Supporting Researcher Engagement with Social Tools by Alan Cann
In this seminar, Alan Cann of the University of Leicester considers the potential of social tools for researchers, based on both his own extensive experience and those of researchers interviewed as part of a study for the publication "Social Media: a guide for researchers."
Sometimes dismissed as trivial or irrelevant, Alan argues that social tools actually offer researchers an opportunity to improve the quality of their work through an enhanced ability to find, use and disseminate information. He considers how personal networks can help create, curate, filter and amplify relevant information as part of the research process.
He goes on to explore issues of privacy, barriers to contribution and personal and professional identity. He also recognises that there is no right way to do social media and that everyone has a different 'galaxy' of tools that they use in different ways for a different experience. As a result, finding the value in social tools can take time and commitment without necessarily providing an obvious immediate payback. The key is to recognise this and lead people towards their own lightbulb moment.
Key points covered:
- A galaxy of social tools for researchers
- Resisting techno-determinism
- Visitors and residents revisited for researchers
- Information overload, filter failure and filter bubbles
- Personal networks - filter, create, curate & amplify
There was also a lively text chat during the session:
01:35 - AJ Cann 2010: If you build it, will they come? How researchers perceive and use web 2.0 http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/use-and-relevance-web-20-researchers 01:56 - Sue Beckingham 1 This guide has been so useful! 01:57 - Steve Boneham If you're using twitter to talk about this - we also have a suggested hashtag #nstalks 02:53 - AJ Cann 2011: Social media: A guide for researchers. http://www.rin.ac.uk/our-work/communicating-and-disseminating-research/social-media-guide-researchers 05:33 - Dave White Galaxy is a good term 08:09 - Steve Boneham I like the idea of social media being like an open kitchen 08:42 - Dave White Yes, with a flow of people moving through it. 09:13 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University Are you the same Dave White? 09:31 - Steve Boneham Visitors & residents model explained by Dave White: http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2009/10/14/visitors-residents-the-video/ 09:35 - AJ Cann Visitors & Residents: http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2009/10/14/visitors-residents-the-video/ 09:49 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University Yes the same Dave! 10:25 - Dave White That was a slightly better explanation of my idea than I usually give... 10:53 - Steve Boneham Good post on what if (services like) twitter goes rogue: http://electronicmuseum.org.uk/2011/05/25/what-if-twitter-goes-rogue/ 15:39 - Steve Boneham Pressure to keep feeding the machine together with the reward a response brings is not insignificant on that work/life balance things 16:46 - Dave White Sometimes by being resident I feel my 'hourly rate' drops. Sort of working all the time... ? 16:53 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University There is a difference between lurking and engaging. 16:53 - AJ Cann @JS We ckntrol the slides ;-) Which one would you like? 18:16 - Marieke Guy (UKOLN) 1 Do you think that some tools (like Twitter) can seem a little clique and it can be quite scary for people to fully participate 18:17 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University Lurking is OK - so it takes the pressure off 18:21 - Steve Boneham I don't mind the banal. Gives a rounder perspective on other people's lives, ideas, motivations 18:44 - Steve Boneham Like having a chat at a conference over coffee vs the keynote 18:53 - Dave White All the best tool allow lurking 18:54 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University So it is good for adoption 19:01 - Sue Beckingham 1 I found initially it was helpful to pose questions 19:14 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University Agree Sue 19:15 - Emma Cragg (University of Warwick) @Steve Boneham - I'd agree about the banality, you want to see people are human and have personality 19:21 - Steve Boneham Hopefully by yomorrow 19:25 - Steve Boneham *tomorrow 19:35 - Sue Beckingham 1 In time you find you can answer others 21:16 - Steve Boneham The network you build and engage with means social tools are different for everyone. Challenging for 'training' beyond what buttons to press 23:34 - Steve Boneham And as a result of your hard work in that, people like me can become part of that network 24:00 - Steve Boneham (....and hopefully vice versa) 24:27 - Paul Jinks tallblog video link is giving a database connection error - is there an alternative? 24:39 - Steve Boneham It's on blip.tv - give me a sec 25:36 - Sue Beckingham 1 Following a conference twitter# I collab with another to plan a future proposal (we have never met f2f) and its now been accepted 25:38 - SI (Newcastle University) I'm the only person who is responsible for the website, I'm worried if I start it will take over my life! 25:39 - Steve Boneham Visitors & residents video on blip.tv: http://blip.tv/file/2714106 26:03 - Steve Boneham Sorry - think we killed his site :-) 26:06 - Paul Jinks Thanks Steve =) 26:22 - Dave White The whole server is down :) 26:37 - Steve Boneham Hello 27:45 - Marieke Guy (UKOLN) 1 She need a good social media policy! 