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Analysis and news


Research impact and academic blogging Research impact is being considered more urgently as researchers must increasingly justify their relevance, writes Janet Salmons


Research impact is being considered more urgently as researchers must increasingly justify their relevance and the merit for using public and private funds to support their inquiries. Communication is central to efforts


involved with bridging the worlds of academia and practice. Alas, traditional ways academics communicate, such as articles in peer reviewed journals and conference presentations, rarely reach beyond their own disciplinary followers. Academic blogs can serve an important role in an overall strategy to accomplish this complex goal. Research Impact Canada, a pan- Canadian network of universities, discusses impact as ‘creating value from knowledge.’ Two types of value spelled out by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) are academic and social. The ESRC suggests that academic impact ‘is the demonstrable contribution that excellent social and economic research makes in shifting understanding and advancing scientific, method, theory and application across and within disciplines’ while ‘economic and societal impact is the demonstrable contribution that excellent social and economic research makes to society and the economy, and its benefits to individuals, organisations and/or nations.’ The ESRC points out factors that support research impact include establishing networks and relationships with research users. The US Department of Health & Human Services suggests that effective dissemination relies on the use of varied channels – including online communications.


Research communication and academic blogs Academic blogs are defined here as online sites offered by scholars (and students who are aspiring scholars) that feature timely, informal, short pieces of writing. Blogs can serve as a hub in a publication


ecosystem: social media posts attract blog visitors while blog posts link to more


22 Research Information December 2018/January 2019


Table 1


“Blogs can serve as a hub in a publication ecosystem”


formal academic journals or books. Blogs are characterised by flexible formats and varied stylistic options for the interface. Features are determined by owner(s). Some blogs rely entirely on text, while others include varied content that includes both written and visual ways to communicate through media and graphics. Blogs contrast with social media sites, where formats and length of posts are determined by the companies that


own the platforms, and users are unable to restrict advertising or prevent uses of posted material for commercial purposes.


Purpose and target audiences A review of contemporary academic uses of blogs shows three ways they are used to achieve different purposes. Each type has the potential for contributing to positive research impact. Researcher-to-researcher blogs


aim to promote sharing and exchange between scholars with common interests. Researcher-to-participant blogs are used within the research itself, as a way to inform participants. They are used to communicate credibility for the study. They can include background on the


@researchinfo | www.researchinformation.info


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