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Using the #ScholarSunday hashtag as a #FollowFriday for academics

I’ve never been a fan of the #FollowFriday hashtag, as it often reads like a popularity contest.

Have you seen a tweet including #FollowFriday (or #ff shortened) and a list of user names preceded by the @ symbol? This tradition was born spontaneously within the Twitter community to recommend your favorite tweeps to your followers.

It occurred to me a few months ago that I do, in fact, want to recommend academics to follow, simply because I think their tweets are informative. Also, because I follow my own students (former students, as this 2012-2013 I’m not teaching), and they follow me too, often they may also choose to follow some of the academics, graduate students, professors and alike that I do follow.

So why #ScholarSunday? Simply for two facts. First, because Sunday is the only day I have to sit down and relax, and take some time to review who I follow, and second, because Sunday has the same first letter as scholar (much like other hashtags, #TravelTuesday, #WineWednesday and #FoodFriday or #FollowFriday). Simple mnemonic trick.

I do encourage you, if you are an academic, to use the #ScholarSunday hashtag to recommend some new Twitter users to your followers. I follow scholars in a very broad range of disciplines, from neuroscience to digital history, and I have learned a lot from them. Perhaps you will, too.

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Posted in bridging academia and practice.

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7 Responses

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  1. Amanda Michelle Jones says

    yeah… this is how #followfriday started: you mention someone you recommend w/ a reason why. it has certainly devolved. but i do like your idea!

Continuing the Discussion

  1. Public Intellectuals 2.0: Raul Pacheco-Vega on Social Media in the Academy | MCSPI linked to this post on January 27, 2013

    […] media, and facilitating that participation. For example, you created the tags #MyResearch and also #ScholarSunday on Twitter, encouraging other scholars and researchers to share their work and make new […]

  2. My 1st #ScholarSunday goes to… @GlobalEcoGuy | Meeting Change linked to this post on March 10, 2013

    […] community. A few months ago, I came across the #ScholarSunday hashtag – started by Dr. Raul Pacheco as a #FollowFriday for academics. I think this is a brilliant way of helping to identify those academics that are transforming the […]

  3. On mentorship in academic circles – Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD linked to this post on June 20, 2013

    […] for other academics in the disciplines I follow. And that’s also partly the purpose of #ScholarSunday and #MyResearch- to build a community of smart people who do scholarly […]

  4. A summary of curators and social media hashtags for academics – Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD linked to this post on December 20, 2013

    […] attached (or #FF). Frankly, my idea was to help build scholarly communities, so I decided to create #ScholarSunday to encourage people who follow scholars/academics/intellectuals to share who they follow, but more […]

  5. An online conversation on “the political” – Raul Pacheco-Vega, PhD linked to this post on December 22, 2013

    […] time. I see it as an online space where I can learn from other smart colleagues. One of the reasons I started #ScholarSunday was to share my views of which scholars I followed and why I learned so much from them. Recently we […]

  6. Conditionally Accepted | 101 Big And Small Ways To Make A Difference In Academia linked to this post on October 28, 2014

    […] On Twitter, participate in #SaturdaySchool, and then help build academic online communities by participating in #ScholarSunday. […]



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