As the University of Edinburgh IT Futures Group Annual Conference approaches (title of the conference is ‘Social media in academia: A tweet too far?’ Tuesday 13th Dec) the title got me thinking about social media and your research. So is Social Media really that useful in academia? Here are a few suggestions of things that you can do with it:
- Social bookmarking – with the rise of research pooling and distance learning the use of social bookmarking can be a useful way of sharing web links and resources. Services such as Delicious and Diigo allow you to share your bookmarked pages.
- Microblog – maximise your impact and resources with twitter. No only is twitter useful for getting your own research profile out there but you can also follow other useful twitter accounts, e.g. research councils, the Vitae Hub @vitaesnihib and of course @iad4phd
- Blog about your subject. Blogs can be really helpful in organising and sharing your ideas, communicating your research to non-specialists and using comments from others to generate new content.
- Networking – Get your research profile online using Linked in or academia.edu
- Presentations – Share presentations online using prezi, slideshare or dropbox
Whichever of these you use and whatever you use it for, remember to keep your online personal brand consistent and genuine.
Fiona (Doctoral Training Manager, IAD)
