Researching In A Web 2 0 World (for lawyers)

Researching in a Web 2.0 world:for lawyers
Emily Allbon

It’s a different world out there…
I use books, Lexis and Westlaw…but there’s all this other stuff people are using…

Fears…?
I’m too old to do social networking!

Fears…?
I don’t have time!

Fears…?
‘Hey it’s my research – I’m not sharing it with anyone!’

Fears…?
Only for people with big egos!

Fears…?
Too hard to learn all these new technologies!

Advantages
Build up community of interest
Pinpoint breaking news, trends, get comments on brand-new research, cases
Finding new collaborators
Getting more out of conferences – pre-conference discussion, networking, participating if absent physically
Find and follow influential people
Collect links to share with others

Too shy to get involved?
Don’t worry – not essential
Different degrees of engagement:
Passive
Creator

Pyramid of engagement
From The Facebook Era blog: http://www.thefacebookera.com
Inspired by Guillaume du Gardier

Twitter
Great for breaking news – comment on new cases
What are you doing?
Flag up key articles
Engage in discussion
Superb for event/conference engagement

Hashtag lets you search for a case
e.g. #SinghBCA
Find audio file from press conference
Link to judgment
Get all the latest on a judgment as it breaks

Top Twitter tips
Use hashtags # to indicate subject of a tweet
Retweet interesting things you hear from those you follow e.g. RT @lawbore
Use http://bit.ly to shorten urls you flag up (you don’t want to waste your 140 characters on long urls)
See Dr Hazel Hall (Director of the Centre for Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier University) for Twitter Tips in 10 minutes: http://bit.ly/bHgya0

Research funding award news
Opportunity to join committee
Get the latest research news
Invitation to complete survey
Research report published
Call for research proposals
Research journal published
Research report published
From Dr Hazel Hall’s Twitter Tips in 10 mins: http://bit.ly/bHgya0
Call for conference papers

Do I really want to be in a community?
Altruistic reasons
Research moves more quickly if ideas are shared
You might be able to help others
Research is a community
Selfish reasons
You’ll know what other researchers in your field are doing
You’ll get information and references that will save you time and help you spot things that you would have missed.
Fame and reputation
People tend to like to employ people who they have prior knowledge of
Taken from Hooley, T - Networks, Online Networks & Maximising your effectiveness (Digital Researcher event 15/03/10) http://bit.ly/b1LH6O

Delicious or Squidoo – social bookmarking
Sharing your favourite internet links & borrow others!
Building a collaborative space
Promotion of expertise
Great resource for starting research in an area
Accessible anywhere
Incorporate tags

A search for ‘competition law’ will bring up any bookmarks categorised as this by delicious users

Clicking on a link will show all the people who’ve recommended it and under what categories (tags).
Great way to see what other sites people are finding useful

Here’s what a delicious user’s page looks like

Blogs
133, 000,000 blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002.
77% of internet users read blogs
72% say they blog to ‘share expertise’
Facts from Technorati’s ‘State of the Blogosphere 2009’ http://technorati.com/blogging/feature/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009/
To share ideas
Keep active in writing
Establish reputation
Create a network – reach out to others
Have everything in one place e.g. CV, articles, twitter feed, areas of expertise
WHY BOTHER BLOGGING?
FACTS!

Law blogs

Wiki
Allows easy creation/editing of interlinked webpages using simplified markup language.
Ideal for collaborative websites, both on a personal level or in business.
Examples:
Wikipedia
http://wiki.familylorefocus.com/FamilyLawWiki

RSS & Readers
To monitor news & blog buzz
Get news to you, rather than you searching for it
Can be blogs, table of contents, (from publishers) twitter feeds, social bookmarking.
Lexis and Westlaw allow you to set up alerts and RSS for a number of subject areas
Try Google Reader or Bloglines,

Why use RSS?
Currency – stay up-to-date with debates in your area of research
Helps you find networks and gives opportunity to add to the body of scholarly knowledge
Bring all the info you’re interested in together – one-stop shop

Register for Westlaw personal account

Login with it!

Click on RSS Feeds

Create one!

Choose the areas you’re interested in…

How often do you want updating?

All done – now where do you want it to feed to?
Copy and paste the url into a RSS reader…
Click on the RSS logo to add to your favourites bar

Subscribe via your favourites bar

Or RSS Reader

Content aggregators
Gather together all your social media stuff in one place
iGoogle - http://www.google.com/ig
Netvibes - http://www.netvibes.com/
Pageflakes - http://www.pageflakes.com/

Slideshare
Great starting point
Good for promotion
Presentation repository
Doesn’t have to be public

Social citation tools
Zotero
CiteULike
LibraryThing
Connotea
Mendeley
…but don’t forget about RefWorks – paid for by university and very sophisticated. Can share with those outside City.

So what does all this mean?
Research will continue in traditional ways…
Meet new people in your field
Discover sources!
BUT…social media offers exciting options to:
Get ideas!
Join communities!

MyCity can help
Build communities within the university
Blog and wiki capability
Great for cross-disciplinary stuff
Use Activities to allocate tasks – both yours and colleagues
Share documents/links for any collaborative work via MyCity
Share bookmarks
Get it here: http://my.city.ac.uk/

Finding out more…
Social Media Revolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8
Digital research tools: http://digitalresearchtools.pbworks.com/
List of useful social media tools/resources: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/jubileegraduatecentre/training-and-events/tools.phtml and http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/jubileegraduatecentre/training-and-events/resources.phtml
Slides from recent Vitae/BL event: Digital Researcher (15/03/10) http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/219961-223471/Digital-researcher-session-slides-online-.html

Thanks for images (flickr.com CC licence)
Slide 1: ‘Laptop’ by sp3ccylad http://www.flickr.com/photos/sp3ccylad/497684709/
Slide 2: ‘Fear’ by stumayhewhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/stumayhew/3747070194/
Slide 9: ‘Shy’ by monogatarihttp://www.flickr.com/photos/monogatari/754388045/
Slide 10: Facebook Era Blog http://www.thefacebookera.com
Slide 11: ‘Twitter pack’ by carrotcreativehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/carrotcreative/2511539541/
Slide 23: ‘One stop shop sign 1’ by marc e marc http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcemarc/2385399277/
Slide 35: ‘8-sync-from-zotero’ by Mendeley.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendeley/4089542428/
Slide 36: ‘Idea’ by brunkfordbraunhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/brunkfordbraun/330793963/

A big thank you to…
Dan Wilsher for being such a good sport

http://www.pontydysgu.org	23
http://tsheko.wordpress.com	7
http://www.slideshare.net	4
http://web20ineducation2010.ning.com	1
http://www.lmodules.com	1

Researching In A Web 2 0 World (for lawyers)

by Emily Allbon on Apr 02, 2010

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