The BASES conference 2018 took place on 27-28 November at Harrogate Convention Centre.
Figure 1. Presenting BU research on the effect of 8 weeks inspiratory muscle training on the balance of healthy older adults, during the first day of the BASES conference 2018
Thanks to my supervisors Professor McConnell, Dr Gavin and Professor Wainwright and with the support from Bournemouth University I had the possibility to present my research titled: The effects of 8 weeks of inspiratory muscle training on the balance of healthy older people: a randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled trial. Figure 1.
You can now read what happened and look at the media from the conference clicking the twitter button right below.
Personally, I found extremely interesting the talk of Professor Steven N Blair, Professor Ken Fox and Professor John Buckley (Figure 2).
They explained, thought direct experiences, how sports science has evolved and what we (including physiologists, kinesiologists, strength and conditioning coaches) should consider when developing research proposals. One of the many take-home points was that sports science is today considered science for/of health and that is crucial to seek collaboration between researchers and the community. Paraphrasing a famous quote from J.R.R. Tolkien, it is from the ordinary folks that research questions arise.
Professor Steven N Blair, Professor Ken Fox and Professor John Buckley discussing the past, the present and the future of sports science.
Concluding, it was a motivating experience, and I was pleased to receive many questions about my research. Definitely, a conference worth to consider also for the next year.
If you are interested in reading more about BASES, follow the link below
The second day of the conference was open by Professor Graeme Close & Mr Michael Naylor with a lecture on “nutritional strategies for competition and performance.”
Follow up with the oral presentations and free communications. I found particular interest in the research of Mr Chynkiamis on the effect of VitaBREATHE on exercise tolerance in COPD patients and in the feasibility study of Miss Thomas on the effect of 10 weeks postural stability exercise on balance in elderly care homes residents. I am glad that I had the chance to discuss with Miss Thomas part of the outcomes and the methods she used for my undergoing research on falls prevention.
Later in the afternoon, I had the opportunity to talk more about inspiratory muscle training (IMT) with Mr Hopkins and Mr Gibb who are looking at the effect of IMT on time trial performance in trained cyclists.
After, the workshop “psychological challenges for physical activity uptake” by Dr Melissa Fothergill intrigued me as I believe it is a crucial matter of discussion, especially if working with frail populations.
The final motivational lecture titled “creating your future” by Dr Steve Ingham closed the 2018 BASES student conference with tips and advice on how to progress in the sport science carriers.
Concluding, it was a great experience as not only I had the chance to improve my network and meet peers with a similar background as mine but most important because in these two days I had increased my awareness and motivations.
A special thanks go to my supervisors Professor Alison McConnell, Dr James Gavin and Professor Tom Wainwright who pointed me at this event.
The conference is now over, and by the time you read this post, I will be already on my way back to Bournemouth.
Every year the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) organise the student conference, as an opportunity to discuss and exchange views on contemporary issues in sport and exercise science (including clinical exercise, biomechanics, performance, physiology and psychology).
This year the venue is Northumbria University, and the programme includes international speakers from the applied and research worlds.
The conference started with the lecture “not all that can be counted counts – why we should listen to Einstein?” by Mrs Esme Matthew & Miss Laura Needham, who brought they experience as members of English Institute of Sport (EIS) and their work with the UK Olympic team.
It was particularly inspiring to see how the lab works moved into the field of applied science and the relationship that bound researchers and athletes.
Next, after the usual coffè break, it was the time of free communications and oral presentation, where I had the opportunity to attend to the following:
Mr Dray, and his work on the effect of high-intensity interval training on obese men.
Mr Parmar about the difference in maximal aerobic speed in filed-based tests compared to laboratory-based treadmill tests.
Miss McNulty on low-volume, high-intensity priming activity.
Miss White and his work on plyometric training team gym gymnasts.
Mr Addey about the effect of unilateral strength training on recreation runners.
Then, it was the time for poster exhibition, where I presented my research titled: “The effects of 8 weeks of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) on the balance of healthy older people: a randomised, double-blind, placebo controlled trial”.
