1.
and new forms of publishing in career perspective.
Blogging, open access
Greg Downey
Associate Professor of Anthropology
http://blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology
greg.downey@mq.edu.au
Career Development Session
Woolcock Institute of Medical Research

2.
My background: blogging for collaboration (conference, volume…
Blogging trajectory from personal to network (PLOS Blogs)

3.
Why be online?
Community of researchers as well as public.
The ‘public’ includes researchers in other disciplines.
Leverage online publication to increase impact
of publications.
Most photos from pixabay.com, public domain

4.
Clarifying the situation
• Quantification of research through
publication and grants (ERA).
• For science fields, citations crucial.
• All academics are time starved.
• Employment market for academics
varies, but not brilliant.
• Online activity (blogging, Twitter) is
a time waster, for those who have
time to waste — making sure it’s not
that for you with boundaries.

5.
What should I do first?
Capture your online identity. My Google problem was
this other ‘Greg
Downey’ (might be
embarrassing photos,
prior work ID…).
The more I create
valuable content, the
more I push my own
identity up in the search
algorithms.
Purchase website now
(use simple Domain
registration or even
WordPress c. $15/year).

6.
What should I do first?
Clean up your online identity(?)

7.
Establishing a basic presence
7
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Online CV +
business card
Personal webpage
*not LinkedIn
Ground zero for an online identity is to produce basic forms of self-
archiving and distribution.
May help to crowd out less appealing online identity elements.
Google scholar
Citation tracking +
subject alerts
Publication page
Academia.edu, Research Gate.
Sharing publications
+ non-published work

8.
Personal homepage

9.
Personal homepage
• Especially early in career,
better to have direct control
over your web presence
because of chance of
institutional move (unis will
delete your ID).
• Simplest way is to use
WordPress (blogging platform)
or free/low cost service (Wixx,
Weebly).

10.
Networking:
What platform
should I use?

11.
• Which platform to you use
regularly?
• All have drawbacks (commercial
motives, limited reach, etc.).
• One of my best experiences is
with a closed Facebook group. I
did not start it, but it’s become a
remarkable community to share
news.
• Approaching 5000 members,
with a couple dozen really active
posters.

12.
Blogging
Why? How? Getting the most out of it.

13.
Image from Bik HM, Goldstein
MC (2013) An Introduction to
Social Media for Scientists.
PLoS Biol 11(4): e1001535.
doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.100153
5

14.
• Australian innovation that’s now global (UK, US editions +).
• Monthly audience of 2.5 million BUT because of Creative
Commons licensing, 19 million readers of TC content.
• Not-for-profit, academics, no ads, free to the public.
• 20k+ academics are registered authors.

15.
• Audience is highly education but 80%
are NOT academics.
• Editors work with authors to get the
writing style correct (no jargon, links
rather than citations, etc.).
• Great training in writing for general
audience.
• Register as an author to pitch ideas to
the editors (they control who writes
and what gets published).
• Can lead to great knock-on public
outreach (republication, interviews,
and follow-up stories).

16.
But what about starting my own blog?

17.
Starting your own…
• Challenge to build an audience (consider guest post or network).
• Use blogging to increase impact of your academic publications.
• In some fields, majority of publications NEVER cited (no impact).
Blogging and Tweeting about science has been shown
empirically to increase impact & citation.

18.
Writing for a blog.
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Keep it short. Ideally <2000 words (really <1000 is better).
• Write early, write often, write short.
• Blog is conversation, not finished product.
• Choose the right platform (WordPress).
• Titles like headlines, not journal articles.
• Use aggregator (Science Seeker - LOC).
• Join a network? Guest post?
• Consider media — photos, infographics, YouTube/Vimeo videos,
podcasts.
• DON’T STEAL images or content (Pixabay, Flickr with attribution).

19.
If you’re going to blog…
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Get a comments policy (I’m controlling; zero trolls).
• Use targeted Twitter to maximise blog impact (and
impact of published work).
• Get good metrics (Google Analytics).
• Put blog post links into your online identity
(academia.edu, personal page, LinkedIn).
• Blog about your scholarly writing (timing).
• Blog generously (but don’t count on reciprocity).
• It’s okay to stop writing a blog!

20.
After you write the blog…
Getting a DOI for post (Figshare).
Reposting on sites like Medium.
I’m experimenting a lot with re-publication & even bundling for ebooks.
The Winnower.

21.
Making Twitter work for you.
23
DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• In many fields, Twitter is powerful vehicle
for sharing new research.
• Use hashtags.
• Build following by targeted retweets,
acknowledgments, and use.
• Provide valuable information! (Include
fact, not just link…)
• Share bits of info from research.
• Twitter has essentially replaced
‘comments’ on blogs (very few).
• Comment on other people’s research.

22.
Image from Bik HM, Goldstein MC (2013) An
Introduction to Social Media for Scientists. PLoS Biol
11(4): e1001535. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
Online communication fears

23.
Open publishing
Why? How? Getting the most out of it.

24.
from Priem, Jason. "Scholarship: Beyond the paper."
Nature 495.7442 (2013): 437-440.

25.
Why open access?
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DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY
• Estimated that 2 million articles published each year.
OA increases likelihood of being read & cited.
• It’s Australian Research Council policy (as of 2013)!
• Ethical and practical reasons to support OA.
• HOWEVER, profession demands certain forms of
publication.
• Find out the self-archiving options available at your
target journals.
• Become familiar with the ‘predatory publishers’ list.
Beall’s List: http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

26.
http://aoasg.org.au/resources/benefits-of-open-access/

27.
Conclusion
Publishing with an eye to the future – yours & ours.
Intermission

28.
Conclusion
• New technologies creating new
opportunities, constrained by old structures
(including promotion & hiring).
• Change will come, so we can write on an
emerging landscape.
• Change needs to be driven by mid-career
academics (if junior academic, be smart:
balanced & leverage online writing; don’t
specialise in new media UNLESS that’s
your field).
• Exciting new opportunities & bright spots,
especially given how bleak some of
publishing is.

29.
Thanks for your attention.
blogs.plos.org/neuroanthropology
greg.downey@mq.edu.au

30.
Resources
• Blogging - WordPress, Blogger
• Science blogging aggregator: Science
Seeker (free registration required).
• Getting DOIs: Figshare, The Winnower.
• Creating publications pages:
Academia.edu or ResearchGate (RG more
for sciences; Academia for social sci).
• Public domain images: Wikimedia
commons, Pixabay.
• Google Scholar allows personal accounts
to easily track citations of your work (even
if flawed, good alert function).