Scientists and Social Media

Abstract

Personally I enjoy social media. I love Facebook because I can see the brides and grooms and babies of friends. I can connect with people who were a large part of my life when I was a child and young adult. It is gratifying to see what friends from the past are doing now and to virtually meet their families. I can continually see pictures of my relatives in Italy and see how their children are growing. I enjoy all of these connections that would not be a part of my life without social media.Twitter, however, is just not for me. So you won't be getting any Tweets from me, and I won't be searching for the hash tag symbol (which I still think of as the pound sign-#showingmyage).Professionally, I use LinkedIn. I see the advantages of LinkedIn. I understand that there are professional groups that I would like to be able to access, network with, and query. I am also happy to support LinkedIn groups for my academic community.As a scientist, however, I am still deciding which websites I wish to use and how I wish to use them. Like many of you, I receive lots of e-mail from ResearchGate, which has been criticized for this practice (Swinburne University of Technology, 2015) as some of their emails are made to appear as if they are sent by individuals rather than autogenerated. ResearchGate appears to be used by younger scientists at this point rather than more established scientists (Knapp, 2012). Like all social media, it can take a lot of time to use optimally. However, ResearchGate helps me to see what my co-authors are publishing these days and how my articles are being used. Unfortunately, the question of copyright is still being evaluated with ResearchGate. I am continually being asked to upload copies of my articles to this site, but given that most publishers hold the copyright to published work (unless it is in openaccess journals), I have resisted this practice. The question of what is legal and fair in terms of uploading published work is still being established.Then there is Altrimetrics. As an editor of a journal that is published by Wiley-Blackwell, I know that each article published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship has an Altimetrics score that an author (or follower of this kind of research) can click on and view (Stone, 2014). The Altimetrics score follows where an article is picked up by social media; it lets you see how your research is being disseminated in social media around the world; it helps you to identify new researchers interested in your work and to engage in new conversations globally. We all care about the influence of our research. It is very useful to be able to see the kind of blogs, Facebook pages, or tweets generated by your article and to follow discussions of your work.Wiley-Blackwell also provides authors free use of Kudos. Kudos helps to organize information about your research in one place. …