Weekly Update

The week that passed marked the first week of serious work into my research on the use of social media by scholars. I will try to do a weekly update as to what I have looked at and found, very briefly in order for you to follow my research.

This week I concentrated on a few things, mainly:
-general key terms
-important authors in the field and known for using/researching social media
-disadvantages of certain Internet tactics (ie. bookmarking or tagging)
-how links are shared and shortened
-popular bookmarking sites
-list of popular social networking and media sites used by scholars
-most popular citation sites
-most popular social media sites used by scholars

I looked at the concept of social bookmarking (method used by Internet users to organize, store, manage and search bookmarks of resources online), and tagging (the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content).

I looked at different authors that have come up as important scholars in the field of social media. I have also gone beyond just authors and scholars but also professionals and other social media experts in order to get an understanding of how different online tools are utilized and what they offer.

Next I looked at the disadvantages of informal bookmarking and how people can track sites that have been bookmarked. This includes direct bookmarking of the site as well as informal sharing of the site through sharing links. Online tools which shorten URLs were also looked at briefly in terms of the benefits of shortening website links (mainly to stay within or simplify when links are sent).

I then looked more closely at various bookmarking sites which are most popular. I gathered lists of these sites then went onto each one to generate a one line description of the type of service they offer.

Perhaps my most interesting research was looking at which social media sites are most popular amongst scholars. I once again scrounged online sources to find the most popular sites which focus on scholarly topics or have been most utilized by scholars. I wrote out an extensive list and began visiting each website to write a brief description of the service offered. This list is very important as it will help me delve further into how various social media sites attract scholars and how they are being utilized by them on a daily basis. This will no doubt be the source of much further analysis which will become the base of my research.

That’s all for last week, lots done and still lots to do!
Until next time.