This article is an encapsulation of the presentation I did in a webinar hosted by Emerald Insight on June 22, 2022. The full webinar may be accessed via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWhVBbkvxj8&t=1205s
Once your research has been published, what is next? Do you have a role to play in getting it to the audiences for which it was intended? Why do you need to do so anyway? And, if you need to, what technologies should you use? It is important that you, the researcher, communicate information about your published works to various publics by utilising technology. Some synonyms for ‘advertising’ as used in the title of this piece are, promoting, marketing, and communicating. I will explore four areas:
- Why should you communicate your research?
- What are some considerations in choosing technologies to communicate your research?
- What factors should you consider in assigning keywords to your research?
- What are some technological tools available to you for communicating your research?
- Why should you communicate your research?
One of the major reasons for promoting your research is the need to show evidence of the impact – reach and influence – of your work. You also want to channel your research to the relevant audiences. Is your research reaching its intended audience? Are audiences other than those for whom it is intended, viewing, downloading, accessing and citing your work? Additionally you need to communicate your research in order to network with other researchers and stakeholders in your area of research, for visibility and discoverability and to facilitate retrievability.
You are the best person to market your research. You know your research. You can portion it into the pieces your stakeholders need to access. You may package it in images, videos, audio, and other avenues that the user/stakeholder/student/patron/public/parents/masses can easily find. Additionally, you may distribute/share your research using various technological tools, which I will identify. But, before I identify the technologies here are some considerations.
- Assigning Keywords.
For the end-user or audience requiring information, looking for articles, research or other information, is like looking for a needle in a haystack. How can users get to your research? Your response may be, by entering the title of the research. But, unless a lecturer, supervisor, colleague, or perhaps a reference list points them to your research, the user does not know it exists. A search of the literature is necessary to yield results. You want your published research to show up whenever and wherever users search online. They should be able to stumble upon your research in regardless of its format: audio, video, podcast, script, review, full text, abstract, citation, document, proceedings and depending on their information need.
This is where keywords come in. Keywords of course are the terms you assign to your publication to facilitate retrievability. You should consider three major factors in assigning keywords to your research (based on your academic discipline) since the process of visibility advertising/marketing begins there. These three factors are: 1) Relevance: How well is your research represented in the term you choose? 2) Search Volume: Choose terms that do not yield an extremely high volume of hits or your work would be lost. Conversely, do not use terms that are rarely used or your work would not be found. Pay attention to how many times that particular keyword you wish to use is searched for a particular period. 3) User Intent: Try to think like the user in assigning terms. What answers or resource may they be looking for?
For additional information on finding information sources, you may check my library guide at: https://libguides.uwi.edu/simple-search-strategies
- Considerations for choosing technological tools
The first question you should consider in choosing technologies to advertise research is who is the intended audience? Audiences may include researchers, scholars, students, practitioners, leaders, policy makers, or other communities. Secondly, you need to identify where these audiences are located. You then need to match technologies to your audience. Which technologies will channel them or allow them access to your work? The format in which your information is packaged will also determine the best-fit technological tool. Is the format image, audio, video, data set or other?
- What are some technological tools available to you for communicating your research?
The word technologies in my sub-heading refers to media and networking platforms. Two networking tools are specifically available to researchers of The UWI. These tools are UWISpace and UWIScholar. UWISpace is the institutional repository of The UWI. Research can be packaged in multiple formats such as audio, video, images, texts and even datasets. The reach of UWISpace is international. UWIScholar is a centralised, searchable experts and research networking database of biodata and other information such as research interests, research activity, public service, consultancies, education and training, teaching activities, awards, grants & funding and social media profile.
Another networking platform for global researchers to connect, collaborate and share research topics based on similarity of interest is ResearchGate.
As a researcher, you may harness the power of social media to increase your reach. Utilise relevant hashtags to channel your research. Talk about your paper to provide awareness. Utilise the analytics to gauge your reach. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube are just a few of the large popular platforms that you may utilise to connect with both the public and scholarly community. Remember, as I mentioned earlier, the format in which your research is packaged should determine the social media platform you select for publicising your research.
Blogs are also useful for promoting your research. You may share select portions, features or excerpts of your work that you deem relevant. Additionally, do not forget to provide a link to where your work is located.
Unbelievably, you can also use your email signature as a means of promoting your research! Advertise select research by tagging it at the end of your email! Just add a link to your latest or featured publication to your signature.
I have shared with you the reasons why you should communicate your research, considerations in choosing technologies, factors to consider in assigning keywords to your research, and technologies (Social media and networking platforms) that you can utilise to communicate your research. I now encourage you to promote/market/communicate or, as stated in the title, engage in ART – Advertise your Research with Technologies. This will allow for visibility, discoverability and retrievability of your research!
Petronetta (Petra) Pierre-Robertson is the Documentalist at the School of Education, The UWI, St. Augustine. She is also the Managing Editor for the peer-reviewed journal of the school. Petra’s current research interests are: User Training, Online Information Retrieval, Domestic Violence and Literature as Therapy.