I was excited, and most important the comments and feedback collected satisfied my expectations.
In particularly I had the chance to discuss IMT with a couple of students from Portsmouth, that today are going to present their works on IMT in athletes.
I also met Mr Tahmosybayat, and his research on 6 weeks of exergaming compare to OTAGO exercise training in healthy older adults and we discussed the outcomes, methods and methodologies of our research.
After there was a range of workshops available from which I chose “a demonstration of how exergaming is used to improve postural control” by Dr Gill Barry at the sport central physiology lab.
Here members of the lab staff showed us their facilities in particular exergame, Kinect, and Biodex BioSway and how they measure balance in frail populations.
At the end of the conference, there was still time for the lectures on “contemporary recovery: translating research to application” by Dr Jonathan Leeder, Dr Jess Hill & Mr Luke Gupta. Who discussed how to optimising recovery following exercises, the efficacy of compression garments on recovery from strenuous exercises and sleep management in elite sports.
Then we moved to the home of Newcastle United FC, where before dinner we had a motivational/inspiring speech by Mr Nick Grantham specialist in athletic preparation, combat sports and strength training.
Concluding, it was a very productive day and I am looking toward tomorrow where there are going to be more lectures, oral presentations and posters oriented on frail populations and nutrition.
Few weeks after Café Scientific (details here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/?p=64189), I received an email from Devon Biddle and Sacha Gardener regarding the opportunity to be interviewed on the importance of public engagement activities and how my projects had benefited from them, not only during the recruiting process but also in expanding my research horizon and raising awareness on what I am doing (details here: http://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/?p=53295 )
Therefore, in just a couple of days, thanks to the staff of the Orthopedic Research Institute who provided the location, we started shooting, and here is part of the interview:
I would like to thank Davon, Sacha and all the BU staff for this interview, it was great, and I really hope that helps to have more people involved in public engagement activities.
Following the full script of the interview.
Could you tell us a little bit of your self
My name is Francesco Ferraro, and I am a PhD Student here at Bournemouth University. Currently, I am working on a project which aims to understand the effects of inspiratory muscles training on balance and functional mobility for healthy older adults. The goal is to develop an innovative and effective training for falls prevention.
Before arriving here at BU, I obtained a Bachelor Degree in sports science from University of Rome Foro Italico while in the meantime I was working as a football coach and after I moved to Naples for complete my Master Degree in sports science prevention and wellness. There I worked on motion analysis in young adults, while in the meantime I was a trainer of the Italian Federation of Weightlifting.
Could you tell us your favourite public engagement opportunity at BU?
It is hard to tell, I have enjoyed all the events in which I took part including Pint of Science, Café Scientific, The Festival of Learning, lecturing at University of Third Age and others.I gained something from each of them, and I gave something at each of them. But if I have to pick one, and only one I would say the Festival of Learning. Among all the events FOL is the one who gives you the opportunity to meet all kind of people.
You have the opportunity to explain your research to a very young audience, as well as people with excellent knowledge in your field, while surrounded by members of the BU Staff, BU students and colleagues that are there to help you and motived you.
Why do you find public engagement a good asset to both your research and the community?
My study aims to understand the effect of inspiratory muscle training on balance and functional mobility. My final purpose is to develop a strategy to prevent falls accidents in people over 65.
Therefore it is a research for the community as any other research, especially in health and social science, is done for the people. Hence what would be the point to work for the community and do not explain to them what you are doing? As researchers we have the opportunity to share with others much more than a picture on Twitter, or Instagram, we have the opportunity to share knowledge, ideas and instead of likes, we will have more questions, more curiosity and the chance to give to the audience our ideas.
At Café Scientifique, the public was really engaging in the fact your research was trying to better the wellbeing of the older generation. Why do you think people are so engaged in your research?
At Café Scientifique I was able to give to them my idea. Instead of explaining right away what my research does I told them the idea behind it and why is important to research on it. The reason why we had a great respond must be sought in my past years of work in the public engagement.
