In order to improve the quality of systematic researches, various tools have been developed by well-known scientific institutes sporadically. Dr. Nader Ale Ebrahim has collected these sporadic tools under one roof in a collection named “Research Tool Box”. The toolbox contains over 720 tools so far, classified in 4 main categories: Literature-review, Writing a paper, Targeting suitable journals, as well as Enhancing visibility and impact factor.
Image: “Share” by GotCredit via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Knowing what your publisher will let
you share with others, and where you can share it, is one of the more
challenging obstacles to reaching an audience outside academia. In this
post, we provide some guidelines on sharing online (without upsetting
your publisher). Continue reading “Thing 18: Sharing Your Work (Without Breaking the Law)”→
Image: “Home Office Workstation” by Free-Photos via Pixabay (CC0)
Academic research is traditionally
communicated in articles which are aimed at an expert audience and
published in specialised journals. But if you are thinking about
disseminating your research more widely, and possibly beyond an academic
audience, blogging or writing for news outlets like The Conversation
may be the answer. Continue reading “Thing 16: Communicating Your Research”→
Social media can be a powerful tool for
networking and raising your research profile. Its conversational style
fosters open, informal professional connections and enables engagement
with the wider community. Continue reading “Thing 15: Social Media”→
Looking for a succinct yet impactful
way to showcase your research project? In this post we’ll get you
started with creating effective posters and infographics.
Previous posts have considered
storing and finding images, but what if you’d like to take it a step
further and manipulate images? The University Digitisation Centre (UDC)
processes over 1 million images per year, and this post introduces some
of the tools and techniques UDC staff use for automating tasks when
manipulating images.
Images may form an integral part of
your research, or they may be useful as a means of communicating your
research. This post looks at a range of tools for finding photographs
and other images online. It also has some useful pointers on making sure
you’re using those images in a copyright-compliant manner.Continue reading “Thing 12: Open Access Images”→
Previous “Things” have covered the
managing of references, text mining and tools to help with the
statistical analysis of data. But what if your research relies on visual
materials? How and where, for example, do you store and potentially
display images? Omeka is here to help!Continue reading “Thing 11: Omeka”→
Data visualisation refers to the visual representation of data to draw out trends, patterns and relationships,and present these in an accessible and easily-recognisedform. Continue reading “Thing 10: Visualise Your Data”→
Selecting
a research “brand name” is one of the most important decisions that a
researcher will need to make. The research brand name should appear in
the title, abstract and keywords of the paper. The title is extremely
important and must be chosen with great care, as it will be read by
thousands, whereas few will read the entire paper. On the other hand,
indexing and abstracting of the paper depends on the accuracy of the
title. An improperly titled paper will get lost and will never be read.
The unique research name makes title meaningful and not general.
How do you make sure the
right people are seeing your research? Is it being read as much as you’d
like? In this guest blog, Joshua Clark, Marketing Executive at
Altmetric shares some useful tips.
Promoting your research online is vital if you need to
provide evidence of the reach and potential broader influence of your
work, particularly when applying for promotion or tenure and funding.
Here are some top tips to help you get started:
1. Put together a strategy
Begin by thinking about which researchers and other audiences will be
interested in your research, the disciplines they work in, and where
they can be found. Are they within your institution, or somewhere
further afield?
Next, think about the channels that would be most suitable for to
promoting your work to your intended audience. It can be a good idea to
start by looking at the channels that other researchers publishing in
your field have used to get their work noticed. One way to do this is to
use the Altmetric Bookmarklet.
2. Write a summary
You might want to consider writing a plain English summary of your
work, focused on making it more accessible to a wider audience. This
will provide a good lead into your research and encourage more people to
read your article.
You could then post the summary to online discussion groups and
forums that you think might find it relevant. Or, if you’d rather go
that extra mile, why not put together a short video summarising your
work and sharing it via websites such as Wesharescience.com.
3. Make your data available
Publishing an article doesn’t tell the full story of your research.
You can make images, files and other outputs associated with it
available through a digital repository such as Figshare.
When you upload your research to a repository they will give it a
unique identifier. This makes citing your research easier, as well as
tracking online attention with services such as Altmetric.
4. Post on social media
Post links to your work via any social media accounts you have. You
could also focus your promotion around any significant events that are
happening, such as conferences that may be interested in your research
topic, by using the event’s hashtag.
As well as using your own social profiles you may find you get more engagement from using your department’s accounts.
You could also look into contacting some established bloggers that
are writing about your subject area (easily identifiable via the Altmetric details pages
for other publications in your field), or anyone who has a big
following on Twitter that may be interested in sharing your work.
