As part of this effort, the Eccles Library will be focusing its social media on a different women’s health topic each week.

If you’re interested in the importance of sex and gender differences for research and practice in the health sciences, be sure to follow any or all of the Spencer S. Eccles Health social media channels: Twitter, Facebook or this blog.

]]> http://library.med.utah.edu/blog/eccles/2013/03/19/2962/feed/ 0 http://library.med.utah.edu/blog/eccles/2012/05/22/predicting-disease-outbreaks-using-twitter/ http://library.med.utah.edu/blog/eccles/2012/05/22/predicting-disease-outbreaks-using-twitter/#comments Tue, 22 May 2012 14:43:42 +0000 Todd Vandenbark http://library.med.utah.edu/blog/eccles/?p=1985 In a recent British Medical Journal article, UK journalists Gozde Zorlu and Connie St Louis examine how public health experts are beginning to exploit the power of social media, both proactively and retrospectively. Traditional methods of collecting information on potential disease outbreaks — collecting lab test results and diagnostic information from doctors — are more thorough and  accurate, but slower. Time is of the essence when identifying and preparing a response to disease outbreaks.

Popular social media sites have millions of registered users (Facebook, over 800 million; Twitter, over 500 million; WordPress, over 15 million), many of whom log in daily to share intimate details of their lives, including symptoms, illnesses and struggles with chronic diseases. This is a treasure trove of informal data available for research and monitoring of public health issues. While tapping this resource raises many ethical issues, particularly individual identification, initial research has demonstrated that it may help with disease surveillance.

St Louis and Zorlu offer the following examples:

• Recent analysis of three million tweets from May – December 2009 showed that “the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak could have been identified on Twitter one week before it emerged in official records from general practitioner reports”
• Physicians, unable to reach patients with chronic conditions after the tsunami in Japan in March 2011, turned to Twitter and the mobile Internet to direct patients to sources for their medications.
• Digital surveillance platforms such as BioCaster and HealthMap regularly search and extract information from news, social media and other sites looking for hints and clues of new public health threats.

While these examples are compelling, and collaborations between HealthMap and public health agencies are underway to track influenza and other public health challenges, Twitter cannot replace traditional methods of tracking and verifying diseases. How many times have you or someone you know attributed symptoms to one illness, only to find it was a different illness? Monitoring must be coupled with verification, else we risk spreading rumor and panic.

Do you use Twitter or other social media to talk about your health concerns and conditions? How do you feel about having this information monitored for the good of many? Tell us!

References:

St Louis, C., & Zorlu, G. (2012). Can Twitter predict disease outbreaks? BMJ, 344, e2353. doi: 10.1136/bmj.e2353

Szomszor, M., Kostkova, P., & De Quincey, E. (2012). Swineflu: Twitter predicts swine flu oubreak in 2009.

Tamura, Y., & Fukuda, K. (2011). Earthquake in Japan. Lancet, 377(9778), 1652. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(11)60672-7

The number of incidents, when compared to the total number of disciplinary actions taken by medical boards, is small, but can be expected to grow as more physicians embrace and use social media.

In contrast, at Ohio State University (OSU), instructors recognize that today’s learners rely more heavily on technology to gain knowledge for a future career. A pilot study showed how social media (in this case, Twitter and Facebook) can be used to “push” helpful information to students on a daily basis. More than half of the participants had not used Twitter previously, and upwards of 80% found it a useful and helpful addition to their course.

Any tool can and will be used and misused, social media included. What is important is to learn from our mistakes, and remain open to new and novel ways to benefit all.

Program Description: Want to learn about using YouTube video in your work environment? In this presentation, Jake O’Connor addresses a number of important points related to the effective use of YouTube. Topics to be covered include:
•    A short history of YouTube
•    Social learning and why it is so successful
•    What is needed to create quality videos
•    How to manage your YouTube account
•    How to take advantage of the resources that YouTube offers
In addition, Jake will provide some examples of what is working for other companies as far as training and social learning goes. After attending this presentation, you will be excited and inspired to do more with YouTube.

Presenter: Jake O’Connor graduated from the University of Utah in 2010 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication, and currently works in the Travel office under Kori DeHaan, in support of communication, policy, and training. His work experience includes various forms of writing, social media management/consulting, marketing, event planning, and connecting..

For more details, visit the LIFT Forum page. Program can be viewed from off-site via links from the web page; and available on demand after the program.

The LIFT Forum is co-sponsored by the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library and the Media-on-Demand committee.

Questions can be directed to:
Jeanne Le Ber; 801-585-6744

Kroski’s page includes widgets to watch for times when her library is mentioned in/on:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• message boards
• Google alerts, and more.

To watch Facebook, the page’s user needs to be logged-in to Facebook first, which means this page cannot be shared as easily as this librarian would desire. Still, it’s a great idea, and kudos to her for sharing!