Any research is fascinating in is way, but is crucial to share it with others, not only peers and experts but also with the people for which the research is done.
You use your public engagement to advertise the need for participants in your current research, is this an effective way of getting the participants you need?
Yes, it is. But it is not the reason why I do public engagement. I have been introduced to public engagement by my supervisors: Alison McConnell, James Gavin and Thomas Wainwright with the aim to share what learned and discuss it with others.
If you were to advice new researchers about public engagement, what would you say to them?
Do it if you want to do it.
Public engagement is not easy especially if you do it because you “have to”. Do it if you want to share your research if you want to challenge yourself, if you want to meet the community then you will make a great event. You must have the right motivation if you do it just to “hunting” participants it won’t be neither correct or fun, and people will understand, with the result that you and your research will lose trust.
What do you gain most from public engagement?
Motivation – to work more for the community, to help people to learn and understand what we are doing here at the BU and how it helps their wellbeing.
Confidence – have the opportunity to talk to 50, 100 or even 200 people at each event, has grown my confidence inside and outside the University.
Knowledge – I do believe that everyone has a story to tell and you can learn a lot from it. I am always surprised at the questions that I receive.
People curiosity drives my curiosity as well and helps me to think and re-think at my research.
What are you going to do next?
I do have a couple of projects going on, but I will take part in the next Festival of Learning (third year in a row), and I will see what other opportunities the public engagement team will give to us.
I read an extremely good article this week on Strategic Approaches to Getting Published, written by Phil Ward (University of Kent) as well as a presentation by Frances Bell (University of Leicester) (Developing a Publication Strategy). Now that we’re in the assessment period for the next REF exercise (likely to be REF 2020) we need to focus on personal publication strategies. This post shares some of the key messages and advice on personal publication strategies:
Have a publication strategy and review it every year or two – Try to keep in mind the direction in which you want your research to develop, and what publications will help to build your profile. Try not to be diverted from this! Your strategy should include different media and channels. It should include information on your goals (what will you publish in the next week, year, five years, etc), uncertainties and development needs, and resources available to you (e.g. a mentor, peer review of your paper prior to submission, access to funds for open access charges, etc). You should regularly check progress against your goals.
Balanced publications portfolio – Try and develop a balanced publication portfolio. You don’t always need to be targeting top journals, and sometimes you need to balance several factors:
Audience: who do you want to appeal to? Should you be thinking beyond your narrow disciplinary boundaries, or focussing more intensively on it?
Impact: do you want the findings of your research to be felt outside of academia?
Career Progression: will the publication help in the development of a strong CV?
REF: will the publication be a strong, positive contribution to your discipline?
Timing: do you need to get something out quickly, or work longer on a discipline-changing piece of research?
Co-authorship: would co-authorship help or hinder your publication record?
Open Access: will be increasingly important for the REF, but is it worth considering to help with your citations and the impact of your research?
Choosing the right journals – the ‘right journal’ is often viewed as being one with a high impact factor however this is an archaic and somewhat controversial system, and is based on the average number of citations over a two-five year period. The system is open to abuse, and varies widely between disciplines. However, it is still seen as a rough and ready indicator of esteem.
The following video is by Karin Dumstrei, Senior Editor at EMBO Journal. It is worth 3 minutes of your time to watch and listen to the tips she gives!
Her advice for writing a journal article is to always:
Choose a project that excites you;
Tell a good story;
Select the right journal;
Avoid the three ‘don’ts’, namely: dont’ overstate your case, ignore others, or hold back data;
Be responsible with your data – i.e. say what you see rather than what you want to see.
High impact journals tend to have broader audiences, so you need to:
avoid jargon;
concentrate on the message;
write shorter articles (e.g. Science articles are generally 3-4 pages);
avoid too much detail. Additional data can be provided in ‘supplementary material’.
A good covering letter is essential. It should summarise why your article is right for the journal you’re targeting. Take time to get this right. Keep it succinct, but explain the novelty and importance of your research, and why you are approaching that journal in particular.
