Library Guides: Keeping Your Research Current: Social media (2024)

Manyacademic researchers or research groups use social media to alert their colleagues to research developments; or share information using scholarly communities on the web.These sites can be a valuable way of keeping up to date. X (Twitter), Mastodon, blogs, email lists or discussion groups and online scholarly communities are some of the ways in which you can keep up to date.

The London School of Economics'Impact of Social Sciencesblogis an example of a group using Xto alert 'followers' to new blog content and topromote discussion.

The grouphas also produced a useful introduction for academics in 2011 entitled Using Twitter [X] in university research, teaching and impact activities: A guide for academics and researchers.A similar, more recent guide was written by Nikki Rust in the PLoS SciComm blog;A nifty guide for academics on using Twitter.

X is a microblogging service that is optimised formobile devices. Although changes to the site throughout 2022 and 2023 have affected its reputation, in particular with the removal of "Verified" accounts which were previously useful for confirming that an Xaccount appearing to be a well-known researcher or journalist was in fact run by that person, X remains usefulfor learning about and sharing research. You can:

• Followkey researchers and research groups in your subject areawho use X to alert followers to new posts in anacademic blog ornew articles or breaking news.
• Reply to journalists or scholars in your field andrepostlinks to articles through your own account to pass them on topeople whofollowyou.
• Alert your followersto your research interests and exchange ideas and information.
• Follow conference hashtags to network and keep up to date with conference presentations, speakers and events.

To learn more abouthow X works check out the New User FAQ

Anatomy of an X post

LinkedIn is a professional network site. It is used in recruitment to view publicly-visible employment histories that users add to their profiles on the site, but can also be used by individuals to connect with current and past co-workers and others in their industry, sharelatest research and see updates from people in their network.

Updates, which can contain text and/or images,posted by people you have connectedwith appear in your Feed. LinkedIn's interface is quite similar to Facebook. You can also follow hashtags on the site like on X, to see all posts that have a particular tag attached to them.

Networks or Communities of Scholars can be broad and global in scale, such as Arxiv or SSRN, ormore nationally or locally focused,such as the Centre for Entrepreneurial Management and Innovation (CEMI). These communities can be hostedand operate onweb sites, blogsor email (discussion) lists.

Finding an online community of fellow researchers can be a valuable way of hearing about developments in your subject area and exchanging ideas. You can usually subscribe to these communities using RSS and manyuse X to alert followers to new posts or articles.

Examples of research networks:

• Collaborative Research Networks (Law)

  Networks organised under the Law and Society Association (international)

• Australian Type 1 Diabetes Clinical Research Network

• Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)

• @UWALibrary

  Posting on behalf of the UWA Library.

• @ConversationEDU

  The education focussed feed for 'The Conversation' - an independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public.

• @CHASS_Aus

  The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) promotes and provides advocacy services for the HASS sectors in Australia.

• @ThinkEmotions

  The UWA Centre for the History of Emotions tweet about European history between 1100-1800 and its impact on Australia.

• @TEDTalks

  The official feed for TED.com

• @TheEconomist

  Official site for The Economist. Follow for article updates, events and news from The Economist. (UWA staff and students have access to full text of The Economist).

• @OzMark17 (Mark Pegrum)

  UWA Lecturer in e-learning, and researcher & writer on digital technologies in education.

• @LabourLawRN

  Labour Law Research Network

• @UWAResearch

  Official UWA Twitter account promoting the latest research from UWA.

• Dr Anna Nowak (@perth_meso_dr

  University of Western Australia Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research)

• The Conversation blog

  Notes from The Conversation.

• Nature blogs

  The latest science news and analysis from the world's leading research journals, jobs, information and services.

• The Official PLOS Blog

  Official blog of the nonprofit Open Access publisher PLOS.

• BioMed Central Blogs

  Dedicated to science, technology and medicine.

• Harvard Business Review Blog Network

  Blog posts and articles on a wide range of business and management topics

• Opino Juris

  Forum for informed discussion and lively debate about international law and international relations

• SymOmega

  A blog by mathematicians at The University of Western Australia. They discuss a mix of mathematical research, expository stuff and topics of general interest to mathematicians.

• Feedspot: Top 30 Australian Law Blogs and Websites for Australian Lawyers

  Contains blogs from different fields of law practice.

• Life in the Fast Lane

  An entertaining and informative Australasian blog focusing on critical care, emergency medicine and toxicology.

• The Innovator Blog, Centre for Entrepreneurial Management (CEMI)

  In depth discussion of topics relating to innovation and enterprise. It aims to draw on research findings undertaken by CEMI that are not readily available through other channels

• Ideas can....

  Blog for the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Includes the wellbeing of the humanities and social sciences research and learning enterprise in Canada.
  

• The Conversation

  General commentary from a research and academic perspective.

• LinkedIn

  A professional networking site.

• Research Gate

  Connect with other academic researchers.

• Academia.edu

  Connect with other academic researchers.

• YouTube

  Use multimedia to share your research.

• JISCMAIL

  UK education and research lists

• Catalist

  Search lists by topic or browse by country

• Mendeley

  Store references to research papers, create a profile, see what others have saved. Can also be used as a full-featured citation management software

• Young Engineers Australia

  Community for student and graduate engineers with latest news from Young Engineers Australia and Engineers Australia.

Except for logos, Canva designs or where otherwise indicated, content in this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence.