Experiences with Kudos: Dr Sean Ekins

December 5 2016 / By Lauren McNeill

It's edging closer to the end of year as is our campaign to 'mobilize research'. 
However, the importance of sharing published work will remain the same. Our recent interview with Chemistry researcher and Kudos user Dr Sean Ekins highlights not only how Kudos can help authors continue to mobilize their research, but also how vital it is when reaching a wider audience and increasing impact! 

How did you discover Kudos?

My good friend Antony Williams introduced me to Kudos a few years ago. Experiences with KudosWe have been collaborating on science projects for close to a decade now and for about five years we have been looking at social media, and how we can leverage this to get more visibility for our research output (papers, talks etc).

Can you describe Kudos to other authors and academics who might not know about it?

Kudos provides a way to summarize your papers / books/ chapters in a way that can make them more accessible

If the research is more accessible, one would expect more people to read it and hopefully cite it. Kudos also provides a way to pull together other information related to the paper/ chapter or book e.g. links to slides and blogs. Once you have created a summary of the article you can readily share it on social media.

Probably of equal importance, Kudos provides the ability to track the metrics on the publication. You can also view the information on actions you've taken to raise awareness, and how this impacts usage / views.

What was your experience of using Kudos in terms of navigability, functionality and results?

I found Kudos pretty self-explanatory. My biggest gripe was as someone who has continually published for over 20 years, I have a backlog of articles to summarize over my career and I am slowly addressing them. I wanted there to be some shortcut which would automate the process of summarizing the articles, but then I guess that defeats the object, perhaps a machine could not summarize the articles as well as a human – now there is a challenge!

 Our recent campaign to ‘Mobilize Research’ focuses on encouraging researchers to reach wider audiences by sharing their work online. Why do you think that it is important for researchers to publicize their work?

Raising awareness of your work is of importance because of the sheer volume of publications continually produced, and the need for that visibility to help in funding your research.

Anything that could help encourage even a few more people to look at your paper, could be a few more citations that you might not have attracted.

Another important impact could be that potential collaborators or funding agencies see your work that they otherwise would not. It is therefore hard to go back when you have started. You are constantly second guessing, if I do not publicize my work, what will happen? Kudos therefore fills an important gap by helping to enrich your article and then share it.

In August, we launched our first campaign (#mobilizeresearch) to encourage people to explore the positive effects of communicating about research online, especially when trying to increase readership among a broader audience. The campaign so far has been a great success, with many more researchers talking about their work online and benefiting from more readers as a result. Remember, for every share and use of the campaign hashtag (#mobilizeresearch) we will donate a penny to Open Knowledge International. Find out more about this campaign here.