There are seven key tips for writing and publishing a journal article:
Title: make it engaging but keep it short, and avoid technical terms. Also avoid terms which might give the impression of limited reach and significance of your research, e.g. ‘a local case study’ or ‘a small investigation’;
Story: structure your article round a good, cohesive, logical ‘story’;
Step Change: emphasise what makes your research important. Talk about ‘step changes’ rather than ‘incremental progresssions’;
Conclusion and Evaluation: a strong, persuasive and critical conclusion is essential for giving your paper clout;
Cover Letter: ‘sell’ your article and particularly why it is right for the journal you are targeting;
Feedback: get as much critical evaluation as possible;
Rejection: never take no for an answer. Rejection is an inevitable part of the process. Don’t be discouraged, but take on board comments and criticism and keep trying be resubmitting.
Consider the role of social media in your publication strategy – social media has been shown to dramatically increase the academic and societal impact of research (see my previous posts on the benefits of using Twitter). Social networking platforms such as Twitter are excellent for promoting and sharing your research, as are blogs either by writing your own blog, contributing posts to other blogs, or commenting on posts written by others. Your publications strategy should include social media outlets. For advice on using social media as part of your publication strategy please contact Sally Gates in the R&KEO.
We’ve written a lot about Twitter in previous blog posts and the benefits of using it to support and enhance your research (you can read more here: Twitter posts). Academics across the world are using Twitter to support their research through, for example, sharing papers and research findings, asking questions and providing advice and guidance, networking and establishing links, keeping up to date with what is being discussed by peers in areas of interest, and undertaking research. Twitter provides a free and easy to use platform from which you can do all of these things from your office, using a laptop, or even using you tablet/phone, and it is an excellent way of making connections and expanding your awareness of research being undertaken in your field, as well as enhacing the impact of your own research in your field. In this post I’m going to look at two ways Twitter can seriously improve your research and your experience as a researcher through 1) using Twitter to garner opinions and obtain guidance and, 2) using Twitter to enhance your publication impact.
Using Twitter to garner opinions / obtain guidance – Twitter can be used to crowd-source advice quickly and effectively on an important topic. A recent post on this topic featured on The Contemplative Mammoth blog (post: Crowd-Sourced Advice for Writing your #firstgrant) in which the author, Jacquelyn Gill, created a hashtag, #firstgrant, and asked for advice from her Twitter followers on how to write a first grant application. Within a couple of days, she was inundated with useful comments, guidance and advice from peers around the world, showing how powerful Twitter can be in obtaining opinions and advice on important topics, and especially in getting views from peers outside of your institution and country (you can read the original tweets here if you’d like).
Enhancing publication impact – Twitter is also an effective tool for sharing research papers and findings and enhancing publication impact. Research indicates that highly tweeted articles were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than less-tweeted articles. Top-cited articles can be predicted from top-tweeted articles, with 93% specificity and 75% sensitivity (Eysenbach, 2011). The LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog featured a post about this earlier this year (post: Who Gives a Tweet? After 24 Hours and 860 Downloads, we Think Quite a Few Actually do) which reported on the amazing success of a research paper released on Twitter by the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). Within 24 hours of being uploaded to Twitter the paper was retweeted 10 times to over 5,000 followers and shared 135 times (using tools such as email, microblogging, social bookmarking, social networking, etc) on the NCRM website. The result was 861 downloads within 24 hours. As the paper was not publicised anywhere else at this time it is safe to say this was a result of releasing it via Twitter. Over a period of two months the paper was downloaded 3,936 times and shared 518 times using social sharing tools.
Help with using Twitter – If you’re interested in trying Twitter to see how it can benefit you and your research then give it a go! It is free to sign up and you can be up and running in a matter of minutes. Advice in-house can be provided by Paul Hughes, Marketing & Communications, and also Rebecca Edwards, RKE Development and Operations. There are also a number of helpful online guides available:
BestCollegesOnline.com has published an excellent guide on getting started with Twitter as an academic, and improving your use of Twitter to get better results. You can access their excellent guide here: 100 serious Twitter tips for academics.