6. Link out from your email signature and profiles
It might seem obvious, but adding a link to your work to your email
signature is a must! By doing this you are ensuring that your contacts
are kept up to date with your latest research.
7. Use your Research Office
If you feel your work could benefit from an extra promotional push
why not get in touch with your Research Office, as they may be able to
help make your work more visible.
They might have access to channels such as email lists or have
contacts that could be used to get your research noticed by news outlets
or government agencies. Having your research mentioned on higher
profile websites will increase your readership and look great on future
applications. Also consider providing your research office with some key
points of why your work matters and what the key outcomes were, as this
can help them build a pitch for a broader audience.
8. Register for an ORCID ID
Register for an ORCID ID so that you
have a unique identifier which will tie you to your work and distinguish
you from other researchers. It’s easy, free and will come in useful for
any manuscript or grant submissions.
9. Make your research open
Having your work freely available to read may mean that your research
reaches a wider audience and see a higher level of citations. If you
would like to publish your research in this way visit your Research
Office who will be able to advise on the best course of action.
10. Unique Identifiers
Make sure that whenever you mention your research online you use or
link to a page that includes your work’s unique identifier, this can be a
DOI, arXiv ID or PubMed ID. This is vital to ensure that your work is
tracked by us at Altmetric so that you can keep on top of the
conversations surrounding your research. It will also mean that your
work becomes easily discoverable and so is more likely to be read and
cited by other academics.
Track the results of your efforts!
Find out the impact of your promotional efforts by using stats provided on publisher websites, such as Altmetric badges, and by using tools like the Altmetric Bookmarklet.
If you’d like to read the original version of this post why not visit the Altmetric blog here.
But then there are more ways to identify a standard journal
Is there an ISSN or DOI? Publishers whose sole purpose is to scam people to make more money do not have standard identifiers, like DOIs or ISSNs.
Is the journal charging an Article Processing Charge? And
is it transparent about it? All reputed journals, even if they charge
APS, will reveal the chargeable amount beforehand on their website.
Does it have a good online presence? Not a necessary but a good indicator.
Is the journal indexed in well known indexes like SCOPUS, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), ISI (Web of Science) etc.?
What is the impact factor? Check out Scimago journal rank, gives you an idea on how good a particular journal is
Is there a peer-review process? Not a necessity, but good journals have a peer review process, that helps improve your paper quality.
Bibliometrics
can be defined as the statistical analysis of publications.
Bibliometrics has focused on the quantitative analysis of citations and
citation counts which is complex. It is so complex and specialized. The
personal knowledge and experience are insufficient tools for
understanding trends for making decisions. We need especial tools for
analysis of Bibliometrics information for select the best field of study
with promising enough attention. This presentation will provide tools
to discover the new trends in your field of study in order to select an
area for research and publication which promising the highest research
impact.
Cite as:
Ale Ebrahim, Nader (2017): Bibliometrics analysis for selecting the best field of study. figshare.
For
a second year running, the completely online and free Research Impact
Summit has drawn a crowd and created vibrant conversations.
Initially, run as an experiment in 2016, The Research Impact Summit
delivered a research conference of a different style and definitely of a
different price tag. Having found that the most significant struggles
for researchers and higher education administrators are typically time
and money, I decided to eliminate these from the equation and help share
knowledge with as many researchers and research professionals around
the globe. To take it a step further I decided to interview the speakers
so that we could get some stories, nitty-gritty details of the "how
to", and the lessons they have learned along their journey of research
impact.
The goal of the Summit was not only to help as many people as
possible but to highlight the many elements that go into creating
opportunities for research impact. I was tired of the consistent talk of
measuring our impact without planning for, and creating opportunities
for impact, let alone capturing the impact evidence along the way.
In 2016, over 1200 individuals registered to watch the summit, and
over 1500 people tuned in during the free period (not all those that
watched registered). Some might say there was a first-time buzz about
the summit; however, the 2017 figures were similar, there were slightly
fewer registrations, but there were more people who watched online.
Research Impact is on the agenda everywhere.
Globally, the 2016 Summit reached 45 countries while this year the
Summit was attended by 56 countries. Some of the new countries reached
this year were Malaysia, Tunisia, Argentina, Austria and many other
smaller nations joining in. Also noted were increasing numbers from
Belgium, Sweeden, Italy, the African nations, Spain, Brazil, Finland and
Ireland.
Last year the city with the most content views was Queensland Australia, this year it was Southampton in the United Kingdom.