27:48 - Emma Thompson may need 2 accounts - 1 for professional one for personal? 28:02 - Linda Saddington Hull University SI, I think this is something that a few of us are afraid of 29:16 - Steve Boneham Yep. Need to set scope and manage expectations. 29:37 - dot.rural in our experiences you tend to get peak times of activity on social media anyway, usually when people are in the office 29:38 - Steve Boneham Also, in a social space, students take on some roles 29:47 - Steve Boneham (As Alan is just saying... I think) 29:51 - Dickon Copsey On a practical level Hoot suite is a great tool to manage multiple facebook and twitter accounts ie. one post can go to all/selection 29:57 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University The beauty of a lot of this stuff that it is mostly asynchronous 30:15 - Linda Saddington Hull University There is also the possibility that you are browsing the web in the evening and a colleague using Skype notices that you are online and the next thing you know you are involved in work conversations at 9pm 30:27 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University In other words a response some hours later or following morning works fine 30:33 - Jez Cope It's worth remembering that unlike email, there's much less expectation that you will read every single message on e.g. Twitter. 30:49 - Dave White t's quite easy to make yourself 'invisible' even when online 31:00 - RIchard Stamp (BSU) Thoroughly recommend Tweetdeck for managing multi-accounts. You can even use it within Chrome - very clean and easy to use. 31:22 - Will Allen Question raises wider issues re. changing working practices, roles and responsibilities... 32:06 - Will Allen JISC's done some good work in this area recently... The "Work With IT" project ... will find the link 32:06 - Sue Beckingham 1 You wouldn't drink directly from a fire hydrant! Dip in and out of social media 33:14 - Will Allen http://ewds.strath.ac.uk/work-with-it/ 33:41 - Steve Boneham @Sue - Networks are good firehouse filters 34:02 - Sue Beckingham 1 Agree Steve! 34:37 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University You can have two identities if you want to - esp on twitter 34:38 - Jo Badge Thinking about networks and audiences is valuable for yourself as well as others - I use twitter for colleagues, friends on facebook like Alan. Different tools helps to keep boundaries between different areas of your life. 35:27 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University I have had work colleague on fb with a "Rasputin" identity 36:14 - Alasdair Mort I've found that connecting with colleagues in a social sense on twitter/facebook has actually improved our working relationships. We don't talk about work using Facebook; Twitter, however, seems to be more suited to research. 36:17 - Paul Jinks "facebooks for education" have been labelled "creepy treehouses" due to lack of allure to kids 36:17 - mhawksey LinkedIn Groups are one to watch 36:17 - timjohnson academia.edu is nice for academics 36:58 - Dave White Tall blog back-up now 37:21 - Jez Cope Subject-specific networks tend to lack the critical mass needed for good community building. 37:47 - dot.rural Sorry, can you define what FriendFeed is? 38:13 - Sue Beckingham 1 Yammer is proving useful for small group discussions at work 38:17 - Jez Cope Also, if I have several subject specific networks, there's an extra step of having to decide which network to use at any given point. 38:53 - dot.rural Ok thanks :) 39:12 - Jo Badge have a look at Alan's account on friendFeed - this is his personal science account, not the one used to talk to students http://friendfeed.com/ajc 39:35 - AJ Cann https://www.facebook.com/MicrobiologyBytes 39:50 - Jo Badge @sue yammer is useful if you get a critical mass of people on there, like any other network 41:00 - mhawksey @jo @sue Jane Hart has a number of case studies about businesses effectively using yammer (mass is key) 41:51 - Jo Badge @martin - thanks - know it is well used at Hudersfield, see #yam tags on twitter all the time! pushes tweets into yammer 41:56 - Sue Beckingham 1 We actually use for project discussion so is small group (private) and is working well - avoids mass email! 42:04 - AJ Cann Filter Bubbles? http://www.delicious.com/AJCann/filter_bubble 43:27 - Paul Jinks interesting discussion with Eli Pariser about Filter Bubbles, Google, facebook and twitter as sources of info on Click: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9520918.stm 44:50 - Steve Boneham Filter bubble overview also available as a podcast from an event at LSE... http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2011/20110620t1830vSZT.aspx 45:23 - mhawksey Last weeks #nstalks twitter network diagram http://mashe.hawksey.info/nstalks/ 48:13 - Jez Cope How do you manage to focus on the networks rather than the tools and still give people the support they need with particular tools? 48:17 - Elaine Garcia (Plymouth College of Art) 3 could you just put the books names back up 48:25 - sarahbrasher 1 If training researchers to use social media does not work, then what does? 48:29 - Alison Are there any concerns about investing so much "intellectual capital" in what is a commercial tool (facebook) that can disappear/sell your details etc? I agree that you need a critical mass of people but I'm wary of completely relying on something like facebook... 