As Carol Bond indicated in the comments to the recent blog post about the successful HSC Health and Wellbeing Community Conference the community agreed to select a twitter hashtag in order to collect information from any tweets relevant to the activities of the community.
I was tasked with organising this, being familiar with the concept, and after a wait for the registration to come through I can confirm that the hashtag is #hwbbu (Health and Wellbeing at Bournemouth University). The hashtag is registered with the Healthcare Hashtags Project here. This project maintains a date-searchable archive of the tweets of healthcare relevant hashtags as well as allowing analysis of activity and reach.
We went for a short hashtag because this is good practice with Twitter being limited to only 140 characters for each tweet.
Biscuits – Light is alright
As you’ll see from the rather fetching picture from the conference post, I took part in the biscuit taste test organised by Dr Heather Hartwell who was talking to us about the concept of ‘Health by Stealth’. We tried two Rich Tea biscuits from the same company and, despite what the picture shows, most people preferred biscuit A. This was actually the ‘Light’ version! Less fat, less calories, slightly more sugar needed to bond it but crunchier (less claggy) and the same price. The problem is we tend to think of ‘healthy’ versions as not being as tasty. I did manage to guess by sight which was the healthiest so was therefore surprised to prefer its taste. As someone who likes a sweet snack I think it’s definitely worth trying out lighter versions in future.
Twitter – Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as ‘tweets’. Academics are increasingly promoting their research papers via Twitter, which are then picked up by other researchers and practitioners. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Twitter allows you to set up search terms to enable you to monitor what is being talked about in your areas of interest. You can then comment on the relevant conversations. The more you engage, the more people will follow you to listen to your comments and recommendations. As followers come to you, rather than you approaching them, Twitter is an ideal way to reach new audiences.
Research indicates that highly tweeted articles were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than less-tweeted articles. Top-cited articles can be predicted from top-tweeted articles, with 93% specificity and 75% sensitivity (Eysenbach, 2011).
There are some excellent guides available on how to use Twitter for research projects, such as:
Blogs – Academics who blog about their research regularly report positive outcomes, such as networking and collaboration, finding new audiences and opportunities, disseminating research more widely, increasing citations and downloads, and building reputation. Bloggers argue that far from diluting scholarly success (as has been suggested by some academics), online writing can be a serious tool for academic practice. Blogging should be seen as part of a programme of dissemination and collaboration, and is best used alongside traditional academic outlets (such as journals) as a means of amplifying the reach, and potentially the significance and future direction, of the research. Research indicates that blogging about a research paper causes a large increase in the number of abstract views and downloads in the same month (McKenzie and Ozler, 2011).
Rather than setting up a personal blog, BU academics can add posts about their research to the BU Research Blog. The BU Research Blog is visible to a global audience and is searchable by search engines, such as Google. Good post topics could include:
Your area of research and papers that you have published – and/or other related papers in your field of research. Link to the full-text article/DOI for maximum impact.
Conferences and training events that you’re due to speak at.
Your last conference – were there any interesting questions that came up?
Your opinions about any recent press coverage of your subject area.
You can also ask your colleagues and co-researchers to add posts to the Blog and comment on your own posts to stimulate debate.
All staff at BU can have access to add their own posts to the Research Blog. Just email me and I will set you up with access.
YouTube – Visual content accessed on sites such as YouTube is increasingly popular, particularly with students. The publisher Sage reports seeing an increasing amount of traffic to their journal sites via YouTube as students use video as an initial way of researching a topic. Many publishers are now embracing YouTube, for example the Sage YouTube channel is a collection of videos, primarily by academics, about Sage journal articles. BU has a YouTube channel and M&C are able to film short videos of academics discussing their research. These videos can then be used in multiple places to maximise impact. Watch Alan Fyall’s video below as an example:
httpv://youtu.be/RvR3fFDrTLQ
Join academic social networking sites – Academics are increasingly using social networking sites to meet and converse with people who share similar research interests. Examples include: MyNetResearch, Academia and Academici. On these sites you can see what other people are discussing and what issues are pertinent in your field of research. If you have undertaken research in these areas then you can contribute and share your research findings, which in turn should increase the citations/downloads of your work.
