research and policy - an online manual we developed for researchers seeking to use Web 2.0 to connect with policymakers. It’s at http://iguides.comunica.org/index.php/Main_Page
Anonymous said on 06 March 2011 at 4:42am:
Really guidance in social media for a researcher is excellent work, it helped me lot, did suggeste this to MLA association to incorporate. Thanks for sharing information.
Mr. Bhushan
http://bhushanspage.blogspot.com
Anonymous said on 24 February 2011 at 6:36am:
What a timely thing…here am I, helping set up a “Research Portal” at the University of Cape Town, and then this drops into my lap. Thanks, Alan et al.! I will pass this around the movers and shakers here at UCT, and doubtless we will link to it from our portal as an object example of how to do it with Twitter. Or Facebook. Or whatever.
Ta!
Ed Rybicki
Anonymous said on 22 February 2011 at 2:04pm:
Although I believe social media is a bit of hype, but it has been reported that job seekers increasingly searching jobs on sites like facebook or twitter to reach to the employers directly. Also new classifieds ads sites are increasingly advertising their own job ads using social media where they have large amount of followers. Social media is proving the universal fact that knowledge is power since it is allowing to share knowledge so easily
Good information!
Anonymous said on 21 February 2011 at 5:16pm:
A very good guide on the use of social media for the researchers. Many thanks for sharing the document.
Sham
Anonymous said on 18 February 2011 at 2:01pm:
Thanks to the authors and commissioners for a really useful resource which we will share and promote to all our researchers in the Faculty of Engineering at Leeds. Excellent stuff!
Patricia Gray, Researcher Training and Development Manager
Anonymous said on 17 February 2011 at 11:20am:
A useful guide for researchers and communicators. Dave Dodd, Dublin
Anonymous said on 16 February 2011 at 5:02pm:
I am pleased that Alan Cann of the Department of Biology at the University of Leicester, and Konstantia Dimitriou and Tristram Hooley of the International Centre for Guidance Studies, have compiled this guide which will help researchers navigate their way through the digital world.
As a matter of fact I am proud to be associated with the University of Leicester where I am researching challenges facing public service broadcasting in India in the digital era.
The virtualisation of social networking in an attempt to create, share, collaborate, communicate and disseminate information is increasingly proving to be the laboratory of articulation of ideas between people interested in enhancing the value of their work with input from the crowd.
From Shiv Satchit
Anonymous said on 16 February 2011 at 5:00pm:
I am pleased that Alan Cann of the Department of Biology at the University of Leicester, and Konstantia Dimitriou and Tristram Hooley of the International Centre for Guidance Studies, have compiled this guide which will help researchers navigate their way through the digital world.
As a matter of fact I am proud to be associated with the University of Leicester where I am researching challenges facing public service broadcasting in India in the digital era.
The virtualisation of social networking in an attempt to create, share, collaborate, communicate and disseminate information is increasingly proving to be the laboratory of articulation of ideas between people interested in enhancing the value of their work with input from the crowd.
Anonymous said on 12 February 2011 at 11:05am:
Interesting! Phantastic in basics . Thank you all for this - yours sharing! Greetings from Hamburg, T. Klußmann
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