Researching in a Web 2.0 world:for lawyers

Emily Allbon

It’s a different world out there…I use books, Lexis and

Westlaw…but there’s all this

other stuff people are

using…

Fears…?

I’m too old to do social networking!

Fears…?

I don’t have time!

Fears…?

‘Hey it’s my research – I’m not

sharing it with anyone!’

Fears…?

Only for people with big egos!

Fears…?

Too hard to learn all these new technologies!

Advantages Build up community of interest Pinpoint breaking news, trends, get comments

on brand-new research, cases Finding new collaborators Getting more out of conferences – pre-

conference discussion, networking, participating if absent physically

Find and follow influential people Collect links to share with others

Too shy to get involved? Don’t worry –

not essential Different

degrees of engagement: Passive Creator

Pyramid of engagement

From The Facebook Era blog: http://www.thefacebookera.com Inspired by Guillaume du Gardier

Twitter

Great for breaking news – comment on new cases

What are you doing? Flag up key articles Engage in discussion Superb for

event/conference engagement

Get all

the latest

on a

judgment

as it

breaks

Find audio file from press conference

Link to judgment

Hashtag lets you

search for a case

e.g. #SinghBC

A

Top Twitter tips

Use hashtags # to indicate subject of a tweet Retweet interesting things you hear from

those you follow e.g. RT @lawbore Use http://bit.ly to shorten urls you flag up

(you don’t want to waste your 140 characters on long urls)

See Dr Hazel Hall (Director of the Centre for Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier University) for Twitter Tips in 10 minutes: http://bit.ly/bHgya0

Opportunity to join committeeInvitation to complete survey

Research report publishedCall for research proposals

Research journal publishedResearch report publishedResearch journal published

Research journal published

Call for conference papers

Research funding award news

Get the

latest

researc

h news

From Dr Hazel Hall’s Twitter Tips in 10 mins: http://bit.ly/bHgya0

Do I really want to be in a community?Altruistic reasons

Research moves more quickly if ideas are shared

You might be able to help others

Research is a community

Selfish reasons You’ll know what other

researchers in your field are doing

You’ll get information and references that will save you time and help you spot things that you would have missed.

Fame and reputation People tend to like to

employ people who they have prior knowledge of

Taken from Hooley, T - Networks, Online

Networks & Maximising your effectiveness

(Digital Researcher event 15/03/10)

http://bit.ly/b1LH6O

Delicious or Squidoo – social bookmarking Sharing your

favourite internet links & borrow others!

Building a collaborative space

Promotion of expertise

Great resource for starting research in an area

Accessible anywhere Incorporate tags

A search for ‘competition law’ will bring up any

bookmarks categorised as this by delicious users

Clicking on a link will show all the people who’ve

recommended it and under what categories (tags).

Great way to

see what other

sites people

are finding

useful

Here’s what a delicious user’s page looks like

Blogs

133, 000,000 blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002.

77% of internet users read blogs

72% say they blog to ‘share expertise’

Facts from Technorati’s ‘State of the Blogosphere 2009’ http://technorati.com/blogging/feature/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009/

To share ideas Keep active in writing Establish reputation Create a network –

reach out to others Have everything in one

place e.g. CV, articles, twitter feed, areas of expertise

FACTS!

WHY BOTHER BLOGGING?

Law blogs

Wiki Allows easy

creation/editing of interlinked webpages using simplified markup language.

Ideal for collaborative websites, both on a personal level or in business.

Examples: Wikipedia http://wiki.familyloref

ocus.com/ FamilyLawWiki

RSS & Readers To monitor news & blog

buzz Get news to you, rather

than you searching for it Can be blogs, table of

contents, (from publishers) twitter feeds, social bookmarking.

Lexis and Westlaw allow you to set up alerts and RSS for a number of subject areas

Try Google Reader or Bloglines,

Why use RSS? Currency – stay up-

to-date with debates in your area of research

Helps you find networks and gives opportunity to add to the body of scholarly knowledge

Bring all the info you’re interested in together – one-stop shop

Register for Westlaw personal account

Login with it!

Click on RSS Feeds

Create one!

Choose the areas you’re interested in…

How often do you want updating?

All done – now where do you want it to feed to?

Copy and paste the url into a RSS

reader…Click on the RSS logo to add to your

favourites bar

Subscribe via your favourites bar

Or RSS Reader

Content aggregators

Gather together all your social media stuff in one place iGoogle - http://www.google.com/ig Netvibes - http://www.netvibes.com/ Pageflakes - http://www.pageflakes.com/

Slideshare Great starting point Good for promotion Presentation

repository Doesn’t have to be

public

Social citation tools Zotero CiteULike LibraryThing Connotea Mendeley

…but don’t forget about RefWorks – paid for by university and very sophisticated. Can share with those outside City.

So what does all this mean?

Research will continue in

traditional ways…

BUT…social media offers

exciting options to:

Discover sources!

Meet new people in your field

Get ideas!Join

communities!

MyCity can help

Build communities within the university Blog and wiki capability Great for cross-disciplinary stuff Use Activities to allocate tasks – both yours

and colleagues Share documents/links for any collaborative

work via MyCity Share bookmarks Get it here: http://my.city.ac.uk/

Finding out more… Social Media Revolution:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Digital research tools: http://digitalresearchtools.pbworks.com/

List of useful social media tools/resources: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/jubileegraduatecentre/training-and-events/tools.phtml and http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/jubileegraduatecentre/training-and-events/resources.phtml

Slides from recent Vitae/BL event: Digital Researcher (15/03/10) http://vitae.ac.uk/researchers/219961-223471/Digital-researcher-session-slides-online-.html

Thanks for images (flickr.com CC licence) Slide 1: ‘Laptop’ by sp3ccylad

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sp3ccylad/497684709/ Slide 2: ‘Fear’ by stumayhew

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stumayhew/3747070194/ Slide 9: ‘Shy’ by monogatari

http://www.flickr.com/photos/monogatari/754388045/ Slide 10: Facebook Era Blog http://www.thefacebookera.com Slide 11: ‘Twitter pack’ by carrotcreative

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrotcreative/2511539541/ Slide 23: ‘One stop shop sign 1’ by marc e marc

http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcemarc/2385399277/ Slide 35: ‘8-sync-from-zotero’ by Mendeley.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mendeley/4089542428/ Slide 36: ‘Idea’ by brunkfordbraun

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brunkfordbraun/330793963/

A big thank you to…

Dan Wilsher for being such a good sport