Since I’m “young” (whatever that means) I sometimes get asked to advise on how to disseminate research outputs through new-fangled doohickies like “the social media” (like writing click-baity headlines). This came up in a School Management Group meeting today, in the context of trying to increase visibility and citation rates for papers published by our faculty. It was something that I was quite interested in, so I spent about an hour doing some quick literature searches and then implementing some of what I found. Here’s the gist:Read More »
Tag: communication
Making my research more open using Kudos
I’ve always tried to make sure that my academic work wasn’t tucked away on a dusty shelf (or paywalled in an obscure academic journal, which is the equivalent in the digital age) and that has meant that my digital footprint is huge. I have accounts on ResearchGate, Twitter, Slideshare, LinkedIn, Figshare, Google Scholar, Academia.edu, Flickr, and Google+ (as well as probably a few more that I’ve forgotten!). I don’t think I have lost anything by “scattering my wild oats” across a huge swathe of the internet, because I assume that it increases visibility. Indeed I get a few views across all platforms:
- ResearchGate: 2,106 reads, 454 profile views,
- Twitter: 976 followers
- Slideshare: 2,386 views
- Figshare: 20-200 views per article, but full stats require institutional subscription
- Academia.edu: 484 views, 35 downloads
However, what I have been looking for is a service that allows me to aggregate all this content. Ideally it would have (i) a single page per publication, where I could bring together all the bits of information relating to that paper (data, preprints, press coverage, and a lay summary), and (ii) a personal profile page that brings all of those publication pages together under my profile. Well, I think I’ve found it!Read More »
Is battling biodiversity decline like tackling terrorism?
I attended a talk recently given by Dr Sara Savage from Cambridge University entitled “Bad Religion: when is faith healthy or unhealthy?”. The title was a bit of a misnomer, as there was little discussion of religion per se, but there was a greater deal of fascinating psychological research on the drivers of extremist ideology. Dr Savage outlined the theory of “integrative complexity“, developed by Peter Suedfeld over the past 30 years. Integrative complexity is a method of metacognitive reasoning (i.e. being aware of how and what you are thinking, and why) that incorporates empathic and diverse approaches towards the views of others in an attempt to construct a coherent and objective view of a given situation. The argument has been made that extremist ideologies (whether these are religious, political or social) tend to stem from a narrowing of perspectives (a drop in integrative complexity, or “IC”), and that conflict resolution is best achieved by those who “see complexity”. Indeed, Suedfeld and colleagues have published analyses of IC within the context of the Cuban missile crisis and surprise attacks.Read More »
A defense of “denial” and “debate” on climate change
I gave a talk at the Leeds Skeptics last night – part of a mini-tour talking about “Denying the Evidence: Why People Reject Science and What We Can Do About It“. During the Q&A I was asked whether using the term “denier” was an attempt to shut down the debate over climate change. These are two interesting issues which I’ll take one at a time.Read More »
Why I blog (occasionally!)
There has been a lot of discussion over the merits of academics blogging (see here, here, here, here, here and here). The positive arguments seem to be that:
- It’s good outreach, allowing a flexible platform for communication of science
- Blogs allow rapid responses and reporting on research
- Online profiles are important and blogs can be a strong foothold in internet-space
- Writing for a non-technical audience is good practice for science communication
The negative arguments seem to be that:
- It doesn’t count in academic terms (it’s not a paper, a grant, or a lecture)
- Sometimes tenure panels might see blogging as a waste of time
- There’s the danger of “upsetting” people.
Well I think it counts (even if my colleagues disagree), we don’t have tenure in the UK, and I don’t mind upsetting people, so there’s no good reason for me not to blog! I was letting it drop off a bit, but all this discussion has encouraged me to start up again. One of the problems is that I lacked a blogging strategy, which meant that I only shared what I (A) found interesting, and (B) found time to write about. Most of my problem was that I found interesting topics and spent too much time on too few, too niche issues. That’s going to change. Here’s the plan:
- I’m going to post lay summaries of each of my publications. That’s 25 to start with, and I’ll add more as I go along. I see that as a vital part of science communication, and I’ll link them back to my publications page on my website.
- I have recently been immersing myself in Twitter which has led to my discovering a lot more interesting (and sometimes plain weird) papers and articles. This will be a key (near-bottomless) source for new ideas, but I’ll try to keep to a theme.
- The main topicsare going to be
- General science things
- Entomology news and views
- Education and technology
- Specific posts about my research
- Finally, I’m going to write in short form now – no more monthly long reads. 500 words max, and always with an image or video. It was the length and detail that was killing my productivity, and nobody reads those longreads, anyway!
I am hoping that that is going to provide a sustainable flow of content over the next few months, and I’ll reevaluate at Christmas. Happy reading!
Image credit: Cortega9, CC-BY-SA 3.0, http://bit.ly/1oiVIwr
Six tips for biologists starting out on Twitter
Last week, I had an interesting conversation over coffee with some colleagues who don’t use Twitter. There were a lot of concerns over whether Twitter was useful at all, and whether it was right for them in particular. I imagine a lot of people (including scientists) are hesitant about taking the plunge and don’t have time to fiddle around trying to figure out how to use the tool. First, for those who have not come across Twitter before, there is some terminology to cover:Read More »
Katatrepsis 