BEYOND THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE-MAKING YOUR RESEARCH SOCIAL:SOCIAL MEDIA AS TOOLS FOR SCIENCE COMMUNICATION

At: Training of Trainers workshop on CIARD, By Nadia Manning-Thomas (CGIAR Communications and Knowledge team)

Wednesday 5th October 2011, Amman, Jordan)

This workshop is about…

Achieving greater coherence in information for agricultural research for development

Enhancing the impact of science

Session I: How to use Pathways effectively

The ways we currently store and share knowledge… Communication of research findings in peer-

reviewed journals is the standard by which scientists and their findings are evaluated by the scientific community

Publication in high-impact journals ensures that research findings are accessible to the scientific community for use in related studies and translates into agricultural improvement throughout the region and around the world.

..and in Near East region?

But is this enough…?

To make your work visible? To ensure research is available and

accessible? And applicable? To reach other stakeholders other then

researchers? Or even to all researchers? To translate into agricultural

improvement and have impact?

Changing the toolset and the mindset

To collaborate better and ‘make the PIGs fly’ means:

• Making our research more social!

• Being social means:• The term Social refers to a characteristic of living

organisms (humans in particular, though biologists also apply the term to populations of other animals). It always refers to the interaction of organisms with other organisms and to their collective co-existence, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or not, and irrespective of whether the interaction is voluntary or involuntary.

Changing the toolset and the mindset

This requires:

Looking for ways to improve the way we have conversations and share knowledge

Embedding knowledge sharing and collaborative tools and approaches in the research project cycle

Looking for ways to improve the way information is shared E.g Communicating research with the use of social

media

…and much more!

Website : www.ciard.net

The CIARD Vision“To make public domain agricultural research

information and knowledge truly accessible to all”

Social media for research uptake

Definition (Wikipedia): ‘Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies.’

Agricultural research and development organizations stand to benefit greatly from using social media tools as vehicles to get their message across.

Social media is about conversations enabled by tools such as blogs, microblogs, wikis, social networks, newsfeeds, photo and video sharing platforms.

The true value of social media lies in the social networks or communities that form within these social media tools.

‘Spaces’ where people interact

User-generated and ‘re-mixed’ content - anyone can be an author, publisher, or broadcaster;

Tools that enable interaction and collaboration;

Redefinition of established roles

Social media tools

So many tools! How to choose which one to use?

Step 1:Think about key stages/activities in your work

Step 2: What would you like to achieve, but is lacking in knowledge sharing, collaboration for each stage?

Step 3: Turn them into goals…

Step 4: Identify who to share, collaborate and engage with at each stage…and their capacity

Step 5: Look at the functionality of various tools—show them examples

Step 6: Match the tools to your stages and goals…keeping in mind the people!

Choosing the right tool/pathway, achieving the right goals– The Knowledge Sharing in Research Framework

online surveys, wikis, blogs,

RSS, discussion

forums

online surveys,

wikis, blogs, discussion

forums, mindmapping

, shared calendars, decision support systems

wikis, blogs, photo sharing, google docs,

discussion forums, intranets, shared

calendars,shared reference list

wikis, blogs, photo sharing, google

docs, discussion forums, intranets

wikis, blogs, microblogging, discussion forums, RSS, photo sharing, google docs, podcasting, shared reference list

websites, wikis, blogs,

microblogging, discussion

forums, online surveys, RSS

wikis, blogs, google docs, microblogging, photo

sharing, social networking sites, intranets, instant

messengers

A blog (or "web log") is a type of website with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries.

A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting).

Source: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogs

Social Media > Blogs

Why blogs?

As informal ways to interact and share information on a project or piece of research

Extend the reach of a research output such as an article

Blogs can attract people with similar thoughts and questions, people who can validate your ideas and also challenge you by sharing varying opinions.

