Hold This L: Scholarly communications & bibliometrics literacy

Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/07/2024
10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Led by Arun Jacob

University of Toronto,  Faculty of Information

This workshop provides an overview of bibliometrics, how to use metrics appropriately, and their limitations. It is aimed at those with little or no prior knowledge of the area and explains the most commonly used author metrics. Workshop participants will take away an integrated set of competencies, dispositions and knowledges to recognize, interpret, critically assess and effectively and ethically use scholarly metrics. Examine how search engine optimization (SEO) and information retrieval (IR) processes affect scholars’ and researchers’ writing and publishing strategies and critique attention-engineering practices employed by scholarly communicators to enhance research visibility. The workshop discussion will engage with conversations on what happens when academic publication platforms determine scholarly engagement by inadvertently turning scholars into academic influencers. How should early career researchers position themselves on scholarly publishing platforms vis-a-vis content-marketing practices to produce “trending” or “viral” work? Academic journals not only promote their most trending articles, but they also frequently include altmetric attention scores and refer to social media platforms such as Facebook and X (the Social Media Platform formerly known as Twitter). By emphasizing the importance of social media in knowledge mobilization, value is awarded to scholarly output based on visibility, highlighting how Search engine optimization (SEO) and information retrieval (IR) processes affect scholars’ and researchers’ writing and publishing strategies and their potential intellectual and research contributions.

Arun Jacob (he/him) is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto. He completed his Master of Arts in Cultural Studies and Critical Theory and Master of Arts in Work and Society at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, and his Master of Professional Communication from Toronto Metropolitan University. Arun’s doctoral work unites media genealogy, intersectional feminist media studies, and critical university studies to explore how contemporary university data management techniques and information management systems shape our socio-cultural relations, experiences, and knowledge. Arun’s publications have appeared in Debates in Digital Humanities 2023, Interdisciplinary Digital Engagement in Arts & Humanities (IDEAH), Digital Studies/Le Champ Numérique, The College Quarterly, Digital Humanities Workshops: Lessons Learned and Alternative Historiographies of the Digital Humanities.