A guide to using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities

The London School of Economics and Political Science’ s e Impact of Social Sciences Project have just produced a Twitter Guide for Academics:

Using Twitter in university research, teaching and impact activities

It’s available under a Creative Commons license.

Quoting from the introduction it explains:

“Twitter is a form of free micro-blogging which allows users to send and receive short public messages called tweets. Tweets are limited to no more than 140 characters, and can include links to blogs, web pages, images, videos and all other material online.You can start tweeting in 10 minutes, anytime, from your computer, smart phone or tablet.

By following other people and sources you are able to build up an instant, personalized Twitter feed that meets your full range of interests, both academic and personal. Thousands of academics and researchers at all levels of experience and across all disciplines already use Twitter daily, alongside more than 200 million other users.

Yet how can such a brief medium 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?

This guide answers these questions, showing you how to get started on Twitter and showing you how Twitter can be used as a resource for research, teaching and impact activities.”

So if you are hesitating about using Twitter get a copy and see if it is for you!

You can also sign up for the Digital Development’s team’s Twitter courses, they have both beginner’s and more advanced.

You can follow the Digitally Ready project at: @DigitallyReady and you can follow me at: @ShirleyEarley.

About Shirley Williams

Shirley Williams is a National Teaching Fellow and Professor of Learning Technologies at the University of Reading. She is involved in a number of research projects related to learning technologies, communities, social networks, Digital identity and knowledge transfer. She also enjoys reading and cooking.
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