This time round, we’re presenting two longer sessions at the JGC. We have limited preparation time, so we won’t be diverting too far from the original format; combining presentation, discussion, and the opportunity for quick demos – and we are updating our online resource which support the sessions to encourage further exploration of the social media we are discussing. Our key aims remain to raise awareness of the potential of using social media in academic and research work, and provide an opportunity for dissuasion and sharing of best practices. But I hope the new sessions will also indicate both my and LeRoy’s evolving thought processes and perspectives from our individual doctoral research projects and our own personal and reflective use of social media.

Interestingly, the response to this in the session was mixed. Most I’m sure, appreciated the time and effort I saved this guy; the inter-library loan service is an invaluable yet often frustratingly time-consuming provision which many of us rely on. I used the opportunity to emphasise the expectation of reciprocity in social media interactions; that I would hope others would do the same thing for me. Perhaps the uneasiness evident in some of the responses was a natural reaction to the way this small, virtually insignificant act represents one of the ways social media challenges traditional channels of academic access to knowledge. And the recognition that we all influence, and depend on, the complex socio-economic structures that bind Higher Education and academic publishing.

Meanwhile, much of the planning for the second session has been done though we have over two weeks for fine tuning. We are intending to cover blogging, Twitter, content sharing sites and social bookmarking, as well as aggregation and syndication systems. It’s going to be tough to fit so much in if we hope to integrate further opportunities for discussion and interaction!

We also launched the online resource which supports the sessions. This was a key component in our initial proposal particularly as the limited time of the sessions was always going to restrict opportunities to demonstrate specific tools. In addition to the annotated links to key social media we have included a useful selection of tutorials, guides and articles with an emphasis on academic practice. This resource will remain active after the duration of the sessions, and we are hoping it will – along with the sessions – provide a basis for further development in this area.

Early next year, I’m running a short series of sessions with my colleague LeRoy Hill on social media for Postgraduate and Early Career Researchers based at Jubilee Campus. The Jubilee Graduate Centre is hosting the sessions and providing facilities and refreshments. Centre Manager Tracy Sisson is enthusiastic about the project and has been very helpful in organising everything.

We’ve just started publicising the three sessions and hopefully we can get enough interest to fill the 20 places we are allowing for each one. We want the sessions to be informal and quite interactive, and it would be nice to get a mix of attendees from the Schools of Education, Computer Science and Business – could provide an interesting range of perspectives.

We are busy designing the sessions and compiling a complimentary online resource with links to tools, tutorials, and and other useful references – lots to do each side of Christmas.

All sessions take place in B14 from 12 noon to 1.30pm on the following days:

Session One: Monday 18 January 2010
Introductory session providing an overview of social media and a discussion of their underlying concepts, values and technologies.

Session Two: Friday 5 February 2010
A focus on blogging and microblogging, the sharing of resources such as texts, presentations, images and video, and forms of tagging and aggregation.

Session Three: Wednesday 17 February 2010
A focus on social networking, bookmarking and collaboration through social networking sites, wikis, and other participatory tools.

Anyone wishing to attend should contact Tracy at jubilee-graduate-centre@nottingham.ac.uk