Sharing research with the world is becoming ever-more important with the new criteria in REF. When trying to reach large audiences, Twitter is a must-use tool – a shared (“retweeted”) message in Twitter reaches an average audience of over 1,000 people.
Even if you’ve never used Twitter before, attend one of these sessions to learn how to create your account with an enticing profile, compose engaging messages (“tweets”), interact with academics, businesses and organisations in your field and sow the seeds of impact for REF assessment using Twitter.
Those of you who are regular visitors to the Blog will be aware that we regularly promote the benefits to academics of using social media channels, such as Twitter (read our previous Twitter posts here).
The Training Gateway are hosting a ‘Twitter Made Simple’ workshop in London on 14 June to help those new to Twitter to master the art!
The course will cover:
• An Introduction to Twitter – what it is and how it can be used
• Profile – How to set up your profile
• Twitter Terms – e.g. hash tags and how to set up your bio
• Setting a plan / strategy for content and networking
• Interacting with other Twitter users – who and how to follow, what to say and managing the noise
• The Do’s and Don’ts of Twitter – Twitter etiquette
The Research Development Unit has funding available if you would like to attend. Please contact Julie Northam if you are interested.
We’ve posted a number of times on the Blog about the benefits of using Twitter as an academic (you can read all of our past posts on Twitter here). For example, recent research indicates that highly tweeted articles were 11 times more likely to be highly cited than less-tweeted articles (Eysenbach, 2011[1]).
Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Academics are increasingly promoting their research papers via twitter which is then picked up by other researchers and practitioners. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Twitter allows you to set up search terms to enable you to monitor what is being talked about in your areas of interest: You can then comment on the relevant conversations. The more you engage, the more people will follow you to listen to your comments and recommendations. As followers come to you, rather than you approaching them, Twitter is an ideal way to reach new audiences.
BestCollegesOnline.com has recently published an excellent guide on getting started with Twitter as an academic, and improving your use of Twitter to get better results. You can access their excellent guide here: 100 serious Twitter tips for academics. It’s well worth reading!!!!
The LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog recently published an article by Melissa Terras, Co-Director of UCL Centre for Digital Humanities and Reader in Electronic Communication in UCL’s Department of Information Studies, who recently took all of her academic research to the web and found this resulted in a huge leap of interest in her work (you can read the full story and see the results here: The Verdict: Is Blogging or Tweeting Really Worth It?). Her conclusion was: If you want people to find and read your research, build up a digital presence in your discipline, and use it to promote your work when you have something interesting to share.If (social media interaction is often) then (Open access + social media = increased downloads).
Are any of you already using Twitter to promote your research? If so let us know by commenting on this post!
It’s a long way in place and time from October 2010 in the Media School to March 2012 at the International Public Relations Research Conference at the University of Miami in sunny Florida. That’s the journey that BAPR graduate Lauren Willmott has taken from first thoughts on her dissertation to presenting the results at the conference, along with academics and practitioners from 24 countries and over 100 other papers.
Lauren Willmott and Prof Tom Watson at IPRRC Miami
Lauren’s research on the use of Twitter as a crisis communication tactic was supervised by Prof Tom Watson. It reviewed two transport crises in 2009 and 2010 and investigated the role and usage of the 140-character medium in keeping passengers, their families and the media abreast of the news.
The investigation won her the Wessex CIPR award for the best public relations dissertation and also helped Lauren gain a position at the leading international PR consultancy A&REdelman in London where she works on Olympics-linked accounts. The firm also sponsored her attendance at the conference.
With Prof Watson’s assistance, an abstract from the dissertation was submitted to the prestigious Miami conference, and chosen for presentation. “This is a highly competitive review process with an acceptance rate of less than 50 per cent. Lauren’s research was pitted against some of PR’s best known academic researchers and so it was a real success that the jointly-authored paper was accepted,” said Prof Watson. “It was also the only paper accepted from a first author/early researcher who was not on a postgraduate or doctoral programme.”
