In a recent book chapter (that is currently under review), my colleagues and I discuss the application of citation theories and social theories to popular media and social media metrics (so-called altmetrics) being collected by sites like Altmetric.com, ImpactStory.org, and Plum Analytics. These metrics are being used by organizations such as libraries, publishers, universities, and others to measure scholarly impact. It is an interesting area of research in that it helps us understand how scholarly work is being consumed and disseminated in social media (and thus presumably to an audience outside of the academy).
I come to this research having dabbled in many different areas of studies beginning with neuropsychology (as an undergraduate), human-computer interaction, information architecture, and web design (as a master’s student), and finally social informatics (at the beginning of my Ph.D.), digital humanities (middle of Ph.D.), and scholarly communication and sociology (thesis work). I believe this indirect path has allowed me to consider research questions from different perspectives and allows me to apply various theoretical and methodological lenses to the same problem (as is the case for many Information Science graduates). It’s also a path that has allowed me to contribute to the data collection aspect of this work, as I’ve written several programs that have assisted in the collection and storage of huge amounts of data (hundreds of millions of tweets, publication records, etc.) on scholarly (and other) activities. These experiences have allowed me to contribute to the book chapter mentioned above, several articles and presentations, and continues to allow me to contribute to understanding scholarly communication in social and popular media venues.
I’m looking forward to finalizing my thesis and to continue to examine these social and scholarly communication issues in my current research position at UdeM and in a permanent faculty position with future colleagues.