Online tools for researchers Vladimir Teif

…for busy, skeptical researchers  Dealing with literature:  finding published works  publishing your own research  promoting your publications  discussing and evaluating  Social networking:  improving your scientific visibility  getting help and helping others  Electronic laboratory notebooks  Data sharing, crowdfunding, etc

Biomedical literature in PubMed Includes only peer-reviewed journals Advanced search (author, year, journal, etc) Not possible to track citations

Literature in Google Scholar Includes PDFs from all respectful sources (such as e.g. your personal web site ) Allows to sign up for search alerts It is possible to track citations Allows to create your own profile

Hunting for citations This is the most cited paper in the field; many recent papers will cite it We can’t read 18,900 papers

Let’s find recent citations Screening through titles of 74 papers is already realistic

How to assure that people read your works? Not all papers will be even read!

Publishing your own research  Peer-reviewed journals. You know this.  Preprint archives for biology:  bioRxiv.org – since 2013, only biology (CSHL) bioRxiv.org  arXiv.org – since 1991, all fields (LANL, CERN) arXiv.org  hal.archives-ouvertes.fr – since 2000 (CNRS) hal.archives-ouvertes.fr  PeerJ, f1000research, Reseachgate.net, etc PeerJf1000researchReseachgate.net Publish both in journal and preprint  more citations for the same work

Preprints are common in physics Biologists were historically less open, but this is changing Biologists were historically less open, but this is changing

Ask your supervisor first!

University repository After 1 st April 2016 we will be required to submit all publications to the university repository within three months of acceptance This is needed for UK research evaluation (REF) Submit everything – the repository personnel will then sort out with copyright restrictions

Promoting your publications We’ll talk about this This is not online

Peer-reviewer roles, really? Fine, if you can do this

Peer-reviewer roles, really? Most scientists agree to review almost all manuscripts they get Only few scientists can be selective in what they review

Don’t trust, it’s a Twitter poll Don’t trust, it’s a Twitter poll Don’t invest in blogs (?) These are good

Promoting your work online  Start slowly (low risk, low gain):  Upload PDFs to researchgate.net,researchgate.net academia.eduacademia.edu, linkedin.com, etclinkedin.com  Edit Wikipedia, re-write the history  Social networking (high risk, high gain):  Participate in discussions  Participate in open Post-Publication Peer-Review; invite PPPR of your works

Online networking

Be careful with networking  Internet is fun and addictive  Keep track of your time  Keep asking yourself, why are you here  It is very easy to offend someone online  Behave as if you are at a conference  No politics, no bad words, etc  Do not mix personal and professional

Do not do like this professor:

~100,000 scientists on Twitter … form a small, strongly connected community

So why online networking? Manca S. and Ranieri M. (2016) “Yes for sharing, no for teaching!”: Social Media in academic practices, The Internet and Higher Education, 29, 63–74 Because ~10% scientists already use Twitter Because it can be fast and effective:  e.g., technical Q & A within 24 hours (Researchgate, SeqAnswers, Biostars, etc)  e.g. conference announcement reaches 5,000 target scientists in 1 hour on Twitter Because it is fun!