The more things change, the more they stay the same...”: Why digital journals...
From academic blog to networked scholarly community
1. From academic blog to networked
scholarly community:
Lessons from the LSE Impact Blog
Strand Symposium on Public Engagement - King’s College London - 26 June 2015
Sierra Williams
Managing Editor of the LSE Impact Blog
2. Outline
• Impact of Social Sciences project background and
community of academic blogging
• Social media and visibility of academic work - how
online engagement fits with wider academic career
incentives
• What are some of the challenges and constraints
we’ve come across?
3.
4. Journal Article Blog article
Length 8,000 words 800-1000 words
Timing Yearly Weekly
Multimedia Black and white charts? Colour, audio, video
Audience Tens or hundreds Potentially thousands
Availability Paywall Open Access
Blog article vs journal article
5. Individual vs multi-author blogs
Individual Blog Multi-Author blogs (PPG-run blogs)
Posts 1-3 per week 2-3 per day
Social Media Fit around work schedule 1 tweet every hour with Managing
Editors responsible for active
engagement
Multimedia Whatever the author can manage 1 team member for 8 blogs dedicated
to podcasts, videos, special features
Audience/
Public
Engagement
Those interested in your work Those interested in clearly
communicated research findings,
evidence-based discourse, general
topics
University support n/a We provide training and editorial
support for academics internal and
external to LSE.
Control Full control of content, platform,
direction
LSE server and CMS limitations;
Academic editorial board structure.
6.
7.
8. Discipline % not cited
Medicine 12
Natural sciences 27
Social sciences 32
Humanities 82
Source: Dahlia Remler (2014). “Are 90% of academic papers really never cited?” LSE Impact Blog
9. Capturing and communicating new process of
research impact
Source: Xianwen Wang (2014). “From Attention to Citation: What are altmetrics and how do they
work?” LSE Impact Blog
10. What are the challenging issues
around public engagement and
academic blogging – for individual
researchers and departments?
11. Challenge 1: TIME!
• The focus on using social media (and impact) can
feel like a new responsibility in addition to all the
other things academics do
• It takes new skills that have to be learnt and a new
way of engaging with stakeholders and
practitioners that are unfamiliar (and
unsupported?)
• Social media can seem to feed into an academic
culture of “time-shortage and hurry sickness”
12. Challenge 2: Commitment
• Blogs only get read if you write them and then also
disseminate them to a target audience
• Blog audiences like regular content – once you start
it takes time and resources to keep going
• You might have to justify the time you spend on
social media to colleagues and senior staff
13. Challenge 3: One size doesn’t fit all
• Blogging is only useful for some audiences, so is not
appropriate for all research projects
• Not all academics have to be on social media, it
shouldn’t be compulsory
• Early career researchers may need to focus their
effort on writing and publishing
• Social media can be a scary place, especially for
women. More institutional support necessary.
14. Challenge 4: Comments and Copyright
• You can receive instant feedback on your work, and
it is all public. Can be very nerve-wracking for
individual academics and universities
• There are uncertainties about how open you should
be about work in progress, does this infringe
copyright of previous or future articles?
• Publishers still hold much of the power and prestige
in the information sharing landscape – how can
libraries and university presses look to challenge
the status quo?
15. Source: Gartner Hype Cycle by Jeremy Kemp (CC BY-SA 3.0) mentioned in Kathleen Fitzpatrick (2015)
“Scholarly communities face crucial social challenges in maintaining digital networks that can sustain
participation. LSE Impact Blog.
16. For more details:
The Impact of the Social Sciences
(Sage, 2014)
Maximising the Impacts of your
Research: A handbook for social
scientists (2011)
Using Twitter in University Research,
Teaching and Impact Activities:
A guide for academics and researchers
(2011)Email: impactofsocialsciences@lse.
ac.uk
Twitter: @lseimpactblog
Facebook: Impact of Social Sciences