Interaction and networking
Unlike traditional conferences, the online conference format has
fewer opportunities for networking, that said, those that participated
on Twitter, in the Facebook Group and the website chat boxes were able
to share stories and resources. In 2016, a collaboration was born
through the Facebook group, this year I was able to link some
connections via email, and there have also been terrific stories from
the speakers about the interactions and increased opportunities for
collaboration that have been born out of the Summit.
Special thanks must, of course, go to the 24 speakers from 2016 and
the 30 speakers from 2017, without which the Summit would not be
possible, these speakers generously donate their time. Sincere thanks to
all those that watched, Tweeted, sent appreciative emails and
participated, making this all worthwhile.
Tamika Heiden is the Founder and Principal of Knowledge
Translation Australia – a service that facilitates the movement of
research knowledge into life. She works with researchers and research
stakeholders to ensure their work is relevant, useful and useable so
that it provides benefit and value to society.
If you enjoyed this article or would like to learn some more about research impact, please head on over to www.ktaustralia.com or join our mailing list.
By Victoria Costello, PLOS Senior Social Media & Community Editor
The good news is you’ve published your manuscript! The bad news? With two million other new research articles
likely to be published this year, you face steep competition for
readers, downloads, citations and media attention — even if only 10% of
those two million papers are in your discipline.
So, how can you get your paper noticed and advance the scientific conversation?
One word: Tweet.
A
Tweet (n.) is an online communication of no more than 140 characters
(often containing links), transmitted on the public “social network”
known as Twitter. When you Tweet (v.), you enter a conversation of
Twitter users. In a PLOS BLOGS guest post, Gozde Ozakinci (@gozde786), a
lecturer in health psychology at the University of St. Andrews,
Scotland, offered an exemplary use of Twitter in a research workflow.
I dip in and out during the day and each time I have a
nugget of information that I find useful. I feel that with Twitter, my
academic world expanded to include many colleagues I wouldn’t otherwise
meet. … The information shared on Twitter is so much more current than
you would find on journals or conferences.
Of course, Ozakinci and her Twitter-savvy colleagues are still the minority among academic researchers.
An odd coupling, with baggage
To most scientists, for whom an initial meeting with Twitter is the
opposite of love at first sight, this conversation may as well be
happening on another planet. At first glance, they find Twitter facile, a
time suck, beneath them — and go no farther. Missing from this
dismissive view is an understanding of Twitter as a neutral medium for
communication (280 mil monthly users) that is quickly gaining currency among
a leading edge of researchers who are exchanging science news and
information, data files, feedback on articles, methods, tools,
jobs, grants and more — across continents and disciplines.
If you are among the uninitiated, and have a research article coming
out soon, how might you join them? A priori, if your
goals are to exploit this medium for your own ends and advance the larger scientific conversation, some conventional wisdom must be jettisoned.
The first thing to let go of is the quaint idea that your science
should speak for itself. Second is the fear, still rife among
scientists, that the act of communicating research beyond institutional
walls puts your reputation at risk for the “Sagan Effect;” or, in more current pop culture terms, that you’ll become the science equivalent of Kim Kardashian. A recent Google+ Hangout from SciFund Challenge, titled Using Social Media without Blowing up Your Scientific Career, offers testimonials from some real life scientists to challenge this outdated view.
By joining the scientific conversation on social media you’re not exactly breaking new ground. A 2015 PEW poll of AAAS members (scientists and others) found that 47% had used social media to follow or discuss science. Going deeper, in an August 2014 Nature
survey, some 60% of 2500 research scientists polled regularly visit
Google Scholar (~60%) and ResearchGate (~40%); and, to a lesser extent,
Google+, Academia.edu and Linked-in to post CVs and papers — essentially
engaging in a one-way form of scholarly communication; talking, not
necessarily listening.
Farther ahead on the social media curve is a 13% subset of the Nature
group who are involved a two-way conversation with their scientific
peers. These scientists describe their use of Twitter, in particular, as
a platform to comment on and discuss research that is relevant to
their field. Another term for this practice is “micro-blogging.”
If the end game is impact, the way there is engagement
Engagement between authors and readers of research articles comes in
many forms, characterized by rising levels of interaction. A potential
range is illustrated in this figure from a PLOS ONE study looking
at reader responses to 16 articles in the pain sciences disseminated
using social media. As the authors point out, the collection of metrics
for more complex levels of reader engagement (impact) is still in
a nascent stage. For example, a measurement of the number of readers
who apply a newly published research finding to clinical practice is
currently not available, although it seems likely that a self-interested
tech sector will meet this challenge, and meet it soon.
A
2013 study in PLOS ONE tracked the impact of social media on the
dissemination of research articles, with 6 levels of engagement
identified between readers and the published research. What about my paper?
As a researcher looking for readers, your imperative is more basic.
