Online Social Networking for the Sciences:

How an Average Scientist Makes Himself Visible

Antony WilliamsNCSU, October 5th 2013

Visibility Means Discoverability

• Does a Social Profile matter?

• You are visible, when you share your skills, experience and research activities by:• Establishing a public profile• Getting on the record• Collaborative Science• Demonstrating a skill set• Measured using “alternative metrics”• Contributing to the public peer review

process

The world of the online CV

• CVs and resumes are mainstream• Re.vu• LinkedIn Profile• Your blog page

• Remember Google represents your activities and can represent your CV too….

http://re.vu/AntonyWilliams

https://www.vizify.com/antony-williams/

CAUTION! Separate Personal from Professional

• We all know the stories of the “pictures that shouldn’t have made it online!”

• FaceBook is probably best kept “personal”

Scientists are “Quantified”

• Scientists are quantified

• Stats are gathered and analyzed

• Employers can find them, tenure will depend on them, and these already happen without your participation

• Scientists Impact Factors, H-index and many other variants.

How you can be Quantified…

ResearchGate

The Alt-Metrics Manifesto

• http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/

AltMetrics via Plum Analytics

Usage, Citations, Social Media, Etc

Detailed Usage Statistics

Your Profile as a Scientist

• If you are an active scientist – i.e. already published, active researcher, generator of data, early, mid- or late career there is lots to do!

• If you are a junior scientist the benefits of investing time now will provide a strong foundation for your future!

• So what do I do??

Maybe you should be a brand?

• If you are going forth into the social network adopt a “brand name” throughout the network

• Search Google for your “brand name”

• Choose a unique brand or be yourselfBRAND: Collabchem, ChemConnector

YOURSELF: egonwillighagen, joergwegner

Branding: I am ChemConnector

Enabled by

• Persistent unique digital identifier

• Integrates to workflows such as manuscript and grant submission

• Supports automated linkages with your professional activities

An Online Profile

• Methods of sharing science online include:• Wikis or blogs• Slideshare for presentations• YouTube for videos• Flickr, Wikimedia etc. for images• ChemSpider for chemistry• GoogleDocs for data• Google Scholar Citations for citations• Microsoft Academic Scholar for papers

Blogs are for Stories and Detail

• A blog is your voice • Communicate and engage the community• Ask for help, share your skills, collaborate• Blogging, in general, is your most

important voice in the social network. • Commit to a position and be honest• They can be free or paid – I use

Wordpress

Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_John_Williams

ScientistsDBhttp://tinyurl.com/7cqylsp

ScientistsDB

• Write your OWN article on ScientistsDB• It is a community-policed site but it is “your”

page• An article, once approved by the community,

can, in theory, be moved to Wikipedia if you meet the notability criteria

• All content is licensed under standard CC-BY-SA 3.0 licensing provided by Wikipedia

Are you a-tweeting on Twitter?

• 140 characters to connect and communicate• Use your “brand name” on Twitter – it has

high frequency here…• Greatest value for me – bite-sized nuggets

into information of interest and leading people into information I wish to share including my posts, my activities

• Faster responses than email commonly!

Are you LinkedIn Yet? You should be

• LinkedIn for “professionals”• Expose work history, skills, your professional

interests, your memberships – your profile WILL be watched!

• Who you are linked to says a lot about who you are. Get Linked to people in your domain.

• Professional relationships rather than just friendships. FaceBook-it for friends

LinkedInhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/AntonyWilliams

My Career Captured…

And “Endorsements”

Are you sharing your slides online?

• Slideshare to host, expose and share your presentations, publications, posters and videos (subject to copyright you might have transferred!)

http://www.slideshare.net/

• Register for an account and retain your branding! Keep your online brand consistent

Upload and Add Details

• Edit title, add tags, add “abstract”, choose category

• Select checkbox for allow/disallow file download

SlideShare

Social Media Tools Feed Each Other

• Plugins and connectors integrate your activities across the social media platforms• Expose your Tweeting and your Slideshare

presentations directly on LinkedIn. • Plug-ins allow your tweets and presentations

to be automagically displayed on LinkedIn

From Slideshare Into the Network

Add Applications to LinkedIn

Places to Share Videos

• There are other sites for you to share your videos online as a scientist

• YouTube• SciVee• Vimeo• Slideshare

Be Aware of Licensing

• Your blog, your YouTube video, your Slideshare, presentations, your Flickr photos, all represent your creative work

• Use licenses to protect and share your work• Creative Commons licenses are

recommended• Be aware of copyright transfer and what

rights you give away

Share/Manage Your Publications

• Where do you “manage your publications”? • Share your “activities” with the community• My publications/slides/videos are my CV on

• My Blog• On LinkedIn• On SlideShare• On Researchgate• On Academia.edu

Academia.edu

Academia.edu

And Mendeleyhttp://www.mendeley.com/profiles/antony-williams/

My Google Scholar Profile

My Co-author Graph on MAS..

Share Science!!! Not Just Yourself

• Become a community contributor to science• Share your expertise in the new world of

openness• Share your code• Share your data and your model• Share your Figures• Contribute to Wikis – Wikipedia and others• Become an Open Notebook Scientist

Encouraging Participation with

Rewards and RECOGNITION

Honest Questions can Disrupt…

Honest Questions can Disrupt…

Honest Questions can Disrupt…

Honest Questions can Disrupt…

Popularizing ScienceFun in the Networks

Popularizing ScienceFun in the Networks

Popularizing ScienceFun in the Networks

The Power of Blogs & Social Media

The Power of Blogs & Social Media

The Power of Blogs & Social Media

And into the AltMetrics World

And into the AltMetrics World

Social Networking for Scientists

• The representation of YOU on the web is going to become increasingly important…

• Engagement and participation is a choice…

• Consider the value to both you and to your community regarding contribution• Open Data, Curations, Annotations etc.

Thank you

Email: williamsa@rsc.org Twitter: @ChemConnectorPersonal Blog: www.chemconnector.com SLIDES: www.slideshare.net/AntonyWilliams