PROCESO PRODUCTIVO

Five sub-categories of impact were developed for the category of informing: contributed to the cumulative knowledge base, supported the interpretation of findings, inspired further ideas, confirmed ideas, and learned/improved research methods.

5.6.1.1 Built Knowledge Base

Researchers reported that the articles they shared had provided help in their

understanding of a topic, problem, or issue in areas relevant to their research. P1 discussed how an article helped her better understand the application of her previous research. P8 said that an article he shared helped him better understand a long-existing debate in his field. P10 was trying to understand the history behind a model that he was using in his research. This model did not originate from his discipline but was nowadays widely applied in the research in his field.

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Although that article was not directly related to the use of this model, he commented that it was helpful for him conducting this “deep background research.”

P10: “I think that papers, especially old papers from not in your discipline, don't get read enough… I was really fascinated with paper like this. Tracing the idea that we hold near and dear in science, and like going backward in time and seeing how it's formed, what criticisms of it are, things like that… It gave me an understanding why it was used and what people thought of it. If I got critiques of it in the peer review process, like if somebody said oh you cannot use this model because x, y, and z, I’ll just go back and say, well, it has been critiqued on this standpoint and this standpoint, and this was what people said. It was me doing the research to make sure that I understood the problem well enough that I can defend and argument I was making.”

5.6.1.2 Learned/Improved Research Methods

Some articles that researchers shared provided help in their learning or improvement of a technique, tool, or research method in general in their research. For instance, P3 reported that the method in a paper that he shared on Twitter largely informed the method that he was using in a current research project. P8 discussed how the technique he learned from an article helped with his research design in one of his recent research projects. P10 had been thinking about using a technique in his research but did not have enough time to explore the feasibility. An article he shared managed to do that. He commented, “It didn't get me thinking about using this technique, but it was good to learn that this can be done.” P11 learned about a better technique that she could reapply to her doctoral research and commented that she had been using this technique until today. P18 was having difficulties using a tool in his research. His colleagues recommended

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a paper for him as a tutorial for the method. He found it much easier learning from this article and shared this article on Twitter for others who might find it helpful.

5.6.1.3 Supported the Interpretation of Findings

A few researchers reported articles they shared helped support the interpretation of findings in their research. One of them was the example mentioned earlier by P8. He provided constructive feedback for a relevant pre-print article by mentioning the author on Twitter; they had further discussions about it via email. The author later improved this article according to his feedback. Meanwhile, this same article resulted in a better understanding of the research findings in P8’s research. Another example was discussed by P20, which she reported to have cited in “two to three papers.”

5.6.1.4 Confirmed Ideas

A few articles were reported to confirm the ongoing ideas or doubts of researchers. For instance, one of the articles that P11 shared confirmed the preliminary findings of her doctoral research when she in her doctoral program. This article strengthened her determination to continue with her research, although one of her committee members was against her idea at that moment. She commented that she tweeted this article because this article was “close to the bottom of her heart.” Another example was what was described in Section 5.6.1.2 in P10’s case. P10 confirmed his idea of using a technique in his research from one of the articles he shared. Later, he was able to replicate the technique in his own research.

5.6.1.5 Inspired Further Ideas

Researchers reported cases where the articles they shared provided inspirations for them to think critically or creatively about a topic, problem, or issue in areas relevant to their research. For instance, P8 shared an ongoing debate in his field about if fish could feel pain or not.

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According to him, this was not only a technical question but also a philosophical problem. Although his own research found that fish could feel pain, he shared an article arguing that fish cannot feel pain. After continuous pondering on this topic, he published a commentary article in a journal elaborating more on this topic. P10 discussed an article he shared that was published by one of the earliest researchers in his field. This article inspired him to think more critically about his current research. P2 also discussed an example where he used “generative” to describe the inspirations the article had on his research later on.