2015 Year-In-Review: LSE Impact Blog’s Most Popular Posts
Ithas become a tradition on the Impact Blog to look back at the end of
the year and share a round-up of our top posts. Managing Editor Sierra Williams delves
into the Google Analytics and provides a list of the most viewed pieces
along with a wider look at our top tweets and our most captivating
posts (minutes per page) on the LSE Impact Blog in 2015.
We are thrilled to announce we reached a particular milestone this
year – over 1 million pageviews between January 2015 and December 2015!
This was a 36% increase from 2014. With an average weekly readership of
over 20,000, we are looking forward to building on 2015’s success and
exploring more engaging topics on the impact of academic research in
society, the sharing and dissemination of evidence, and the future of
scholarship. Over the next week we will be sharing a few more ‘Top
Posts’ lists according to more specific themes, so do stay tuned.
Top 5 Posts – Overall pageviews
Citations are not enough: Academic promotion panels must take into account a scholar’s presence in popular media.
Scholars all around the world are almost solely judged upon their publications in (prestigious) peer-reviewed journals. Asit Biswas and Julian Kirchherr argue that publications in the popular media must count as well.
How to write a killer conference abstract: The first step towards an engaging presentation.
Helen Kara responds to our previously published 
guide to writing abstracts and elaborates specifically on the
differences for conference abstracts. She offers tips for writing an
enticing abstract for conference organisers and an engaging conference
presentation. Written grammar is different from spoken grammar. Remember
that conference organisers are trying to create as interesting and
stimulating an event as they can, and variety is crucial.
Life in the Accelerated Academy: anxiety thrives, demands intensify and metrics hold the tangled web together.
The imagined slowness of university life has given way to a frenetic pace, defined by a perpetual ratcheting up of demands and an
entrepreneurial ethos seeking new and quantifiable opportunities. Mark Carrigan
explores the toxic elements of this culture and its underlying
structural roots. As things get faster, we tend to accept things as they
are rather than imagining how they might be. But the very speed of
social media may act as a short-circuit. The limited investment
necessary means that social media can allow the imagination to thrive.
Using Twitter as a data source: An overview of current social media research tools
The popularity of social media sites and the ease at which its 
data is available means these platforms are increasingly becoming
primary sources for social research. Wasim Ahmed presents
a quick look at some of the tools available to social scientists for
analysing social media data and also reflects on the limitations of the
platforms and the methods used for this type of research.
What does Academia_edu’s success mean for Open Access? The data-driven world of search engines and social networking
With over 36 million visitors each month,the massive popularity of Academia.edu is uncontested. But posting on
Academia.edu is far from being ethically and politically equivalent to
using an institutional open access repository, argues Gary Hall.
Academia.edu’s financial rationale rests on exploiting the data flows
generated by the academics who use the platform. The open access
movement is in danger of being outflanked, if not rendered irrelevant by
centralised entities like Academia.edu who can capture, analyse and
exploit extremely large amounts of data.
Top Tweets
On the Impact Blog, we take great care in the curation and creationof engaging social media content. According to our Twitter Analytics,
these were the tweets that ranked highest in terms of engagement and
impressions.
Top Posts – Minutes per page
Another metric we have been following closely this year isminutes per page. In a competitive online attention economy, with
readers arriving from so many different devices and sources, we find
this stat useful as it points to content that people have found
particularly engaging. All of the below pieces had an average min/page
measurement of over 6 minutes 30 seconds.
Dutch universities plan Elsevier boycott — will this be a game changer or will publisher profits remain unaffected?
Led by vice chancellors, Dutch universities have recently 
announced plans for a country-wide boycott of the academic publisher
Elsevier. Such a boycott has the potential to be a significant game
changer in the relationship between the research community and the
world’s largest academic publisher. But how will it affect open access
momentum in the UK and around the world?
10 Chrome extensions to help manage references, notes, citations and capture information.
From literature searches to collaborative online writing, a significant amount of the research process now takes place online. Andy Tattersall provides
a list of useful Google Chrome extensions that can be added to the
browser to help facilitate the daily academic workflow. Recommendations
below cover tools for reference management, link saving, and finding
quick access to academic articles.
“Brain Study Confirms Gender Stereotypes”: How science communication can fuel modern sexism.
The way much research on sexual differentiation is conducted and 
communicated has come under intense criticism from scholars in both the
natural and social sciences. Cliodhna O’Connor describes how traditional gender stereotypes are projected onto scientific information and its subsequent reporting.
Why the ban on p-values? Understanding sampling error is key to improving the quality of research.
The weight placed on p-values and significance testing has come 
under increasing criticism, with one social psychology journal banning
their use entirely. Nicole Radziwill argues
that many of the issues come down to sampling errors. Using the
statistical programming language R and data on grade point averages, she
demonstrates just how easy it can be to accidentally draw wrong
conclusions and what can be done to fix this.
How to write a killer conference abstract: The first step towards an engaging presentation.
Helen Kara responds to our previously published guide to writing abstracts and elaborates specifically on the
differences for conference abstracts. She offers tips for writing an
enticing abstract for conference organisers and an engaging conference
presentation. Written grammar is different from spoken grammar. Remember
that conference organisers are trying to create as interesting and
stimulating an event as they can, and variety is
Impact of Social Sciences – 2015 Year-In-Review: LSE Impact Blog’s Most Popular Posts
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