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ATD Blog

Spreading Science Through Social Media

Wednesday, July 23, 2014
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To develop professional talent, you need selective knowledge of such research-intensive disciplines as psychology and neuroscience. But accessing relevant research in these fields isn’t easy, unless you’re a professor, a graduate student, or—well—a scientist. Developments in scientific disciplines have traditionally been confined to their respective academic and research circles.

However, the need for more and better collaboration between scientific disciplines has been a popular topic of discussion lately. In this world of information sharing and social learning, it’s about time we included science.

We Share Science is a nonprofit organization that uses social media to share research across disciplines. The platform was launched in the spring of 2014 by Ryan Watkins, an associate professor at George Washington University.

“Breaking through the silos of traditional disciplines can be challenging,” writes Watkins in a blog post for Wiley. “From university department structures and tenure processes, to how most grant proposals are written and reviewed, the academic and research cultures today largely remain firmly grounded within the boundaries of disciplines. Likewise, publishing has traditionally supported these structures since disciplines provide easily targeted markets for books, journals, and even new media products.”

Watkins created We Share Science to give people an online forum where they can share, search for, and discuss research in a variety of industries. The site works much like Pinterest. You can “pin” various online articles or videos that present research that is important to you. You can organize your pins by topic to different “boards.” 

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You can follow others (or just their boards that are relevant to you) so that their pins appear in your home feed, keeping you abreast of their research. If you wish, you can browse research projects by discipline, including business, education, and psychology. Most of the pins are short videos of researchers and scientists explaining their work.

We Share Science is a great tool for science-minded professionals. If you’re looking for evidence-based ideas to help you improve the quality of today’s workforce, check out this platform.

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About the Author

Stephanie Castellano is a former writer/editor for the Association for Talent Development (ATD). She is now a freelance writer based in Gainesville, Florida.

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