Researchers' use of social media and altmetrics in South Africa. Marinus Swanepoel PhD. PhD (HC).

Transcription

1 Researchers' use of social media and altmetrics in South Africa Marinus Swanepoel PhD. PhD (HC).

2 Outline Introduction Research question Challenges Methodology Results Conclusion

3 Introduction

4

5 Social media and altmetrics

6 The power of social media

7 Research questions Altmetrics is a recent development, are academics aware of it? If they are, do they consider it in their scholarly communication? Do they recognize that social media can enlarge and enhance their scholarly/academic footprint? What social media services are they using? What is the perceived benefit of their use of social media?

8 Challenges Mobility of academics Demographics Ethics approval Distinguishing between private and departmental use of social media #mustfall unrest

9 Mobility of academics

10 Demographics

11 Ethics approval

12 Distinguishing between private and departmental use of social media

13 #mustfall unrest

14 Identification of interviewees Methodology

15 Serial # # items in Scopus SAP SAP SANS SASS SANS SASS SANS07 70 SASS08 46 SAHM09 23 SAHM10 17

16 Serial # # items in Scopus SANS SAP SAP SAP14 74 SANS15 50 SASS16 39 SASS17 39 SANS18 24 SAHM19 18 SAHM20 13

17 Serial # # items in Scopus SANS SANS SANS SAP SAP SASS26 61 SASS27 56 SAHM28 37 SASS29 34 SAHM30 12

18 Serial # # of items in Scopus # of items in Web of Science # of items in Google Scholar # of items in inst. repository # of items in Research Gate SAP * 47 * SAP SANS SASS * SANS SASS * SANS SASS SAHM SAHM

19 Serial # # of items in Scopus # of items in Web of Science # of items in Google Scholar # of items in inst. repository # of items in ResearchGate SANS * 20 * SAPM SAPM SAPI SANS * 30 * SASS * SASS * 13 7 SANS SAHM * 11 * SAHM

20 # of items in Web of Science # of items in Google Scholar # of items in institutional repository # of items in Research Gate # of items Serial # in Scopus SANS SANS * 117 * SANS * SAP * SAP * 44 * SASS SASS SAHM * 61 * SASS * 28 * SAHM * 9 *

21 The interview Presentation on altmetrics Structured interview followed the presentation that was recorded and transcribed

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23 Are South Africans academics aware of altmetrics? Only two years ago one of my papers was published in a Wiley journal. I went in there and I saw this..., what do you called it, hamburger or a bun or... the doughnut thing and I didn t understand this. I went and look there and there was a lot of tweets and a lot of things going on about this paper that was when I first became aware of altmetrics. Researcher in medicine 5/30

24 Do they consider altmetrics in their scholarly communication? 0/30

25 Considerations in where to publish Impact factor Audience of the journal Mandate of the journal Review process Speed Open Access

26 Do they recognize that social media can enlarge and enhance their scholarly/academic footprint? It is not that I don t approve of any of these things, I am concerned about how time consuming or perhaps all consuming they can become and divert my attention from more important activities. Researcher in one of the professions I have a link (profile) on LinkedIn and ResearchGate and they flood me with information and I just get actually quite angry sometimes and then I distance myself from the whole thing. So that kind of puts me off. Researcher in one of the professions

27 Do they recognize that social media can enlarge and enhance their scholarly/academic footprint? Continued 2 Recent events in this country put me off from social media. Especially as an academic you could quickly find yourself into big serious trouble. Researcher in one of the professions I am a bit wary to put my publications on social media because of copyright issues and things like that. Researcher in the humanities

28 What social media services are they using?

29 What social media services are they using? 6(2*)/30 I find it incredibly rewarding. For me Twitter has become like a new source about my field and the fields that I am interesting in. I have 500 and something followers Researcher in the sciences a page long summary, which we post on our website. Almost all of those are also converted to a Facebook page and Twitter feed. Researcher in the science

30 What social media services are they using? 13(6*)/30 So it (Facebook page) is designed really just for promoting the laboratory and its activities for whatever purpose, public awareness, recruiting, etc. Researcher in the sciences Yes, I make use of Facebook by saying: by the way guys this paper has just gone out.and quite often paste the link in. Researcher in the social sciences I am connected to some other scholars in my field on Facebook. Researcher in the humanities

31 What social media services are they using? Continued 2 20/30 It is too much, I can t handle this.. I have 1000 s of s and this and. so I am off ResearchGate. Researcher in one of the professions And I must say sometimes we are in a bit of a competition between the guys saying I passed you on the (ResearchGate) score.. Researcher in one of the professions

32 What social media services are they using? Continued 3 21(6*)/30 It sits there and occasionally, once ever three months I get an invite from some odd person and nothing else happens. Researcher in the humanities I do (have a LinkedIn account), but I don t know, I don t use it. I don t know what it is suppose to do. Researcher in the social sciences

33 What social media services are they using? Continued 4 14(4*)/30 I struggle to use it (Academia.edu) for some reason. I find ResearchGate a lot easier. Researcher in the sciences Whenever I get to the website (Academia.edu), I always see the messages, and I send people articles, so that works. Researcher in the humanities

34 What social media services are they using? Continued 5 5(2*)/30 I would say one star. I do I use it (Google+) a little bit. Successfully? I have no idea. Researcher in the sciences I get the odd request through Google+ Researcher in the sciences

35 What is the perceived benefit of their use of social media? In my last application for the NRF rating, I just copied a nice box of my Google Scholar profile. So, that is the only value. I should not be like that. I should talk to myself. Researcher in the humanities with LinkedIn, it is nice to see my peers, who their connections are and people that I know. Via that route I have made nice connections. Researcher in medicine

36 What is the perceived benefit of their use of social media? Continued 2 I find that it (ResearchGate) probably does assist substantially with the exposure with my work to the community. Researcher in the science ResearchGate, because it is community-driven, helps because if one of the authors places it (an article), it is there automatically. It reduces the load. Researcher in the sciences

37 What is the perceived benefit of their use of social media? Continued 3 I have been quite active in making sure that ResearchGate has a pretty comprehensive list of my published works, I do that because I think it has visibility, and therefore value. Researcher in the sciences One of the sites that I use quite a lot for my data sets is ResearchGate. So, often, I either put the paper that is open access there or if it is not then I do a post-print. And then I link key data sets to those. Researcher in the science

38 Conclusions Older academics tend to have personal webpages where they make their academic artifacts available. The younger generation appears to rely more on social media and repositories. I put down the fact that I haven t ever become engaged with it (Twitter), purely to age. Researcher in the sciences

39 Conclusions Some researchers realize that they can enhance their academic footprint through social media but lacks the motivation to act. I ll have to reconsider my behavior (towards the use of social media for academic use) then. Of course I want to get more citations, but I am not putting in effort to get there, I just want to publish. Researcher in the social science

40 Conclusions Some researchers are skeptic about putting more effort into social media use because of a lack of perceived benefit. I have tried, and it (LinkedIn) is worthless as far as I can tell. Researcher in the sciences

41 Follow up 2017

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