Social Networks

Social Network Platforms

These are spaces where you can interact informally with friends and colleagues. You can join research groups, use the live chat and video conferencing features built into these tools to interact with other researchers in your field.

Profile: Your own personal page. This is where your information is displayed and people can interact with you personally. All interactions are focussed around your wall and it is your online profile.

More information on Profiles

Groups: You don't need to be friends with the people in a group to interact with them. This means that you can set up a research group on a topic e.g. Gardening and although you'll be able to exchange messages, files and pictures with this group. Other members of this group won't be able to see your own personal information and vice versa.

More information on Groups

Pages: This is an online presence for an organisation, e.g. the library has a page. In this space individuals can interact with an organisation rather than an individual, however the focus is very much on a conversation facilitated by the page owner. The owner can post to the timeline but interactions are limited to commenting on these posts.

More information Pages

Many people find that using these platforms is an enjoyable way of engaging with people but they prefer to keep their personal and professional use separate. 
If you're using either facebook or google you can do this by either using the lists or the groups available in each of these tools to determine what information you share with whom. Other methods people adopt are to have separate accounts, one for socialising with friends and the other for professional purposes.

Guide to using Lists within Facebook
Guide to using groups within Google+


Social Network Platforms (Social)
Facebook
Printable guide to setting up a facebook account



Google +
Printable guide to setting up a Google+ account

Professional Networks 

Linkedin
The focus of these platforms is very much around your skills and employment. The main display on this shows your education and employment history. You can add different features to this to provide more information about yourself. For instance one popular feature is a slideshare box that you can use to show all your conference presentations.

Guide to getting started with Linkedin

Research Networks

The focus of these platforms is upon your research. Academia.edu allows you to list your publications and follow the publications of others in your field.  This allows you to keep up to date with the latest research in your field as providing the opportunity to contact others if you have any questions. You can search for others using research interests, subject area or by institution. In this way you can find people both locally and internationally who are interested in a similar research field.

Academia.edu
Researchgate (Mainly focussed on the Sciences)