1. Disseminating your
Research to Maximise
Impact
Sheila Webber
Information School,
University of Sheffield
July 2014

3. • Session focuses on publicising what you do, not
measuring and evidencing impact
• Main focus of this session: Web 1/2/3
• Elements in this session:
– Introductory Presentation
– Activity - focus on a question/goal + Sharing
Sheila Webber, 2014

4. • Focus on existing working practices (including working
relationship with supervisor)
• Low use of Web 2.0 e.g. 80% of students had never
maintained their own blog for their research, and 78% had
never posted to someone else's blog (from 2011 survey)
• “The cohort students confirmed that, in the early stage of their
studies, they did not feel confident enough in themselves or
their research findings to share them with anyone other than
their supervisor” (p44)
• Concerns about: ensuring their PhD was their own work (not
collaboration); revealing too much of their own ideas
Researchers of the future study
(The British Library and HEFCE, 2012)
But note different findings in Minocha and Petre (2012) Sheila Webber, 2014

5. Background questions
• Why do you want to maximise impact?
• Who do you want to impress? (and what are their
web habits?)
• What media do you like using? (play to your
strengths and preferences)
Sheila Webber, 2014

6. Maximising research impact: the basics
(ie. have some research)
• Do good research
• Publish good articles
• Make it easy for people to find the articles e.g.
– Have titles with sought terms in them
– Listing the article in all your profiles
– Coherent, readable abstract
• Make it easy for people to read the articles (at least to start with
people will want to read before they cite) e.g.
– Open access journals
– Institutional repositories
– Other (legal) self archiving at e.g. Academia.edu
– Send (legal) copies to people you genuinely think might be
interested
Sheila Webber, 2014

7. Places for profiles
• IDs: e.g. Orcid (unique ID)
• Profiles: Google Scholar, Academia.edu, Linked.In,
ResearchGate, Institutional profile
– You need to keep them at least reasonably up to date
– Once you create a profile it may be difficult to delete it
– Better to have selection, which are full and up to date
• Remember highly linked and clicked sites will come
high up e.g. my Sheffield Uni profile always comes
top
Sheila Webber, 2014

8. ORCID - unique ID http://orcid.org/
Sheila Webber, 2014

9. Sheila Webber, 2014

10. I do not practice everything I preach...
• I am sort of old
• I have a fairly unusual name
• I have been on the web, posting things most days, since
1994
• I know a lot of people
• Therefore there is a lot of “Sheila Webber” on the
internet and I get a bit complacent
• However to remain prominent with new generations of
information literacy people I need to keep active and
participating (brand/reputation)
Sheila Webber, 2014

11. Sheila Webber, 2014

12. Improvements? e.g.
• Using the same picture
• Issue of different names Webber/Yoshikawa
• Updating more regularly
• Giving more information about me and my expertise
• Following and endorsing more people so that they
follow and endorse me
Sheila Webber, 2014

13. Forgotten profiles.....
• Worth doing a search to hunt out those profiles you
have created and forgotten (see below)
• May include duplicate identities e.g. on Slideshare,
Youtube (if you have 2 Google identities, for
example)

14. “Top 30% of social
media users” is
scarcely impressive.
However is only
certain applications,
and only if you
connect to them
“Impact measurement” tools may or may not be useful
Sheila Webber, 2014

15. Potentially more useful: http://altmetrics.org/tools/
“altmetrics is
the creation
and study of
new metrics
based on the
Social Web
for analyzing,
and informing
scholarship.”
Sheila Webber, 2014

16. https://impactstory.org/SheilaWebber
Sheila Webber, 2014

17. But note it is a bit hit
and miss - this is
actually by far my
most cited paper (91
on WoS)
“Impactstory is in early
development. See limitations and
take it all with a grain of salt.”
https://impactstory.org/faq
Sheila Webber, 2014

18. (To repeat) Background questions
• Why do you want to maximise impact?
• Who do you want to impress? (and what are their
web habits?)
• What media do you like using? (play to your
strengths and preferences)
Sheila Webber, 2014

19. Develop a strategy
• Which will you concentrate on, how will you use the
channel, how often will you engage/update
• How will people you want to know about it, get to know
about it
• Any metrics associated with the channels you use (and
what they mean)
• What are your indicators and perceived benefits (e.g.
invitations to speak, contact with other researchers)
• Multi channel strategy
Sheila Webber, 2014

20. Multi channel strategy
• Adding paper to your selected profiles (e.g. Academia Edu)
• Blogging & tweeting it
• Summary of the paper on Slideshare
• Youtube video talking about your paper
• Emailing your paper to people that you genuinely think might
be interested in it
• Making a poster of your paper and putting it on Figshare,
Pinterest, Flickr, Slideshare....
• “Claiming” the paper on Google Scholar etc.
• Writing a targeted version for professional magazine (or
whatever)
Sheila Webber, 2014

21. Useful resources
• Bik, H.M. and Goldstein, M.C. (2013). An Introduction to Social Media for
Scientists. PLoS Biology, 11(4): e1001535. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001535
• Coyne, J. (2013, December 9) How to get involved with Twitter.
http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/2013/12/09/advice-to-junior-academics-on-
how-to-get-involved-with-twitter/
• Hall, H. (2014). Using social media for impact.
http://www.slideshare.net/HazelHall/using-social-media-for-impact
• LSE Public Policy Group. (2011). Maximizing the impacts of your research: a
handbook for social scientists. London, England: London School of
Economics. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/the-handbook/ on
their Impact Blog
• Oregon State University. (2014). Web and Emerging Technology Resources
for Scientists and Partners. http://superfund.oregonstate.edu/apha-
roundtable-communication-strategies#.U7So77EbQ-5
• Minocha, S. and Petre. M. (2012). Handbook of social media for researchers
and supervisors: Digital technologies for research dialogues.
https://www.vitae.ac.uk/vitae-publications/reports/innovate-open-university-
social-media-handbook-vitae-2012.pdf/view
Sheila Webber, 2014

22. Activity!
• Form small groups
• Identify a dilemma/question/goal concerning
disseminating your research that one of you has currently
• Can either go round democratically and then pick one, or someone
jump in, it’s up to you
• Questions like: what are you disseminating? Why? Who do you want to
notice it?
• Summarise dilemma/question/goal and suggestions/
advice (or further questions)
– Document on flip paper or on a medium you can email to me so
I can display on screen
• Share – sees if there are more suggestions
Sheila Webber, 2014

23. Sheila Webber
s.webber@shef.ac.uk
Twitter & SL: Sheila Yoshikawa
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Orcid ID 0000-0002-2280-9519
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23396182@N00/
Pictures by Sheila Webber

24. Reference
• The British Library and HEFCE. (2012).
Researchers of Tomorrow: the research behaviour
of Generation Y doctoral students.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/
reports/2012/Researchers-of-Tomorrow.pdf
Sheila Webber, 2014