What’s the point of a blogging academic?
This question as well as issues about the nature of academic impact were raised and discussed at a recent major national conference on “Investigating Academic Impact” held at the LSE in June. The presentations, podcasts and photos from the event are now available online.
Prof. Patrick Dunleavy’s presentation on the definition of impact and the different ways in which academic work interfaces with and is used by non-academic stakeholders is interesting and informative. For a more light-hearted angle, try Prof. Stephen Curry’s presentation on Blogging for Impact. Dunleavy and Gilston followed up on this in the afternoon session on Improving Academic Communication, including some tips on how to blog and the power of promoting your research through blogging and other forms of social media.
Thanks for this. I find this whole area really interesting – academics are often seen as a bit fusty (think leather elbow patches!) so it’s particularly important that we engage in this sort of thing. It seems that Twitter has become the main way funding bodies and institutions communicate now. Just to add something else to the mix, I’ve come across some great online open-access lectures recently. Warwick seem to be particularly good at uploading lectures and talks on to itunesu. And TED is also a great, inspiring resource.
Yes indeed, I think this will increasingly become the norm as the medium (i.e. social media) becomes more embedded in daily academic life and as universities seek to out-compete one another in terms of the “product” they offer to students. There’s some great critical thinking about OERs (Open Educational Resources) going on over at CERD in the University, e.g. http://joss.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2011/01/28/misunderstanding-capitalism-and-oer/