With many more of your peers going to social media to push out their
latest work, the status quo of one-way science communication will no
longer suffice. Even if all you’re after is readers for your article, it
behooves you to use these newly available tools to stand out in
a crowded field.
This is where micro-blogging, and Twitter, in particular, come in.
Here are five tips to help you join the growing number of scientists and
students who are leading their peers to the likely future of
scientific communication.
Tip 1. Get on Twitter and describe yourself in five words or less
To get started on Twitter you
must choose a “handle” (user name) which sums you up — in 160
characters or less. This can actually be a very useful exercise. What makes your research contribution different from everyone else’s?
To create a pithy Twitter profile and find your peers, follow the
model of cancer bioinformatics researcher, B.F. Francis Ouellette (@bffo),
by coming up with three to five words to describe your work. Use key
words; include methods, disciplines and related fields, institutions,
journals, diseases or occupations that relate to your science.
Add a photo of yourself or an avatar but save the pic of you kissing
your pit bull, like your passion for artisan beers, for your Facebook
or Instagram page. (Most scientists wisely keep their personal and
professional social media accounts separate).
A PLOS Biology perspective
provides an overview of what social media can do for scientists, with a
comprehensive primer on how best to get started, including on Twitter.
Tip 2. Tweet the way you talk, not the way you lecture or write your science
If, like most scientists, you’re a collaborator at heart, use Twitter
as a place to share your knowledge; mentor and be mentored; discuss and
debate the merits of research. Make your Twitter “voice” reflect your
real personality. Keep it casual.
What should you tweet?
Recommend links to online content of interest. Say why you’ve singled out that research article or blog post for a mention.
Ask questions and flag concerns.
Offer deserved compliments and congratulations to your fellow researchers.
A word on word choices
To connect and thrive on Twitter, you must give up the jargon.
This tip also applies to the titles of your papers. Turn obtuse
technical lingo into plain language, make it catchy, and many more of
your peers will click through to read the paper – even those who would
have perfectly understood the original title! Here, an author distilled
the (not terrible, but terribly long) article title “The Shear Stress of
Host Cell Invasion: Exploring the Role of Biomolecular Complexes,” into
the tweet below. Got your attention faster, right?
If your article contains a striking image or figure by all means
tweet it too – and not just the cute animals. Even a virus can be a
beautiful, especially to your fellow scientists. And, hot off the press,
Twitter now allows posting of video clips.
Remember, your immediate goal is to acquire attention for a newly
published article. Longer term, you’re after relevance in the ongoing
scientific conversation. To track how well you’re doing at both, check
out Article Level Metrics (ALMs), which measure impact in terms of views, downloads, comments, citations and media coverage for each of your articles.
Tip 3. Optimize your Twitter time with advanced tools
After finding and interacting with an initial group of your peers by
following them, being followed back, tweeting and retweeting items of
interest, you’re ready to try some more advanced community and
conversation-building tools, including Twitter “lists” and “tweet
chats.”
A Twitter list is an option on your profile
settings which allows you to group together colleagues in one easily
accessed virtual file. Then you can *Tweet to individuals on this list
or turn the name you’ve given it into a “hashtag” such as
#PLOSNeuro. For efficiency, track conversations among users of this
hashtag using a multiple-Twitter stream monitoring app such as
Tweetdeck.
Cross promote on your blog. If you maintain an individual blog, display your Twitter stream on its home page to facilitate comments and discussion in both places. (WordPress has a widget for this purpose).
A Tweet chat or Tweet up is a live, regularly-scheduled Twitter conversation typically used to discuss a single topic or paper. For a good model, visit #PubHT, a biweekly Twitter discussion group on public health issues, described in detail in group member Atif Kukaswadia’s (@Mr_Epid) blog post.
The more ambitious social media-minded researcher can try online curation tools – among them Storify.com and ImpactStory.com —
to assemble tweets, which they can then post in blogs as topical
science stories, conference reports or on altmetrics-based CVs.
Tip 4. Go where the scientific conversation goes
Most authors would probably prefer that readers of research articles
say whatever they have to say about their work in the comments section
immediately below the article on the publisher’s website. And yet, as
discussed above, this train has already left the station; like it or
not, the conversation has moved.
In the view of Jonathan Eisen (@phyogenomics), a prolific blogger and tweeter and a long-time PLOS Biology Editorial Board member, formal comments sections will continue to lose any participation they once had.
“I guarantee there are more comments on Twitter about a PLOSpaper,” he said.
To become a part of this fast-growing culture of decentralized
assessment of scientific research, try using Twitter to share your
(abbreviated ) feedback on new articles. Then add a link to the
published article — which may or may not contain a longer version of
your comment.
