The role of twitter in the life cycle of a scientific publication

TL;DR

Twitter plays a multifaceted role in the scientific publication process, aiding idea development, pre-publication review, and broad dissemination, despite some limitations related to intellectual property and inclusiveness.

Contribution

This paper highlights the diverse functions of Twitter in scientific publishing, emphasizing its potential to enhance collaboration, review, and dissemination of research.

Findings

Twitter facilitates rapid idea sharing and refinement.

It serves as an informal pre-review platform.

Twitter amplifies research impact among diverse audiences.

Abstract

Twitter is a micro-blogging social media platform for short messages that can have a long-term impact on how scientists create and publish ideas. We investigate the usefulness of twitter in the development and distribution of scientific knowledge. At the start of the life cycle of a scientific publication, twitter provides a large virtual department of colleagues that can help to rapidly generate, share and refine new ideas. As ideas become manuscripts, twitter can be used as an informal arena for the pre-review of works in progress. Finally, tweeting published findings can communicate research to a broad audience of other researchers, decision makers, journalists and the general public that can amplify the scientific and social impact of publications. However, there are limitations, largely surrounding issues of intellectual property and ownership, inclusiveness and misrepresentations of science sound bites. Nevertheless, we believe twitter is a useful social media tool that can provide a valuable contribution to scientific publishing in the 21st century.