Research Thing 5 - Social media for researchers

I just read the article by Inger Mewburn and Pat Thomson: Academic attention economy. 

I chose this post to read because I follow Inger Mewburn's blog the Thesis Whisperer, and I am doing her MOOC on Suviving the PhD.

Should academics blog? That is the question. I just listened to a podcast the other day from the Australian Writers' Centre and the impact on sales of books that people recommend on social media is amazing. So economically, it pays to blog, but the impact comes from the audience passing it on as a "word of mouth" form of marketing.

So what about academics? In this climate, it is said it is not about quantity published, but about the quality of the articles. However, if no-one knows about it, what's the point? What impact will that have? The experiment of the blogged article that was also open access in Studies in Higher Education saw a massive readership / views  and had impact in mainstream media too. For those academics who are more "traditional", they may be missing a huge market / audience that can also further market or recommend the work and thus get societal impact and be known as an expert in their selected field. So in this case, quantity, in terms of impact, does matter.

As humans, we like to engage in conversation. Academics, who prefer to remain it their ivory towers, and not evolve and adapt to this new social enviroment, may just become non-existent. It is true Darwinian theory here of survival of the fittest. Those that are more proactive and social in various online forms of medium will have more impact. Some might say those with the loudest voice, but I think the quality will still have to be there and be relevant for the audience that is targeted, for the publication to gain readership numbers and "get noticed" and create dialogue.

Research Thing 4 - File Sharing

I had no idea about Cloudstor. I must explore this further.

I have used Dropbox to work on a book chapter with a colleague. This worked well for us. I have two DropBox accounts - a personal one and a work one, but I must try our Cloudstor. I also have a Box account and Google Drive.

I like the cloud storage solution because I had an experience where I had saved documents on Good Reader for offline use, but when I updated my device, I lost my documents on this app. Not good. So I use cloud storage to save and sync across devices.

As for security, there is a risk with everything I guess. We have so many online accounts these days, security could potentially be compromised there too. That is why it is useful to use an app like 1Password to generate stronger passwords. Nothing is foolproof, but we can take some precautions to keeping our accounts secure.

Blog post of interest - How to start blogging as a researcher

In case anyone is interested here is a link to a post on PhD Talk : How to start blogging as a researcher

Research Thing 3 - Collaboration Tools

When collaborating, I have used Google Docs, DropBox, Sharepoint (especially the 2007 version when we had our own space to store and share documents, now I use DropBox).

I also use EverNote, I have emailed notes to people but haven't collaborated using this tool. Also with Prezi, I have used it to create presentations, but not as yet collaborated to share prezis.

The other thing is sharing references. I know that in EndNote online, you can create a folder and share it with a colleague and give them certain permissions to add or edit references. For instance, they can add notes to a reference in the folder.

There is also sharing calendars, like in Outlook or Google Calendar along with other great apps, like Wunderlist, where you can share tasks and projects and sync everyone's schedules so we can be more organised.

New technologies and PhD students

I just read a blog post from the Doctoral Writing blog. It seems that the literature states that uptake of digital technologies amongst doctoral students is low.

An interested conversation to be had on why and how this can be overcome:

https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/digital-technologies-in-doctoral-candidature-and-supervision-stories-from-the-field-2/

Research thing 2 : Organisation and Productivity tools

I've used all the tools mentioned in Research Thing 2! Here's how:

• Doodle - I have used this app for scheduling campus library meetings when I have acted in the role. It saves being bogged down by email and you can see at a glance the best time to hold a meeting to get the most people attending. 
• Diigo  - I use this tool to bookmark everything I want to access again at a later date. As it is stored on the cloud, I am not in danger of losing my bookmarks on a browser if I upgrade my computer, which has happened. You can tag items ans also create lists, which is what I have done to organise my information. You can make bookmarks public or private. I absolutely love Diigo and being able to access anywhere, anytime. 
• Evernote - Love, love, loooove Evernote. I have 2 accounts - a work one and a personal one and I have used it for meetings, to record notes at conferences and courses and to even save things from the web. There was a free feature where, when you installed the desktop version, a tab was placed in Outlook for saving emails directly to Evernote. But I think they have made that a paid feature now. Here is a workaround - when you set up an Evernote account, you also get an Evernote address to email things directly to Evernote on the go! So forward your selected email message to Evernote using the Evernote email address. Furthermore, being a librarian, I love organisation. Again, you can organise your information in Notebooks and tag notes for easy retrieval. So good. Also if you like writing your notes or need to draw something with a stylus pen, try Evernote's product PenUltimate and save your notes and drawings to places like Evernote or DropBox.
• Wunderlist - Although I have only tested this one briefly by downloading the app on my iPad, I can see its potential use. At the moment, for my to do lists and calendar etc., for work I use Outlook, for home I use Reminders and Apple's calendar (which syncs across my MacBook, iPad and iPhone, yes I am an Apple lover), but I am investigating other options. I recently gave a session to library staff on productivity apps, and there are several others to try. I have tried  Remember the Milk , as well as paid apps like Things (which I liked for managing projects and it syncs across my iOS devices too). 

Research Thing 1 - Blogging your research

I'm using my blog from the previous 23 Things again! I think blogging is a great tool for sharing experiences and reflections.

I read a few blogs relating to PhD studies and I have recommended these blogs to HDR students. They are:

• The Thesis Whisperer
• Doctoral Writing SIG

I think people are interested in sharing experiences about the PhD or research process. People can relate to other people's experiences and form a community. Doing research can feel like a very isolated experience and can be stressful. Tips on managing studies and research and how others, for instance, balanaced this with other life events, are useful.

I especially love the Thesis Whisperer as it is Australian and has fantastic resources to assist researchers and supervisors. If people are interested in the blogs of other PhD students, there is a page of links at http://thesiswhisperer.com/read-some-phd-student-blogs/.