Hopefully, Professor Eisen’s prediction isn’t yet a done deal and
publishers, including PLOS, will fully rise to the challenge of making
continuous assessment of the research a “no brainer” both on and off
journal sites.
For its part, PLOS is facilitating scientist-to-scientist
communication in discipline-specific communities. These dedicated
PLOS pages are run by Community Editors external to PLOS, who
are supported by staff and academic editors from the PLOS journals.
Community editors crowdsource researcher feedback on previously
published articles contained in PLOS Collections, and new research
published by PLOS and other non-PLOS journals. This program began in
2014 with PLOS Neuroscience and PLOS Synthetic Biology,
with others to be added in 2015. Critiques (comments) on research
articles are posted in a community blog featuring original and
syndicated posts, with blog posts amplified by real-time micro-blogging
from Twitter lists posted on these same pages.
Meanwhile, the Twitter part of this larger scientific conversation is
here to stay, no matter where it “lives.” For a model of how Twitter,
Facebook, Linked-in and WordPress blogging can be integrated into an
academic science work flow, particularly that of early career
researchers and students, read this blog post from Stewart Barker, a 1st year PhD student in microbiology at The University of Sheffield.
Tip 5. Use Twitter to crowdsource your science as an information provider and recipient
We start from the premise that the scientific community can reliably
be counted on to “root out the rubbish.” Rubbish in this context usually
refers to bad science, or misleading interpretations of good research.
In a similar vein, science-based Twitter networks are proving to be rich
and reliable sources for rapidly offering and receiving highly
specialized information – with questions and answers flowing from
scientist to scientist and between scientists and science journalists.
For an example of the latter, journalist Seth Mnookin (@SethMnookin) describes
crowdsourcing a complex genetics question while on a tight deadline,
with help arriving just in time from UCLA geneticist Leonid Kruglayak (@leonidkruglayak).
Beyond the individual benefits for scientists who incorporate Twitter into their research life cycles, altmetrics researcher (and coiner of the term) Jason Priem, writing in 2011,
saw scientists interacting on Twitter as a “revolutionary form of
scholarly communication,” one which could “transform centuries-old
publishing practices into a much more efficient and organic vast registry of intellectual transactions.”
“Registry” is an interesting choice of words in that it suggests a
permanent record. Seemingly transient, the 140 characters you tweet
today remain accessible far longer than you might think (Twitter has
recognized the value customers place on the ability to recreate their
tweeting histories and have made it possible to go back a full seven
years – the entire lifetime of Twitter – to find up to 3200 tweets
per user). There’s even talk of giving tweets their own Digital Object
Identifiers or DOIs. Meanwhile, the Modern Language Association (MLA)
provides a standard format for citing a single tweet in an academic manuscript.
Embrace the wider effects. Once you find your voice and engage with fellow scientists via online social networks, you will
draw the attention of science journalists with direct access to an
international online audience of readers you cannot reach on your
own. Fortunately, your needs and theirs are symbiotic: science writers
need research news and you can supply it. How likely they are to select
your article, and how accurately they interpret the essence and
significance of your findings, depend on how widely and clearly you
communicate your science — after your research article is published. This is where your institution’s Public Information Office (PIO) can play a pivotal role, especially
if you stay involved by checking the press release for clarity and
accuracy and by exploiting your own network for outreach.
In the view of many in the broad scientific community, your job doesn’t end there.
In light of the recent PEW poll
revealing large gaps between scientists’ and public views on critical
scientific issues, many scientists are re-evaluating their individual
responsibility to communicate directly with the general public. If, as
UK Chief Scientific Advisor Sir Mark Walport recently told
a meeting of climate scientists, “Science isn’t finished until it’s
communicated,” it follows that scientists’ use of large public social
media platforms such as Twitter to explain their science will
be increasingly considered a vital part of a researcher’s work flow.
How might the wider adoption of social media impact the entire
scientific enterprise? Join the conversation and you’ll be among the
first to find out.
A PLOS invitation: no time like the present
If you have an article coming out any time soon, this just may be a
Goldilocks moment for you and your research team to take the plunge into
Twitter.
To celebrate our recently passed milestone of reaching 70,000
Twitter followers (200K if we include all PLOS journals), PLOS has an
invitation for you. If you’ll take a moment now to create your own
Twitter account, then follow us @PLOS, wewill strive to be among the first tofollow you back.
And, while you’re choosing who else to follow, please consider the PLOS journals:
*Thanks to @sharmanedit for pointing out that it isn’t possible to
“Tweet to a Twitter list” as this had read previously. Still useful as a
Rolodex like file keeping system, I find.
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