48:34 - Dave White wrt/ the blurring of boundaries between public and private you might be interested in my 'The Social Threshold' post http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2011/01/26/the-social-threshold/ 48:40 - Elaine Garcia (Plymouth College of Art) 3 Thanks :) 48:52 - Sue Beckingham 1 Thank you, again another great talk! 48:56 - RIchard Stamp (BSU) Some really useful links and helpful ideas - thanks Alan. 49:05 - Steve Boneham I'll be doing it tonight - that work/life balance stuff again :-) 49:12 - Carol Gray thanks, learned a lot! 49:12 - Simon Kometa (Newcastle University Thanks Alan. 49:18 - Lauren Roberts thank you! 49:22 - Alasdair Mort Thanks Alan 49:25 - Paul Jinks thanks 49:32 - SI (Newcastle University) Thanks Alan 49:35 - Dickon Copsey Do you have any useful resources to suggest for students on balancing the personal and professional while building a social medial profile... 49:39 - Tim Edwards Thanks Tim (PSI) 49:40 - Nikki GS Thanks 49:42 - Paul Monahan Thanks Alan 49:48 - timjohnson Thanks Alan and everyone else :) 49:54 - Rob Daley (Heriot-Watt) While this is all facinating, my constant challange is to identify the cost/benefit of engaging in any of these activities, including learning about them and their usefullness before plunging in! there are many places to start but whichone is the place for me? 50:09 - Andrew Thorburn Thanks Alan - good talk, very useful :) 50:26 - Louise 1 thank you Alan and the contributors to the chat 50:37 - Joyce Nolan (Liverpool John Moores University) many thanks to all involved - very helpful info 50:44 - Dave White I suddenly realised everyone I would like to talk to in a pub was in Twitter. 50:58 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University key payoff is following hashtag for a conference you can't afford to attend 50:58 - Denise Turner Really helpful - thanks 52:02 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University Then the hash tagged blog posts from attendees can often give a succint summary 52:18 - Emma Thompson Absolutely - hashtags hugely important - have been training reasearchers and it is this element - finding conferences and people through hashtags that they don't know about twitter 52:26 - Enid Pryce-Jones Birmingham City University Thanks for all the information - looking forward to following up on the suggestions 52:29 - mhawksey @alison always worth keeping an eye on your exit strategy - if I need to get out how much can I take with me 52:38 - Steve Boneham Hi Becky - hope to get to you in a sec 52:55 - Steve Boneham plus others who are asking q in here 53:17 - Dave White :) 53:29 - Alison Thanks Alan, @mhawksey! 53:35 - Phil Thank you!! 53:40 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University I don't believe you're an addict! 54:17 - Steve Boneham @Alan - one q from Rob Daley and Becjy had her hand up - if you have time 54:25 - Becky Kornegay 1 Hand down for me. I am in the US and wasn't able to make the webinar. The comments are useful, though. Do I remember the recorded session will be available later? 54:29 - Linda Saddington Hull University Is self-discipline the key to a balance? 54:33 - Jill Macdonald That is very true - iPhones also have the same effect! 54:37 - Will Allen Vitae have some good short, consumable guides... 54:59 - Steve Boneham My cost:benefit of twitter would have, like Alan's, meant it was a waste of time. Now prob the most important social tool I use 55:10 - Ann Barlow Thank you 55:11 - Elaine Garcia (Plymouth College of Art) 3 thank goodness for sky plus as I get carried away on the ipad and can then rewind the tv to see what Ive missed :) 55:14 - AJ Cann #nstalks 55:16 - Steve Boneham Hard to predict in advance which networks/platforms will win 55:25 - AJ Cann Twitter.com/#nstalks 55:27 - Will Allen Also our web2practice guides aimed at new users: http://web2practice.jiscinvolve.org/wp/ 55:29 - Dickon Copsey Thanks very much, Alan. Very useful. Dave's post re The Social Threshold' blog also very useful 55:36 - Sian Prosser (University of Warwick) Thanks very much! 55:41 - Linda Saddington Hull University thank you. 55:42 - Steve Boneham Cheers Alan 55:43 - Chris Graves - Cardiff University Thanks 55:43 - Elaine Garcia (Plymouth College of Art) 3 thank you, very informativwe 55:46 - Emma Thompson Really useful - thanks! 55:47 - Dave White Thanks Alan. Great to have the Q and A fromal as well 55:47 - Sue Beckingham 1 Dave - and Twitter did lead to a talk in the pub! 55:47 - Jill Macdonald Thanks! 55:48 - Emma Cragg (University of Warwick) Thanks Alan 55:50 - Sally Patalong Coventry University Thank you! 55:50 - Will Allen Great stuff Alan :-) 55:50 - Dave White format 55:52 - Jo Cordy (QMUL) Thanks Alan. 55:53 - michelle walker (northumbria university) thanks 55:54 - Chris Falzon Thanks - ver helpful 55:57 - Matt Mobbs (Uni Of Leicester) Thanks Alan 56:02 - mhawksey Thanks! 56:08 - Andy Tattersall Thanks! 56:15 - Clare Barber (Teesside University) Cheers - very useful. 56:29 - Matt Mobbs (Uni Of Leicester) Will a link to the recorded session be posted somewhere?
Alternatively, watch the full session in Elluminate (Java required).
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comments powered by DisqusAbout Alan Cann
Alan Cann is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology at the University of Leicester. He has been employed as a consultant by numerous organizations including universities, pharmaceutical companies and scientific publishers.
He writes online at MicrobiologyBytes and Science of the Invisible and is Internet Consulting Editor for the scientific journal Annals of Botany (Oxford University Press).