Friday, April 20, 2012

Using Scribd to publish my research

I have been following a conversation on Twitter, #phdchat, about the value of blogging about one's research, and came across a very interesting blog post by Melissa Terras called "Is blogging and tweeting about research papers worth it? The Verdict"

I'll leave you to read the whole article to get the nitty gritty, but long story short...Melissa has shown that by blogging and tweeting her published articles, she is attracting far more downloads, than if they were just left in the university repository. I highly recommend that you read her article if you are an academic or researcher.

This has spurred me on to being a little more proactive about disseminating my publications, especially as I have one or two coming out this year.

Up to now I have used Internet Archive for storing my work. But it isn't the sexiest looking website, or easiest to use, although is it extremely stable. So for a change, I have started experimenting with Scribd as a repository to store my documents. It is extremely easy to use, and integrates well with other social media. To get an idea of what it looks like, go to the page that presents my latest publication about the midwives and social networking: http://www.scribd.com/doc/88224294/International-networking-connecting-midwives-through-social-media

Do you use Scribd? How have you got on with it?

2 comments:

Tracy Pemberton said...

I haven't used it yet but am thinking that it would be a good one to use in conjunction with a telephone conference call to get everyone on the same page.

Sarah Stewart said...

The other thing to use if Google Docs, then you can edit as you go....you cannot do that with Scribd.