Jon Tennant (blog – Twitter), a PhD candidate studying tetrapod biodiversity and extinction at Imperial College London, was one of the first scientists to join our recently launched Advisor program.

Within minutes of receiving his acceptance into the program, Jon was pounding the virtual pavement to let others know about Impactstory and the benefits it brings to scientists. For this reason–and the fact that Jon has done some cool stuff in addition to his research, like write a children’s book!–Jon’s our first Impactstory Advisor of the Month.

We chatted with Jon to learn more about how he uses Impactstory, what it’s like being an Advisor, and what he’s doing in other areas of his professional life.

Why did you initially decide to create an Impactstory profile?

A couple of years ago, I immersed myself into social media and the whole concept of ‘Web 2.0’. It was clear that the internet was capable of changing many aspects of the way in which we practice, communicate, and assess scientific research. There were so many tools though, and so much diversity, it was all a bit daunting, especially as someone so junior in their career. Although I guess that’s one of the advantages of being at this stage – I wasn’t tied down to any particular way of ‘doing science’ yet, and free to experiment.

Having followed the discussions on alternative and article-level metrics, when ImpactStory was released it seemed like a tool that could really make a difference for myself and the broader research community. At the time, it made no sense to me how the outputs of research were assessed – the name or the impact factor of a journal was given far too much meaning, and did nothing to really encapsulate the diversity of ways in which quality or impact, or putative pathways to impact, could be measured. ImpactStory seemed to offer a decent alternative, and hey look – it does! Actually, it’s not an alternative, but complementary tool for a range of methods in assessing how research is used.

Why did you decide to become an Advisor?

Pretty much for the reasons above! One thing I’m learning as a young scientist is that it’s easy to be part of an echo chamber on social media, advocating altmetrics and all the jazzy new aspects of research, but many scientists aren’t online. Getting those people involved in conversations, and alerting them to cool new tools is made a lot easier as an Advisor.

I reckon this type of community engagement is pretty important, especially in what appears to be such a crucial transitional phase for researchers, including things like open access and data, and the way in which research is assessed (e.g., through the REF here in the UK). ImpactStory obviously has a role in making this much easier for academics.

How have you been spreading the word about Impactstory in your first month as an Advisor?

Mostly sharing stickers! They actually work really well in getting people’s attention. They’re even more doubly useful when people ask things like “What’s a h-index”, so you can actually use them as a basis for further discussion. But yeah, I don’t really go out of my way to preach to people about altmetrics and ImpactStory – academics really don’t like being told what they should be doing and things, especially at my university. I prefer to kind of hang back, wait for discussions, and inject that things like altmetrics exist, and could be really useful when combined with things like a social media presence, or an ORCID, and that they are one of an integrated set of tools that can be really useful for assessing how your research is being used, as well as a kind of personal tracking device. I’d love to hold an ImpactStory/altmetrics Q and A or workshop at some point in the future.

You just wrote a children’s book about dinosaurs–tell us about it!

Let it be known that you brought this up, not me 😉

So, pretty much just by having a social media presence (mostly through blogging), I was asked to write a book on kids dinosaurs! Of course I said yes, and along with a talented artist, we created a book with pop-out dinosaurs that you can reconstruct into your very own little models! You can pre-order it here.* I think it’s out in October in the UK and USA. Is there an ImpactStory bit for that…? [ed: Not yet! Perhaps add it as a feature request on our Feedback forum? :)]

* (I don’t get royalties, so it’s not as bad promoting it…)

What’s the best part about your current gig as a PhD student at Imperial College London?

The freedom. I have an excellent supervisor who is happy to let me blog, tweet, attend science communication conferences and a whole range of activities that are complimentary to my PhD, as long as the research gets done. So there’s a real diversity of things to do, and being in London there’s always something science-related going on, and there’s a great community vibe too, with people who work within the broader scope of science always coming together and interacting. Of course, the research itself is amazing – I work with a completely open database called the Palaeobiology Database/Fossilworks, where even the methods are open so anyone can play with science if they wish!

Thanks, Jon!

Jon is just one of a growing community of Impactstory Advisors. Want to join the ranks of some of the Web’s most cutting-edge researchers and librarians? Apply to be an Advisor today!