Social media use to enable better research visibility

Abstract

Research visibility is a synthetic characteristic, defining the level of dissemination, accessibility, recognition and impact of the scientific output of a community. It has been influenced tremendouslyby the rapid development of ICT and took full advantage of the plethora of ICT tools. The paradigm of Open Science has organically emerged during the last years, advocating for extending the principles of openness to the whole research cycle, fostering sharing and collaboration as early as possible. The use of various ICT-based tools enables the entire research cycle - from literature search and review, reference management, research data processing, publication and peer-review to dissemination of results and outreach within the global academic community. The availability of various customisable online services for researchers, especially social media, contributes significantly to the increase of their presence and visibility in the scientific communities at national, regional and global levels. This paper aims to present an overview of the possibilities afforded to researchers by social media and social networking, its benefits and potential drawbacks, as well as its implications for the future of scholarly communication and research evaluation, the reasons and motivations why researchers are engaging in social media or not.