So on Saturday March 10, Lauren presented her paper and got feedback (and applause) on the paper and for next stages of research. Amongst the responses to Lauren and Tom was that the paper’s standard was much higher than expected from US bachelor-level graduates: “Are all your students producing work as good as this?”
“Lauren’s achievement in presenting her paper at this high international level shows that BU students, with supportive supervision, can share the stage with the best researchers. It’s been a rewarding experience for everyone involved,” said Prof Watson.
Lauren’s verdict was, “It was amazing to be given the opportunity to present my dissertation in front of professionals who had inspired my research topic. The conference enabled me to network with a diverse range of PR professionals and as a result I have been presented with several opportunities such as Skyping into a lecture of students at the University of South Florida to talk about working in a London agency.”
We’ve previously added posts about the benefits of using Twitter in academia (you can read theme here: Twitter posts). A recent post by Mark Carrigan on the LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences Blog outlines what academics can get out of using Twitter and why the academic twittersphere is no different from presenting to an audience.
Mark asked his Twitter followers “why do you find Twitter useful as an academic?”, and responses included:
Quick answers to questions on things like … where do I find this tool or that tool .. (@rjhogue)
We discuss concepts (@Annlytical)
There are people who are practicing what I’m researching academically and give me a reality check (@Annlytical)
Twitter is brilliant for keeping up with things, networking, finding new ideas, people’s blogs and publications (@BenGuilbaud)
meeting new people (in all disciplines), academic support, public engagement, increased visibility, filtered news (@Martin_Eve)
What Martin said. I think you already saw this but it’s the Prezi I made for grad students http://bit.ly/uK05VM (@qui_oui)
Also, I’ve found Twitter useful for augmenting F2F academic conferences, extending the conversations (@JessieNYC)
Twitter is incredibly useful 2 me as an academic 4 many reasons, perhaps chiefly curating the ideal academic dept (@JessieNYC)
Twitter’s unique advantage is that very quickly allows me to spread word of my work to non-academic audiences (@elebelfiore)
Keeps me up-to-the-minute with news in my field ie; policy issues, and connects me to conferences/other academics (@DonnaBramwell)
connects me to other delegates at conferences, allows me to interact with students in lectures, keeps me uptodate (@timpaa)
We trade references for research (@annlytical)
great source of information & resources wouldn’t have found otherwise (@nicklebygirl)
Twitter makes it possible for me to engage with global community even though I now live in Australia & am #altac (@katrinafee)
a PhD can be very isolated so I think twitter is a great way to meet people who can help and give advice (@CET47)
Academics all over the world are turning to Twitter to support their research and are finding the service extremely useful. Read Mark’s full story and our previous Twitter posts to find out how to start using Twitter, meeting new people, estblishing / joining networks, promoting your research and increasing its visibility, and keeping ahead of the game.
If any of you are already using Twitter to enhance your research and knowledge exchange activities, we’d love you to share your experiences with your colleagues via the Blog!
Back in August, Susan added a post to the Blog on using Twitter (Get tweeing: how to make an impact with Twitter) which listed a number of excellent tips for using Twitter to make an impact in academia. Following on from this, the LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences Blog has listed a number of things you can do when using Twitter to promote your research.
1. Tweet about each new publication, website update or new blog that the project completes. To gauge feedback, you could send a tweet that links to your research blog and ask your followers for their feedback and comments.
2. For tweeting to work well, always make sure that an open-web full version or summary of every publication, conference presentation or talk at an event is available online. Summarize every article published in closed-web journal on a blog, or lodge a full-text version or an extended summary on BURO, our institutional repository. In addition, sites like www.scribd.com are useful for depositing open web versions.
3. Tweet about new developments of interest from the project’s point of view, for instance, relevant government policy changes, think tank reports, or journal articles.
