The PhD Chronicles: Creating a Media Kit for Data Collection

Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes

"Sounds like you created a media kit." My partner said as I explained all the strategies that I had used to reach out and spread the word to get participants in my study.  I hadn't thought of it that way, but yes, that's pretty much what I did.  I had meant to write this post much earlier (my data collection as in Fall of 2022) but here where are.  I think it's still a useful approach for folks who are recruiting participants in the online spaces.  

For my study, it was tricky because I couldn't interview anyone I know and also, I was interviewing folks about their participation on academic pirate platforms. I had to find a way to connect with people I don't know about a thing that is illicit and hope they would be open to me recording our conversation.  And I had to find a good amount of participants (ideally 20).  

I approached it in several stages.

Gather

I had some time while I waited for approval from my dissertation committee and also my Institutional Review Board.  I took this time to gather the places that I thought would be ideal places to find people who might be interested in participating in my study.  I created a spreadsheet with several sheets:

• Email contacts
• Listservs 
• Online spaces (e.g. Facebook groups, LinkedIn Groups, Sub-Reddits, etc)

For each sheet, I had a column for the the name, the emails (or links) and three columns for "Contacted On".

I then did the tedious part.  I collected emails, listserv emails, and sites. I scrolled through all of my email contacts and also, went onto my social media platforms to see who I was in regular enough contact with and see if I could get their email (if I didn't have it already).  Given that I've had this email for more than 15 years and been on social media just as long, if not longer--it was a lot.  But I looked for anyone I knew that was in academia or academia-adjacent.  I also searched my email for .edu addresses. I   Similarly, I looked for any academic-oriented list-servs and a range of online groups that felt relevant to my work.  I did try to contact the operators and owners of academic pirate platforms but did not hear back from them (no surprise).

This process yielded over 350 emails of individuals and over 50 online spaces, listservs, etc.  I felt that was a good haul and would get the results I was hoping for.  

Craft

Next, I had to create the messaging for emails, my own social media, listservs and online groups. To do that, I needed different forms of messaging.  To people I knew, I had to encourage them to share my message and make it as easy and clear as possible on how to help me. To people I didn't know, I had to capture interest and establish trust. For people I I needed to   You can see much of that messaging in the space below contained in the two emails that I sent out to my contacts.  

For my second round of communication on social media platforms, I realize I had forgotten to include a visual.  I knew that such things get more attention on social media, so I used Google Slides to create an image communicated the essentials of who I was looking for. At this point, the second round of calls, I could also see where it was better to target certain populations that didn't have as much representation.

The image that I used to go along with social media post.

I also created a webpage on my own website that interested participants could go to for signing up for the study and finding out more.  I'm linking to the Internet Archive version of this because the current page has been changed because, of course, I'm no longer looking for participants.

Additionally, I adapted my email that I planned to send into a blog post for this blog as well.

Deliver

After crafting my different messages, I proceeded to deliver the messages. I had to stack the deliveries so they maximized sharing possibilities.   First, I posted to my social media platforms so that I could then include links to those posts in the emails I was sending out (see below). 

To avoid people seeing large email lists of others, I knew I had to do BCC, but also, I had to chunk out how many BCCs I do because I would inevitably end up in people's spam.  I used a MailMerge plugin in the Google tools that integrated my email list in the Google sheet I created with the email I had composed.  However, the free version only allowed a certain amount (100?) a day.  Therefore, the initial email was sent out over the course of a few days to the people I knew.  

 I also went ahead and posted to all the groups that I had, but again, to avoid being considered as SPAM, I posted to these different places over days.  In fact, every time I set up a new mail-merge, I posted to a few more online groups and listservs.  

In the second round on social media I also included an image to improve shareability (which also got me to share on Instagram)

I did 2 email rounds that went like this:

1. Here's the challenge
2. Here's how you can help
3. Here are materials to make it easier to help

That last part was essential.  Maybe it's the educator or designer in me, but if I'm going to ask people to do things, I want to make the barrier as low as possible.   In the second round, I further elaborated by explaining the amount of time each task would take and the different levels of engagement.  

The result is that I had about 60 folks start the survey (and about 55 or so completed it).  Out of that, there was 25 strong candidates that I interviewed.

Here is the templates that I used in case you want to borrow or adapt for your needs.

Templates

Initial Email to Colleagues

Greetings friends,

As many of you know, I've been in a doctoral program (maybe forever?!?!?!) and I'm finally at the point where I am starting to look for participants.  No, no, I'm not going to ask you–in fact, if I know you, I can’t interview you for this study.  But, I do need your help. 

What I am hoping all of you will do (yes,  even you!) is to reach out to your email, listservs, and social media networks to your friends and colleagues in academia in the US. 

See, there is a real challenge with my study in that I'm trying to reach scholars who are making use of certain networks (namely, SciHub, LibGen, ICanHazPDF, and r/Scholar--no worries if that list doesn't make sense to you).  Because engaging on these networks is often not discussed openly, it's really hard to find out who is using them and ask them to participate in this valuable study which explores their experience as scholars on such platforms. If you would like to know more about the study, please check out the study page or reach out and I am happy to share more!

So, the ask:  Can you please help me spread the word by sharing the call for participants in at least one of the following ways on my behalf (and if so, let me know)?  

I have included some copy that you are welcome to adapt/adjust to your own voice or just copy/paste in total.  If those are too much, would you at least consider sharing these posts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) that I’ve already created? 

