Round up fact sheet for the seminar on Social Media – Benefits for researchers - thank you all

Round up fact sheet for the seminar on Social Media – Benefits for researchers - thank you all

by Inge Ignatia de Waard -
Number of replies: 4
During the seminar on Social Media – Benefits for researchers we discussed on the following topics:

Are you a social media sceptic or evangelist? Which lead to a discussion on the definition of social media. Most of the participants were partly sceptic and evangelist. The evangelists all pointed to the extras of using social media (communication, exchange of knowledge, building a network). But the sceptic part covered the height to which social media is hyped at this moment and the fact that it increases the workload and the amount of knowledge you need to organize/respond to.

To keep from becoming a sceptic it was important to get metrics going on personal social media apps (like sitemeter or cluster maps) or any feedback that shows non-commenting visitors statistics.

There was also a remark that the impact/benefits of social media are still not very clear and metrics are important. It was said that too few innovators and early adopters are actually using Web 2.0 technology to enhance existing learning behaviours (as this article concludes).

Net etiquette: where a 10 step list for net etiquette was posted addressing people that you want to enrol in a discussion forum or learners that start with adding comments in social media.

Discussion on open or closed research, we called it: research should ALWAYS be OPEN to the public at every stage!
A couple of gurus (Jean-Claude Bradley and Cameron Neylon) on open science joined this discussion and pointed out some advantages of open science.

For anyone interested in an overview of social media benefits for researchers, there is a presentation on slideshare. This presentation was the core of the online discussion some of the SCoPE participants had with WiZiQ and which was facilitated by Ignatia de Waard.


Links on topic:
The computer-supported collaborative learning page.
A European research project on pedagogically sustained learning in CoP: the Palette program for anyone interested in learning research.

Categorizing Web2.0 apps
Webel: http://droopy.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webel/

Open science:
The open science blog openwetware .
Open knowledge share http://www.vision2lead.com/html/webinars.html
Open science chemistry http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com/
Lexdis: http://www.lexdis.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

Topics we did not cover to the full extend, but are related to the topic:
How would you subdivide social media apps with eLearning and/or research in mind?
Are teachers/coordinators using packages of social media with a distinction in the tools they offer depending on the work the learners are involved in?
How would you evaluate social media apps?


Thank you to all participants for making this a good discussion.
Hope to meet you again in SCoPE or IRL.

In reply to Inge Ignatia de Waard

Re: Round up fact sheet for the seminar on Social Media – Benefits for researchers - thank you all

by E.A. Draffan -
Thank you Ignatia for this summary, the discussion and chat. it is hard to be in at the beginning when there are so few papers or articles on how we can all benefit from using Social media type technologies for research. Many thanks again smile Best wishes E.A.
In reply to E.A. Draffan

Re: Round up fact sheet for the seminar on Social Media – Benefits for researchers - thank you all

by Jean-Claude Bradley -
In many fields related to rapidly evolving patterns of behavior, social software is often the only source for relevant content because of the delays in traditional publication. I had a situation where I submitted a paper to a traditional publisher and by the time all the reviewer comments came in and were addressed the article was obsolete! Luckily I had been systematically updating my work on my blog and wiki so the information still made it out to those who needed it.
In reply to Jean-Claude Bradley

Re: Round up fact sheet for the seminar on Social Media – Benefits for researchers - thank you all

by Inge Ignatia de Waard -
This is so true and pivotal to research in a rapidly evolving field. Thank you for writing this down.
In reply to Inge Ignatia de Waard

Re: Round up fact sheet for the seminar on Social Media – Benefits for researchers - thank you all

by Sylvia Currie -
Thank you all and thank you, Ignatia for facilitating this seminar. Doesn't it feel like we're at the beginning of a very interesting phase in educational research? There is so much more to explore and understand about social media. I love your summary "fact sheet" and especially that you're leaving us with a list of topics we did not cover. I think that means we need to revisit this discussion at some point in the future, doesn't it? wink Maybe a Social Media - Benefits for Researchers Part II seminar?

The topic and timing of this discussion has tied in nicely with the online conference at SCoPE this month: Shaping our Future: Toward a Pan-Canadian E-learning Research Agenda. Indeed, some of comments that have emerged in the discussions during this conference point to a need to look at new habits and trends. One that caught my attention is the speed at which we share research using traditional methods. After all, research can have a shelf life! By the time a scholarly research paper is submitted, reviewed, revised, reviewed, etc it may not longer be as relevant.

So here's hoping for a Part II, and also that you will all join the online conference! There are more presentations scheduled this week and many forum topics to dive into.

Our next seminar is Viral Professional Development with Heather Ross and Jennifer Jones, June 2 - 22. Hope to see you all there!