4. Use hashtags (#) to make your materials more visible – e.g. #phdchat. Don’t be afraid to start your own.
5. Use your tweets to cover developments at other related research sites, retweeting interesting new material that they produce. This may appear to some as ‘helping the competition’, but in most research areas the key problem is to get more attention for the area as a whole. Building up a Twitter network of reciprocating research projects can help everyone to keep up to date more easily, improve the standard and pace of debate, and so attract more attention (and funding) into the research area.
6. Twitter provides many opportunities for ‘crowd sourcing’ research activities across the sciences, social sciences, history and literature – by getting people to help with gathering information, making observations, undertaking data analysis, transcribing and editing documents – all done just for the love of it. Some researchers have also used Twitter to help ‘crowdsource’ research funding from interested public bodies.
7. Reaching out to external audiences is something that Twitter is exceptionally good for. Making links with practitioners in business, government, and public policy can happen easily. Twitter’s brevity, accessibility and immediacy are all very appealing to non-academics. At the end of each month, Twitter can be used as a painless metric to assess how your tweeting is working for you and your project.
8. Showing the growth in your followers and the number of people who read your research blog can also be helpful for funding applications. You could make short notes on the following:
• The number of followers you have
• The names of those who could be useful for future collaboration
• Invitations to write blog posts or speak at events, which have come via Twitter
• Number of hits to your own blog posts via Twitter
For more tips on academic tweeting, download this short guide to using Twitter in university research, teaching, and impact activities – Top Twitter Tips for Academics
If you’d like to share any of the posts on the Blog with colleagues, friends, the public, you can do this quickly and easily via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email (plus many more!) using the Share This function at the end of each Blog post.
Simply:
Click on ‘Click here to share this blog post’ at the end of the post you wish to share
This will open the post in your browser, giving you the option to share the post via Twitter, Email or Facebook (as per the picture below)
To share via Twitter or Facebook simply click on the icon and the post will be added to your Twitter feed / Facebook profile
To share via any other media (such as email, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Delicious, etc) simply hover the cursor over the Email icon and a new window will open displaying all of the ways you can share the post. Clicking on LinkedIn, for example, will share it via LinkedIn! Easy 🙂
Sharing posts this way helps to promote the excellent work going on at BU and can also help you to establish networks with likeminded people.
Researchers, Mark Reed and Anna Evely from one of the LWEC accredited Rural Economy and Land Use projects have produced a clear “top tips” guide to twitter for academic staff. Although based on their own experiences on the Sustainable Learning and Uplands Project and intended to help other academics to disseminate their work, the “Twitter Tips” guide could be used by anyone.
A Twitter account set up for specific research projects can be an excellent way to disseminate your research findings further afield than just the academic community, however using twitter well is a skill that needs to be developed. This is a really simple 12 page guide to using Twitter in an effective way.
Some suggestions from the guide:
Every time you do a conference/workshop/seminar presentation, put your slides online (e.g. using SlideShare) and tweet them.
Contact relevant people with large followings to ask if they can re-tweet key messages you’ve sent – tweet or Direct Message them via Twitter.
Ensure the majority of your tweets have hyperlinks to further information
If someone gave you the information credit him or her with it, either by using @person1 (if they are a twitter user) or as a quote in text.
Get to know when your followers are most likely to read your tweets – most academics who use Twitter for work purposes only tweet 8-5 pm Monday-Friday.
If you’d like to share any of the posts on the Blog with networks, colleagues, friends, the public, you can now do this quickly and easily on Twitter via our new TweetMeme plugin.
If you have a Twitter account then you can share a post by simply clicking on the TweetMeme logo (like the one on the left). The TweetMeme logo is found at the end of every blog post. This will retweet the story via your Twitter account.
Sharing posts via Twitter helps to promote the excellent work going on at BU and can also help you to establish networks with likeminded people.
This is in addition to the ‘Like’ functionality via Facebook that we have had available on the Blog for a couple of months now.
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If you’d like to share any of the posts on the Blog with networks, colleagues, friends, the public, you can now do this quickly and easily on Twitter via our new TweetMeme plugin.
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