Science 2.

0:
Social Media Use in Academia

Ines Mergel

Assistant Professor

Department of Public Administration Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs Syracuse University

Open Science

http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-toSee-Published/130403/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/science/openscience-challenges-journal-tradition-with-webcollaboration.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/ locked-in-the-ivory-tower-why-jstor-imprisons-academicresearch/251649/#.Txm6u-ohwpQ.twitter

Social media Social networking Academic communication

What kind of relationships do you need? How can you tap into existing social networks?

Academia = Ivory tower

Strict rules Hierarchical Based on seniority and merit BUT: Clash of generations

Academic networking

What kind of ties do you need? Research, Teaching, Service Local & global Professional & social Practitioner & academic Informal & formal
Photo source: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/o/old_boys_network.asp

Social networking principles driving human interaction

Birds of a feather flock together

Homophily in social networks Similarity breeds connection

Result: Personal networks are (too) homogenous

Six Degrees of Separation & Small World Phenomenon

Watts, D. J. (1999). Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks Between Order and Randomness. Princeton University Press.

"The Strength of Weak Ties (Mark Granovetter)

Strong ties: arise from long-term, frequent, and sustained interactions Weak ties arise from infrequent and more casual interactions: bridge social distances

Activate weak ties for innovative information

Picture source: http://www.wrike.com/projectmanagement/07/28/2008/Project-ManagementSoftware-Mind-Mapping-Weak-Ties-and-the-Human-Brain

Social media applications for teaching & research

ResearchGate

http://www.researchgate.net

Google Scholar Citation Page

http://scholar.google.com/citations

Developing a researcher profile through social media

Twitter
Find your network(s) and develop your digital self!

Weblog

Source: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/50-twitter-comic-strips/

Use of #MyResearch hashtag on Twitter

Twitter in Higher Education

How frequently do you use Twitter for the following activities?
Never Rarely Sometimes Occasionally Frequently

To share information with peers To communicate with students As a learning tool in the classroom As a real-time information source

6.5%

6.9%

15.4%

22.1%

49.1%

33.9%

20%

14.1%

16.8%

15.1%

44.2%

21.2%

11.0%

13.9%

9.7%

5.9%

8.7%

15.0%

18.6%

51.8%

How to use Twitter for

Teaching
Create Twitter groups to share information with your students Early information channel for your class topics Connect to potential guest speakers Network with other academics teaching in your field

Research
Access early publications Newest PEW studies Most retweeted mustread articles Follow conferences (backchannel), save travel money Download and analyze Twitter attention networks

Twitter as a Global Faculty Lounge

Asymmetric information sharing Track a conference Instant feedback: Public note pad: Follow a professional: Social proof Measure of influence: we view a behavior as more correct to the degree that we see others performing it Subscribing to content that a lot of other people subscribe to Number of retweets, likes or content shared (reused) Twitter as a networking and professional development tool Success depends on who you are connected to and with; how frequently you participate; how conscientious you are about contributing value to the community.

Joanna C. Dunlap and Patrick R. Lowenthal in Horton Hears a Tweet (EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4)

Twitter interface
@Mentions

Search

Twitter handle (@)

ReTweets

#Hashtags
A topic with a hash symbol (#) at the start each Twitter message Easy to search for & help to organize messages No need to follow everyone who writes about a specific subtopic Examples: Prominent #hashtag: #followfriday Conference as #hashtags Names as #hashtags Topic areas as #hashtags

ReTweet = Twitter love Repostings

Convention to replicate other peoples posts Add RT to a post (via @name) Use HT (hat tip) Hightlights, that the original post/idea came from someone else OH = overheard Sometimes called Twitter love An indicator of who you pay attention to Correct attribution More on the science of ReTweets: http://mashable.com/2009/02/17/twitter-retweets/

Twitter applications
Overview of 19 Twitter desktop applications: http://mashable.com/ 2009/06/27/twitter-desktopapps/ Twitter started #appwednesday: Unofficial Twitter application suggestions

Desktop applications: Tweetdeck

TweetDeck.com Column view of all Twitter functions Save searches by hashtag w/o follow

Free blogging tools

Free blogging tools

https://www.blogger.com/

http://wordpress.org/

Personal blogs

http://andrewmcafee.org/blog/

http://inesmergel.wordpress.com

Topic-area blogs

http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/netgov/

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/digitalnatives/

School blogs
The Green Grok Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University by Dean Bill Chameides Facebook YouTube channel Twitter iTunesU Technorati favorites Students and travel blogs
http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/

RSS feeds
"Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary Syndication of frequently updated content Blog entries News headlines Radio Audio In XML format

Social media pitfalls

Tweet, wordpress or linkedin with me:

http://twitter.com/InesMergel

(http://inesmergel.wordpress.com

iamergel@maxwell.syr.edu

http://www.linkedin.com/in/inesmergel/