How do you watch for mentions of your library across various media and platforms? What does/not work for you? Tell us about it!

Can’t stay current with important information about your field?

Do you wish there was an easier way to keep on top of what’s happening?

Join us for ‘Keeping Current with Social Media’ on April 6th at 2pm in HSEB 3100B. Amy Honisett and Peter Jones from the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library will show you the basics of two great tools (RSS Feeds and Twitter) you can use to streamline your information overload. They will also briefly cover dashboards, which are services that collect your many social media accounts into one place.

Register online at: http://bit.ly/HpAfwi 

73 percent of users said they would not be OK with an online search engine keeping track of their queries even if the data provides personalized results in the future. And 68 percent said they were not OK with targeted advertising because they don’t want their online activities tracked and analyzed.

Google is the preferred search engine for most online searching, though people surveyed don’t want information about their searches tracked. Yet unless you take steps to make sure this information is not collected, Google tracks it. And its search algorithms that include this information are what provides users with  the results they like. In a sense, we want it both ways: quality search results and privacy protections.

This is an area ripe for research: if we could define and control what information search engines and other online service providers can collect, would end users’ satisfaction with search engines change?

What do you think? Tell us!

“seeks to map and explore what we know about the ways in which young users of age 18 and under search for information online, how they evaluate information, and how their related practices of content creation, levels of new literacies, general digital media usage, and social patterns affect these activities” (from the Harvard Law School’s Youth and Media blog).

This report looks not only at patterns of information-seeking behavior, but also the influence of context and demographic factors. It offers four key findings for consideration:

1. Search shapes the quality of information that youth experience online.
2. Youth use cues and heuristics to evaluate quality, especially visual and interactive elements.
3. Content creation and dissemination foster digital fluencies that can feed back into search and evaluation behaviors.
4. Information skills acquired through personal and social activities can benefit learning in the academic context.

And it summarizes their findings in a clear and understandable infographic, shown at right (click image to view full size).

It is no small surprise that context and other social cues strongly influence the information-seeking behavior of youth. Humans are innately social creatures, and need connections to others to survive and thrive.

You can read a one-page summary, an executive summary, the full report, or listen to a podcast version courtesy of the aforementioned blog.

What do you think of this report? What did it get right/wrong? Tell us about it!

[Chisolm] “is one of a growing number of medical professionals who, despite the present-day climate of strict patient privacy regulations and oversight, see the benefits of using social media to supplement their work and interact with colleagues, patients and the general public.” She connects with others using her Twitter accounts @whole_patients in order to “demystify psychiatry and psychotherapy for patients and doctors,” and @psychpearls , “which is targeted to learners interested in ‘clinical pearls’ about psychiatry.”

She and a colleague, Tabor Flickinger, a clinical education fellow, are designing a curriculum to train students at the School of Medicine in the use, benefits and potential pitfalls of using social media in medicine. In December 2011 they received an Osler Center for Clinical Excellence small grant award to run a pilot study with medical students during their third year clerkship of 2012 – 2013.

The format of the pilot study will be a voluntary online addition to clinical activities during the eight-week Internal Medicine Clerkship. One group of students will participate in a blog where they can write about and discuss their clinical experiences. Another group will serve as a comparison cohort; they will be studied but will not participate in the blog (from the Hopkins Gazette article).

No doubt many forward-thinking medical institutions, such as the University of Utah, will be watching for the results of this study.

Are you using social media in your practice (medical, psychiatry, or whatever)? How helpful has it been? What have proven to be the pitfalls? Tell us about it!

I jumped in with the second question and asked how the administration planned to address the failed system of copyright in a digital media age, particularly the restrictive DMCA, and cited how some vendors refuse to sell digital content to libraries. Chopra’s practiced very political response was that copyright was a macro-policy issue, and then he talked about the administration’s work on sharing and open data standards through leading by example-their work on the Learning Registry and other open education and data initiatives (check out all the stuff at data.gov). He did use the phrase “metadata standards,” which literally made me shiver. I guess I am a true librarian nerd girl at heart (as if there was any doubt)! Other questions asked about healthcare records, open data standards, SOPA and PIPA, broadband, delegating some of the wireless spectrum to public safety officials, resources for primary education, and more.

Her blog entry was written prior to the actual address, so it will be interesting to see what it was like to “tweet” with an estimated 50 other people at this constitutionally-required event.

Have you ever participated in a major political event such as this using Twitter or other social media? Tell us about it!

Traditionally, libraries have offered tours to incoming groups, where new students and faculty hear about services offered, and take home a handful of printed materials listing everything their library can do to help them in their work. Unfortunately, most of this information is never looked at, and ends up in a “circular file” (i.e. the trash).

