Scientific social media, a new way to expand knowledge. What do urologists need to know?

Abstract

Introduction and aims: Nowadays, it is almost impossible not to link most of the sources of modern knowledge to information of 2.0 technologies. The aim of this review is to analyse the role of scientific social media (Sc-SoMe) and its potential applications in urology.

Material and methods: A literature search was carried out using the PubMed database until July 2018. The research was performed with the following terms: "Social Media", "urology", "science", "research".

Results: Social media (SoMe) offers integrated services and easy tools for communication, collaboration and participation. Popular prototypical platforms of SoMe are Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. SoMe not only influence private life and personal communication, but these also affect business and science sectors. In this sense, the term Sc-SoMe describes the impact and usage of 2.0 technologies platforms on scientific work. There are different models of Sc-SoMe such as author identifiers which are unique identifiers that allow managing the professional identity of each researcher, distinguishing them from other researchers and unequivocally associating their work and author profiles. This helps us manage our own academic profile and control the information available about us and ensure that other researchers are finding correct and complete information about our research and career. Examples of Sc-SoMe are: ResearchGate, ORCID, Mendeley among others.

Conclusions: Sc-SoMe should not only provide important information and services for literature and literature search. These could also be an important catalyst for promoting appropriate and helpful services in the context of a new concept of science, the science 2.0.

Keywords: 2.0 technologies; Big data; Investigación; Redes sociales; Redes sociales científicas; Research; Scientific social media; Social media; Tecnologías 2.0; Urology; Urología.