Toronto, April 15: A good research pushed through social media -- primarily Twitter -- gets more citations, a team of researchers has found.
Analysing the famous academic aphorism "publish or perish" through a modern digital lens, a group of emerging ecologists and conservation scientists from the University of Alberta found good papers that get pushed on social media are what end up on people's minds.
"There's a compelling signal that citation rates are positively associated with science communication through social media. Certainly, Twitter provides an accessible and efficient platform for scientists to do a majority of that communication," said Clayton Lamb, lead researcher and a University of Alberta student.
Lamb and his team explored the phenomenon of science communication in the social media age, measuring the association of altmetrics -- alternative impact factors, which consider, amongst other avenues, the social media attention surrounding science discoveries -- with eventual citation of 8,300 ecology and conservation papers published between 2005 and 2015.
The team found a positive correlation between social media engagement and traditional measures of scholarly activity.
"There's a big hype when a paper comes out, but then there is this underwhelming lull for a year or two as you wait for citations to accumulate, so you don't really know whether your science is reaching people," Lamb said.
"We quantified whether science communication may correlate with more citations. In the case of ecology and conservation science, it looks like it does," added Lamb.
Lamb said though much of scientists' communication on social media is directed at other scientists, by virtue of the medium, information is making its way to the broader community.
He noted statistics show that nearly half of ecologists' followers on Twitter are non-scientists, environmental groups and the media.
"Ecologists and conservation scientists are dealing with applied problems that the public cares a lot about. So when science gets stuck in the circles of academia and doesn't make it out to the public, it's doing that publicly funded research and its potential applications, a disservice," said Lamb.
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Assam to lift all cases against Koch Rajbongshis in Foreigners' Tribunals: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma
Guwahati, Apr 4 (PTI): The Assam cabinet has decided to lift all cases pending against people from the Koch Rajbongshi community in the Foreigners' Tribunals, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.
They will also no longer carry the tag of 'D' or doubtful voters, he said.
''There are 28,000 cases pending in different Foreigners' Tribunals in the state against people of the community. The cabinet has taken a historic decision of lifting the cases with immediate effect,'' Sarma said at a press conference here after the cabinet meeting.
The government believes that the Koch Rajbongshis are an indigenous community of the state and they are an inextricable part of ''our social and cultural fabric'', he asserted.
The people of this community are poor and have suffered a lot over the years, he said.
''They will no longer carry the tag of foreigners or ‘D’ voters,'' the CM said.
Foreigners Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies, particularly in Assam, established to determine if a person residing in India is a "foreigner" as defined by the Foreigners Act of 1946, based on the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order of 1964.
These tribunals are designed to address matters related to citizenship and the presence of “foreigners” in India, specifically focusing on cases where someone is suspected of being an illegal immigrant.
There are 100 Foreigners’ Tribunals across Assam.
The Koch Rajbongshis have a sizeable presence in Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya, and parts of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, and they demand Scheduled Tribe status.