Since the invention and proliferation of social media — blogs, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, Second Life etc. — libraries have new venues for outreach and promotion. One software-as-service online tool that might be considered here is the ability to create short animations on any subject, such as “What is interlibrary loan?”
GoAnimate.com: Interlibrary Loan 1 by Firesidelibrarian

In addition, special events of all kinds are used to attract “diverse diverse, underserved and expanded user populations” (Fabian, 2003) to library events and resources. At the University of Buffalo, Arts and Humanities librarians formed partnerships with cultural institutions and academic departments to reach out to new audiences in new ways: teaching assistant workshops, multi-media kiosks, book talks and library exhibits.

In each of the four outreach activities, the Team found that the efforts of partnership produced more effective and successful results. For the library exhibits, partnerships with area cultural institutions and academic departments helped to ensure not only stimulating content, but an expanded market for our offerings. Additionally, librarians found that embracing technology solutions for their exhibit space limitations not only engaged unexpected users, but also opened up new opportunities for applying emerging technologies to more traditional library services, for example, library instruction.

Eccles library faculty are looking at ways to use similar events to draw in patron groups. Watch for more information in coming weeks. And if you have an idea to share, tell us about it!

Reference:
Fabian, C. A., C. D’Aniello, et al. (2003). “Multiple Models for Library Outreach Initiatives.” The Reference Librarian 39(82): 39-55.

Amidst this glut of options, it is easy to get hung up on the technology itself. Keep in mind that you don’t have to try everything at once. First, sit down and decide what your information needs are. If you need:

• In-depth discussions on certain research topics, look at blogs and wikis
• Real-time sampling of what people are thinking and saying on a given topic, try Twitter.
• Inspiration from people thinking out-of-the-box, look at the Facebook pages of enthusiastic upstarts in your field.
• To track new research, use RSS feeds and Google Reader
• Help clarifying your information needs before you can hope to begin utilizing these tools, ask a librarian!

Eccles Library staff have been on the cutting edge of information tools for many years, and both new and seasoned librarians can help you clarify which ones best meet your needs, and get you started using them. Just ask!

What social media tools do you use in your research? Tell us about it!

At the end of this article, an update was added noting that after discussions with Facebook engineers, the engineers “agreed to make changes to the way their cookies are stored and handled so your account information is not present when you log out of Facebook.” But the cookies still remain on your computer after logging-out, so the author recommends using one or more of 3 browser extensions (mentioned above) to clear your cookies after each time online:

• Facebook Privacy List for Adblock Plus
• Facebook Disconnect for Chrome, and
• Disconnect for Chrome and Firefox

Are you concerned about privacy issues such as this? Why or why not? Tell us!

The Krafty Librarian recently asked some thoughtful questions about the value of social media to medical and academic librarians:

• Since it is apparent that social media is being used and it is here to stay for a while, what are the biggest issues you face personally and professionally?
• Do you worry about a lack of privacy?  As more and more companies are going on Facebook and Twitter what is your thought about following them?  Do you follow them? Why or why not?
• What is your library or institution doing on Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare? How is your library or institution engaging its users? How do you measure engagement?
• Does the increase of bots on Twitter and inactive Facebook followers concern you?

The Eccles Library is trying to engage its users via its Twitter feed, Facebook page and this blog. One hot topic among medical academic libraries is health literacy, which Wikipedia defines as “an individual’s ability to read, understand and use healthcare information to make decisions and follow instructions for treatment.” Twitter searches using “#healthliteracy” has proven to be informative in learning what that site’s users are reading and thinking about this topic, as noted in a previous post. And as I posted more tweets on this topic, our feed has gained a few more followers.

On our Facebook page, the topic that appears to have garnered the most comments and Likes was copyright issues. But measuring engagement has proven elusive. Having worked in business previously, the value of time spent on a particular project was described as a return on investment or ROI. The book Social Media ROI by Olivier Blanchard just arrived on my desk via Interlibrary Loan, and may offer some insights on how to apply this concept to libraries and their use of social media. Stay tuned…

Here are a few examples of what’s being discussed (tweeted about) on health literacy (#healthliteracy) on Twitter:

• The non-profit organization Health Literacy Missouri (@HealthLitMO) just published a paper titled “Health Literacy Essential to Successful Implementation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)” bySusan Kendig, JD, MSN and Arthur Culbert, PhD. The paper points out that our current health system’s incentives for health care organizations “rewards volume and intensity of services, resulting in fragmentation and higher costs with little attention to value.” It goes on to document how health literacy is directly related to health outcomes.
• @apdolan has sought the thoughts and input of others on how the new Google+ might be used for health activism for an upcoming blog posting.
• @alixefloyd cheered and linked to an article in the NY Times about how more medical schools are screening their applicants for people skills.
• @ACUnderserved publicized information about a “Health Literacy Innovators Award Contest” sponsored by Health Literacy Innovations, a privately held company that “creates tools to help eliminate medical mistakes and confusion due to low health literacy.”

