Andy Tattersall talk at Spot On 2017 at The Francis Crick Institute

Andy Tattersall gave a short lightning talk on the title: "Isn't it time we had a research equivalent of the learning technologist?" at this year's Spot On Conference at The Francis Crick Institute. The recording of the talk and the questions afterwards can be viewed below with the abstract.




Abstract:

Researchers increasingly need to understand a multitude of topics including digital copyright, impact, altmetrics, communications, social media, research data management and sharing, open access, infographics, video, animation and mobile apps. Yet all too often they have little time, support or encouragement to explore these topics and have they need to make informed judgements on the most appropriate technologies.

For decades skilled professionals have provided researchers with excellent services around collection management, content curation and discovery, critical appraisal and reference management among other services. More recently they have stepped into new areas of support and applied their knowledge around social media, metrics, scholarly communications and research data management. Yet despite this there has been no formal role to step into departments and faculties to address the shortfalls of support at the research coalface. The idea of the research technologist is a professional role who like a Swiss Army Knife is adapt at utilising new tools and technologies to support a modern, fit for purpose, research cycle. The purpose of the workshop would be to discuss this idea and whether the research community believes it is something they would benefit from and what areas they most need frontline support.

 

Andy Tattersall named as a Jisc Social Media Superstar for 2017

Andy Tattersall has been named in Jisc's top ten HE Social Media Superstars of 2017. Andy was nominated for the award after his work creating ScHARR’s YouTube channel, Andy’s video series’ include ScHARR Bite Size series – which teaches the viewer “something new in 20 minutes”.  His Research Hacks series contains 44 helpful videos, and the more recent Cite Hacks series features engaging illustrations and information – such as this video that covers blogging about your research.  

 

Judges’ comments: Andy’s use of YouTube playlists to give bite-sized information is a really effective way to share knowledge simply with colleagues and peers across the world.  We thought the Cite Hacks series was particularly is good.

 

 

Andy said about social media

“Higher education is now in a continual state of change thanks to the web and social media, it offers a wealth of new opportunities for teaching and learning, knowledge sharing and opening up of our resources across the globe. Video plays an important part of that change as it allows bite size, cheap, accessible knowledge that is shared on all platforms and in the classroom, lab, or even on the bus.”

As well as @Andy_Tattersall, Andy can be found tweeting from @ScHARRSheffield and @MultiMediaIT . Each winner not only makes the top ten list, but also wins an edtech experience for their class, robot and virtual reality included. The competition sets out to celebrate the innovative ways in which social media is being used in HE to add value to sector-practice.

The final line-up was chosen by a panel of HE and social media experts, including; Jisc’s social media team, Sarah Knight (head of change – student experience), and award-winning social media editor for Times Higher Education, Chris Parr.

Richard Tatnall, digital communications manager at Jisc said:
“What really impressed me was the impact our superstars are making with their social media activity. We saw great examples of reaching vast audiences with a single message on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, as well as making big impacts on a small, defined audiences in closed and private networks. There’s no question that social media can be highly resource intensive so being able to demonstrate the value it delivers is vital and our superstars were able to do this in spades.”

Andy Tattersall interviewed by the Librarians Aloud Podcast

I was really delighted to be interviewed by Laura Rooney Ferris for the popular Librarians Aloud Podcast alongside Jan Holmquist. In the podcast I talk about scholarly communications, digital academia, open access and data. You can listen to the podcast here