Blogging is a good way for researchers to share their research ideas with others and gain feedback from a wider, online audience  

Institutional blog

ILRI Clippings: http://ilriclippings.wordpress.com/

Program/Department blogs

CIAT DAPA Blogs http://gisweb.ciat.cgiar.org/dapablogs

Fodder Adoption Project blog- http://fodderadoption.wordpress.com/

Project blog

Thematic/Network blogs

CG Rural Climate Exchange http://cgiarclimatechange.wordpress.com/

Most blogs contain the following elements:• a main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top;• an archive of older articles, to browse by month and/or category• an option for people to leave comments about the articles;• a "blogroll“ listing links to other related sites• a tagcloud of the tags used in the posts• one or more RSS feeds

Blog anatomy: Main elements

How you blog

• Decide on type of content and what topics you want to post about

• Think about who you want to write for• Assign time and responsibilities for creating quality

content• Create linkrolls (lists of your favorite links) and tagrolls

(links of your most commonly used keywords). • Make sure your blog is on local or thematic blog

directories• Use RSS feeds• Create a readership

Source: iMark - Web 2.0 and Social Media for Development

Microblogging involves posting short sentences to promote your journal article or a useful website, act as a reminder for an activity, or even ask questions.

Social media > Microblogging

When and why to use microblogs

• Updating ‘status’ • Supporting communities of practice, distribute

questions to a large group of people• Getting instant feedback about issues common to your

network• Reporting live from events, and engaging remote

participation• Promoting promote articles, blog posts, new

publications and content from your website(s)• Discussing ideas, posting news, asking questions, and

sharing links and other information with co-workers • Connecting to and engaging with like-minded

colleagues outside your organization• Discovering upcoming events, new happenings,

interesting sites/links and tools

How you use twitter

• Register a free account at http://twitter.com --Use a simple, short name

• Set up your profile and share a link to more about yourself

• Share your location

• Share a photo

• Follow to be followedo You can start by following the different CG Centers

• Build your network

• Ask questions and share the things you are doing

• Re-post valuable messages

• Don’t spam

• Embed/reuse feed information in other websites

A feed is a regularly updated summary (“syndication”) of contents – blog entries, headlines, publications, multimedia – in the form of metadata about the source and the contents. It includes links to the full versions of those contents at their original location.

Source: http://www.ciard.net

Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. 

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss

Newfeeds

When and why to use newsfeeds

• As a way to track research and news from colleagues and across the internet

• To keeping the users of your website and repository up to date with the latest developments (feeds are also particularly useful in low bandwidth environments)

• To publish your content on other web sites and services you have a presence on

• To let other services re-publish your content

NEWSFEEDS ANATOMY: MAIN ELEMENTS

Rural Climate Exchange http://cgiarclimatechange.wordpress.com/

IFPRI RSS Feeds http://www.ifpri.org/rss

Some other ways to share too…

SlideShare is the best way to share presentations, documents and videos. 

www.slideshare.net

SlideShare

e.g Flickr, Picasa

But there are others too

And also for video sharing!

Photo sharing

Delicious is a Social Bookmarking service, which means you can save all your bookmarks online, share them with other people, and see what other people are bookmarking. It also means that we can show you the most popular bookmarks being saved right now across many areas of interest. In addition, our search and tagging tools help you keep track of your entire bookmark collection and find tasty new bookmarks from people like you

Social Bookmarking----Del.icio.us

Academic social network---Mendeley

Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that can help you organize your research, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research.

Automatically generate bibliographies, Collaborate easily with other researchers online, Easily import papers from other research software, Find relevant papers based on what you’re reading, Access your papers from anywhere online

Be creative! Combine the tools…

Want to know more about social media and Web 2.0? Sources, resources and credits

Search any of these sites for resources on particular tools and methods

Credits:

ICT-KM program staff for some slides

• ICT-KM Website/ Blog – http://ictkm.cgiar.org/

• • KSToolkit –http://www.kstoolkit.org/

• iMark – Web 2.0 and Social Media for Development

• CIARD Pathways - http://www.ciard.net/

• Blog Tips (blog)-http://www.blogtips.org/

Session II: Groupwork

In groups…

Discuss how social media pathways as shown- can be used in the WANA region for CIARD

Thurs. 6th

8:30-9:30

Session III