At first, even this author was skeptical of Twitter. But when one can sample what is of current interest on any given topic instantly, it becomes clear the value this platform has.

What topics do you follow on Twitter? If you have used it for research or to take the pulse of people on a particular subject, how helpful have you found it to be? Tell us!

Writers have argued whether or not we do, or should, have a right to be forgotten. Tessa Mayes of the Guardian says no because it “degrades the concept of rights” and discounts the relationship between the individual and the society. Google claims this violates the objectivity of the Internet. And what about racist, sexist or other degrading comments by people running for public office: should those eventually be forgotten?

Last year the European Union proposed a law that would let users “sue websites for invading their privacy and would have a right to be ‘forgotten’ online” (The Telegraph). Could one person sabotage another’s job hunt by setting up a fake profile and loading it with racist, homophobic and violent images and writing? Social Intelligence Corp claims tells us what they will or will not do with this information, but will they provide free reports similar to free credit reports that are required by law so we can check?

Libraries have long operated under the premise of honoring privacy as much as possible. When a book is returned to the library, that patron’s record is cleared, and no record kept of what was read. The American Library Association’s “Library Bill of Rights” includes statements and interpretations on privacy that lawmakers and regulating bodies such as the FTC would do well to consider.

Where do you come down on this issue? What is not being done that should be done?

1. Understand, explain and teach others about the main principles and trends of web 2.0 (and library 2.0).
2. List major tools, categories and affordances of social networking.
3. Apply social media to solve information problems, and communicate digitally with users.
4. Use social networking sites for promotional, reference and instructional services in libraries.
5. Navigate, evaluate and create content on social networking sites.
6. Follow netiquette, conform to ethical standards and interact appropriately with others online.
7. Explain copyright, security and privacy issues on social media sites to colleagues and user communities.
8. Understand the importance of identity and reputation management using social media.
9. Explain related terminology such as collaboration 2.0, remix and open source.
10. Renew social media competencies, advocate for institutional strategies and policies and build evidence base in social media.

But what are social media competencies? In Educause Review, Howard Rheingold makes the point that what “makes social media social is that technical skills need to be exercised in concert with others: encoding, decoding and community.” He goes on to focus on five core social media literacies:

1. Attention
2. Participation
3. Collaboration
4. Network awareness
5. Critical consumption

Attention, Rheingold states, is fundamental to all these interconnected competencies. And attention is often at the heart of whether an educator will or will not include social media in the classroom. Can learners truly have deep and comprehensive learning experience if their attention is drawn to multiple places at once? If not, then how do librarians, who thrive on riding the cutting edge of technology, respond?

What do you think?

Reference:
Rheingold, H. (2010). Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies. EDUCAUSE review, 45(5), 14.

Social media is an inexpensive and flexible way to market and promote library services, engage with users, and provide new ways to utilize library content and discovery tools. Dryer recommends that if a library utilizes social media, they need policies in order to:

• Provide guidelines to employees and patrons.
• Teach employees about the benefits and dangers of social media.
• Minimize legal risks to the library and its employees.

Dryer’s talk provided much useful information on best practices for dealing with user/patron-posted content, issues and concerns related to children and social media, and free speech issues.

Generally speaking, if a library site (website, social media, etc.) allows for patron posting of content, it is considered a “limited public forum.” Content on such a forum is best managed by adopting a policy that meets First Amendment considerations; clearly defines the purpose of the forum; and reserves the right to remove content unrelated to that purpose.

As readers of this blog know, Eccles Health Sciences Library has a Facebook page, Twitter feed, and this blog. At the present, only library faculty and staff are allowed to post to these accounts, and we have developed internal policies to guide their use. If you represent a library and would like to read our policy, please email me at  

Enjoy!

1. An overview of progress on the project during the last year was presented to the NANOS Executive Board on Saturday, March 6.
2. An Optional Symposium for all NANOS attendees was offered on March 8.
   This session provided an update to NOVEL: the Neuro-Ophthalmology Virtual Education Library. Many enhancements have been made to the digital library, and new collections have been added. Specific collections, such as those of Shirley H. Wray, Robert B. Daroff, and Helmut Wilhem were highlighted. Following the NOVEL update, free web-based online tools which can make member’s lives easier were presented. The tools covered included the Doodle Poll and Scheduler, a free online tool that makes organizing meetings and getting feedback a snap. Other tools from the Google suite were demonstrated, including Google Scholar, Desktop, Docs, Calendar and using Picasa and YouTube to share video clips.
3. A poster was presented on Tuesday, March 9 at the general poster session which was open to all meeting attendees.

All the NOVEL related materials presented at the NANOS 2010 meeting are now available on the NOVEL Web site for viewing or downloading.