Sharing presentations is yet another way you can make your work visible
online. Just as academics and research
professionals search for scholarship in the form of books, chapters, articles,
and white papers, they are also looking for presentation materials to reference
and adapt. Obviously citation practices
for presentation slides are different from those of traditional scholarship,
but hopefully yours will be duly cited by those who come across yours.
A very good example is Laura Czernoewicz's presentation on Slideshare. She provides some excellent information about
online visibility in slide form. These
types of presentations can also be more condensed and helpful than having this
same information in article form. Good
presentations are hard to create, but done well, can be a good way to promote
your interests and research in an accessible and interesting way. In her case, some of the infographics are intriguing
and provide good summary statistics and sources for data.
Other nice examples are John Tennant's presentations on "Social media
for academics" and "Blogging for
academics" using Prezi. Posting
these online also allow easy sharing through social media channels like
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and email.
Most sites provide the ability to leave comments, likes, and favorites -
which are good metrics to keep track of along with the number of views and
downloads.
University libraries are great resources, such as the open.michigan site at the University of
Michigan. As they say, "Share with
the World". They link to Slideshare
and Scribd on their site as recommended places to post presentations. University libraries are experts about how
(and where) to share scholarship like many already do around open access
portals/publishing and scholarly repositories.
Posting your presentations makes you and your work more visible online
and helps to increase your scholarly impact.