**LinkedIn

Fellow scholars! Do you use #SciHub, #LibGen, #ICanHazPDF on Twitter or r/Scholar on Reddit?  Would you be willing to help my friend (Lance Eaton) in his study?  His dissertation focuses on how scholars understand their experiences on these platforms and their scholarly identities. 

Find out more on the Research Study page

http://www.lanceeaton.com/research-study/

or complete the Intake Survey

https://umassboston.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8dIzyfNte9HdsTY

**Twitter

Are you a #scholar who uses #SciHub, #LibGen, #ICanHazPDF,  #rScholar on #Reddit?  Please consider participating in (@leaton01) important research study? 

Find out more about the Research Study: http://www.lanceeaton.com/research-study/

OR complete the Intake Survey: https://umassboston.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8dIzyfNte9HdsTY

**Facebook

Fellow scholars! Do you use #SciHub, #LibGen, #ICanHazPDF on Twitter or r/Scholar on Reddit?  Would you be willing to help my friend (Lance Eaton) in his study?  His dissertation focuses on how scholars understand their experiences on these platforms and their scholarly identities. 

Find out more about the Research Study: http://www.lanceeaton.com/research-study/

OR complete the Intake Survey: https://umassboston.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8dIzyfNte9HdsTY

**Email to Friends/Colleagues

Hi all,

I'm sharing this on behalf of my friend and colleague, Lance Eaton.  He is working on his dissertation research which focuses on scholars who use SciHub, LibGen, #ICanHazPDF on Twitter or r/Scholar on Twitter.  Do you use any of these platforms in pursuit of research literature for scholarly activities?  If so, please consider visiting the link below, learning more about the study, and potentially participating in the study.

Find out more about the Research Study: http://www.lanceeaton.com/research-study/

Thank you for this assistance at this time!

Second Email to Friends & Colleagues

Greetings!

Many of you have been wonderfully kind in sharing out my call for participants for my doctoral study.  I am so very grateful & appreciate your support; I know others may not have because they didn’t have time, my email ended up in spam, or they don’t think they know anyone that could be in my study (but, trust me, you do!).  

So I still need help with getting the word out.  My first outreach helped me to find half of my participants–this means, I’m halfway to collecting all my data–THIS IS HUGE and I am so grateful for those who have shared and reached out on my behalf.  

I’m going to ask just a little bit more of folks but make it super easy for you and break it down by the amount of time you might commit to helping me out.  This can range from 5 seconds of help to 10 minutes of help–all of it will be appreciated!

**5-15 Seconds to Help

GREAT!  Thank you for doing this!  In this situation, please re-share & Like/Favorite one (or more, if you have 15-20 seconds) of the following posts on your networks:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Linkedin

Upvote one or more of these Reddit posts about my call for participants (listed in order of preference)

• SciHub
• LibGen
• HigherEducation
• AskAcademia
• Academia
• OpenScience
• OpenAccess
• ScienceCommunication
• Librarians

How this helps:  The more other people like/reshare, the more it shows up on people’s feeds–people that I’m not directly connected to. I can almost guarantee that if you are getting this email from me, it means someone (or more than one person) in your network use these platforms. I may not be connected to them but if you are, then this is a chance fro them to see it.  Remember, you won’t necessarily know if they use these platforms because folks don’t often talk about them.

**1-5 Minutes to help

Not just reshare one of the posts above but provide some content about the study using your own words or the copy provided below:

Can you help out my friend here?  He’s looking for folks who live in or work in US institutions that use #SciHub, #LibGen, or #ICanHazPDF for their work to interview for his dissertation.  

Find out more & possible sign up at: http://www.lanceeaton.com/research-study/ 

 

How this helps:  Similar to above, the more you share it and even add your own language, the more it will show up and be seen across the platform you are using.  It adds further endorsement and gets it in front of more eyes.

**5-10 Minutes to Help

It would be great if you took this time to copy/paste the email below and sent it to as many folks as you think it might be relevant to.  Additionally, consider sharing it out on any professional/academic listservs that you are a part of.

Who might those people be?  Any folks that are doing research or teaching; affiliated with a higher education institution, research center/lab, hospital, law office, or anywhere that they might need regular access to research literature to do their work meaningfully.  

One of the challenges with this study is that because folks do not often talk about using these platforms, it’s really hard to know if anyone in your network does (that is, they may not be sharing their usage openly).  So sharing with anyone in those categories above could be really helpful.  

**Email to Share (feel free to edit)

Hi all,

I'm sharing this on behalf of my friend and colleague, Lance Eaton.  He is working on his dissertation research which focuses on how folks in the US or at a US institution may be using platforms like SciHub, LibGen, #ICanHazPDF on Twitter or r/Scholar to acquire research literature for their work.

Do you use any of these platforms in pursuit of research literature for your work researching, writing, teaching, or in professional settings where access to such research is essential?  If so, please consider visiting the link below, learning more about the study, and potentially participating in the study.

Find out more about the Research Study: http://www.lanceeaton.com/research-study/

Thank you for this assistance at this time!

**Other Ways to Help

If you’re still here and considering ways to help, it’s mostly about getting out the word to folks.  So if you know someone who does a blog, newsletter, podcast, youtube show, or other types of publication that you think would be interested in talking about my research, please let me know OR reach out to them and recommend me to them.  

As this first half has shown me quick clearly, every little bit helps and I’m so very grateful for your support in all of this.  Thank you so much!

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