The LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog recently has launched a guide for academics and researchers on using Twitter for teaching, research, and impact activities. Amy Mollett and Danielle Moran discuss how Twitter can be of great use for academics.
How can Twitter, which limits users to 140 characters per tweet, have any relevance to universities and academia, where journal articles are 3,000 to 8,000 words long, and where books contain 80,000 words? Can anything of academic value ever be said in just 140 characters?
The LSE Impact of Social Sciences project, which aims to investigate the impact of academic work in the social sciences on government policymaking, business and civil society, has launched a guide on its blog answering these questions, showing new users how to get started on Twitter and hone their tweeting style, as well as offering advice to more more experienced users on how to use Twitter for research projects, alongside blogging, and for use in teaching.
Professor Patrick Dunleavy, head of the Impact project and co-author of the guide, writes:
I know that some people in academia will think that Twitter is not for them. But I hope that this new guide may help many other colleagues, who are interested in this new development but don’t know how it works, to get started themselves on Twitter. They can then see if it is useful for expanding their access to people, networks and up to date materials. And for those who are already far more experienced on Twitter than us, we would be grateful for any ideas for improvements to the guide
Since its launch two weeks ago, the guide has had over 5000 downloads and feedback from a variety of sectors.
Download the PDF for more on:
- Building your following and managing your profile
- Using Twitter to maximise the impact of your research project
- Making the most of Twitter alongside your own blog
- Using course accounts with students
- A step by step guide to adding a Twitter feed to Moodle
- Extra resources and links to blog posts and articles on academic blogging and impact
You can see more about the guide at the Impact of Social Sciences blog.
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This is interesting thanks – I’m using it to entice some of my less techy colleagues to join the wonderful world of Twitter. While we aren’t an academic org (it’s an NGO) I think there are some useful lessons in here.
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