Your best tips on using social media for study and research – competition winners!

Thanks so much to everyone who entered our competition to share their best tip on using social media for study and research, there were some great suggestions.  From Facebook and Twitter, to blogs, dropbox and research tools, there are clearly lots of tools you’re using in different ways to make studying and researching easier.

You can see all the entries here: http://studyingwithsocialmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/win-kindle-fire-hd-with-your-best-study.html

But most importantly…

We’re very pleased to announce that the winners are…

Ø  Overall winner: Saila Naomi

Ø  2^nd place: Alex D

Ø  Runners up:Maria, lucyhensher93, Polde Petek, Manca Urankar and Mikkel Guldberg

As a reminder of the prizes, Saila Naomi wins a Kindle Fire HD, a copy of Studying and Researching with Social Media by Megan Poore, plus a goody bag; Alex D wins a copy of Studying and Researching with Social Media by Megan Poore, plus a goody bag; Maria, lucyhensher93, Polde Petek, Manca Urankar and Mikkel Guldberg each get a goody bag.

To claim your prize, please contact us using the ‘get in touch’ form at the bottom of the blog, giving your name and email address so we can contact you to arrange delivery of your goodies.

And here are the winning tips…

Winning tip from Saila Naomi

Facebook groups! Make sure to create a Facebook group with your peers to share files via the upload function - such as class notes, or paper drafts you'd like comments on. Also consider joining existing groups with people from all over the world who share the same interests. There are fx numerous groups where news articles and research about economics are being shared and discussed, which can be a great source of inspiration. The group "political science data" is basically free advice: people post about what sort of data they need and a lot of people respond with suggestions for sources or proxies. This can be an extremely helpful way of getting advice and sharing resources!

2^nd place tip from Alex D

I research social websites that evolve around the production and dissemination of Internet memes. I use ethnographic research tools (such as interviews, material collection, and observation) in order to understand the motives and purposes behind these user-generated products. I have found the software NVivo highly useful in this process. NVivo helps me collect, organize, classify, and code the vast amount of data I collect in a way that makes the emerging patterns more discernible.

Runner up tips

Maria I find Facebook Group-Conversations an amazing way to avoid meeting up with people for all those group projects/assignments. In this way, I save both time and energy and money! Oh and I also protect my mental health, which get worse and worse with actual human interactions. :D

lucyhensher93 The most important thing is to use to right media tool for what you want to do. So I use twitter to post links to articles or follow what my student union is doing. I use Facebook groups for presentation work such as sharing one document so everyone can edit it and sharing pictures. Facebook groups can also be used for uni societies to post events and relevant info. I wouldn't talk to my tutors on these mediums however, I would use a separate forum on my VLE or email them directly. Feel free to check out our blog where me and two other second year students write about how students study as well as focus groups and surveys we run: http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/sagestudents/

Polde Petek Follow your lecturers and other academic in your field of study on Twitter - they will often retweet useful articles from the area that won't be highlighted during lectures. Having that 'extra' shows interest in the subject and will boost your grades.

Manca Urankar Like your favourite academic journals' official Facebook page and don't forget to click on 'Get Notifications'. You will get a notification immediately after the new edition comes out!

Mikkel Guldberg Dropbox is invaluable for group work - even keeps old versions if somebody forgets to put on track changes Social media is a great way to spread online surveys - You won’t get a random sampling but for projects where quantity trumps quality of data it's a great tool!