1. Social Media for Sceptics
Dr Helen Webster
Researcher Development

2. Resources:
• These slides and handouts are online
▫ On the programme blog
http://stemdigital.wordpress.com/
▫ On Slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/drhelenwebster/
▫ On Scribd
http://www.scribd.com/helen_webster_10

3. Social Media in Academia
Enhancing or changing practice?
• Networking and professional profiles
• Publishing Models: Open Access Publishing, self-
promotion by authors
• Quality Assessment Models: Altmetrics
• Funding: Collaboration, consortia and large projects
• Pedagogy: digital classroom, „pedagogy of
abundance‟
• Conference ‘attendance’ –
livetweeting, livestreaming, liveblogging, podcasting
• Impact: narrowcasting online and digital resources

4. Social Media for Sceptics
• “What‟s this about?”
• “Can‟t I just ignore the whole thing?”
• “I don‟t get it…”
• “I don‟t like it…”
• “So now what?”

5. Where are you now?
I just don‟t
understand
it
I don‟t agree
with it

6. Aims
• My aims….
▫ are not to convert you to social media!
▫ are to reach an informed understanding of social
media and associated risks in the context of
professional academic practice
▫ and to develop an effective social media strategy at
whatever level you feel is right for you, even if that
is a „work-around‟.
• Your aims….?

7. What social media do you use?
• Write down all the social media platforms you
can think of.
• Mark:
▫ Those you use (and for what purpose/context)
▫ Those you have used in the past but given up
▫ Those you‟ve heard of but never tried

8. What are Social Media?
Social
Networking
The
Internet
Web 2.0
Digital
media
The WWW
The Cloud

9. What are social media?

10. An approach to defining…
•Digital
•Networked
•Open
(Martin Weller, The Digital Scholar)

11. Three – phases? activities? levels?
•Broadcasting
•Networking
•Sharing and creating

12. “Can‟t I just ignore the whole thing?”
1. Write your name and subject area on a post-it
note. Pass it to someone else…
2. Google your own name. Remember to check
the „images‟ tab. What do you find?
3. Google the name on the post-it note. Can you
identify the person, and what do you find?
4. (if you like – google me, and if you find
something horrendous, please tell me!)

13. “Can‟t I just ignore the whole thing?”
• If you don‟t, someone else will …
▫ Previous employers and universities - all out
of date and out of context
▫ „Friends‟ may share personal material outside
your own preferred circles….
▫ Other people with the same name may make it
harder to find you

14. “Can‟t I just ignore the whole thing?”
• You may miss out if people can‟t find you
or don‟t get a „sense‟ of you
• You may miss important streams of
information

15. My identity?

16. Dr Jonathan
Barnard, Cambridge
University
Prof. Denys Turner, Medieval
Studies
Other identities:

17. “I don‟t get it”
“I have a page on my department‟s website.
Isn‟t that enough?”
As an Early Career Researcher….
• Your university web presence will last/be
accurate only as long as you study/work here.
• You can‟t personalise, update, control or adapt it
easily
• It is an old-fashioned static „broadcast‟ or „push‟
model

18. Who‟s looking?
• Potential collaborators
• Peers (i.e. other early career researchers)
• Journal editors and publishers
• Conference organisers
• Journalist
• Potential boss or PI
• Members of the public
• Contacts in other professional sectors
• Your students

19. “ I still don‟t get it”
“How will tweeting what I had for breakfast and
following Justin Bieber help my career?”
• Digital
• Networked
• Open

20. What do you want them to find?
• List the things you might need from each of these
groups
• List the qualities or information you‟d like each of
these groups to know about you.
• List the things each of these groups might find
useful from you.
• How might you use social media to achieve these?
• How might you use traditional means to achieve
these?

21. What might social media offer?
Research
Professional
activities
Impact and
public
engagement
Teaching
Admin
and service
Broadcast
Create
and
share
Network

22. 5 ways to use:
•Twitter
•A blog
•Youtube
•LinkedIn/Academica.edu

23. “Well, I don‟t like it…”
Write down your…
issues, concerns, problems, bar
riersand questions
…concerning social media.

24. Values
Social media Academia
• Open
• Shared
• Personalised
• Single identity
• Monetarised
• Collaborative and creative
• Freedom of speech
• Democratic
• IP and „ownership of ideas‟
• Limited sharing
• Objective
• Professional identity
• Free
• Collaboration within limits
• Peer review
• Professional behaviour
• Peer review

25. Case Studies: managing risk
• Which issues apply to each case study?
• What benefits are likely to be gained?
• What are the risks? (include the risks of
participating and not participating)
• Scale of 1-10: how likely are these benefits and
risks?
• How might we find an effective resolution?

26. Tips: Invisibility
• Remaining completely invisible online takes effort
• Pros and cons of keeping a low profile these days
• Google yourself regularly (set up Google alerts) and check
for information put online by others
• Check social media search engines
Technorati, Socialmention too
• Contact those who‟ve put information about you online
• You may need to create content to „bury‟ unwanted
content about you
• Check privacy and permission settings, and Terms and
Conditions carefully

27. Tips: Visibility
• Creating your own content puts you more in control
• Think about metadata and search terms to enhance
serendipity
• Link to authority sites and have them link to you
• (social networking platforms, public bodies such as
universities) and link your social media platforms
• Complete profiles as much as possible e.g. on
LinkedIn
• Collate your identity – consistent username and
avatar, Google Profile, Google Scholar
profile, ORCID, ResearcherID

28. Tips: Distinct identities
• Use pseudonyms and abstract profile pictures
• Different platforms for different purposes
• Avoid logins and synching with
Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn etc
• Don‟t let your computer „remember‟ your login
• Have a policy on „friending/following/connecting
etc and a clear statement of your intentions
• Decide which bit of the web you want to be on –
academic/social, password-protected or open

29. “So now what?”
• 1 thing you will need to do in future (broadcast)
• 1 thing you might do in future (network)
• 1 thing you might do in future (share/create)
• 1 thing you are definitely not going to do
• 1 way to get around not doing that, if everyone
else is doing it through social media…

30. “So now what?”
• STEMDigital Module One: Building your online
identity http://stemdigital.wordpress.com/

31. Questions?