Beyond Self-Promotion: How Software Engineering Research Is Discussed on LinkedIn

What is it about?

LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, isn't just for job hunting—it can also be a place where researchers and practitioners talk about scientific findings. We have looked at such interactions for people with an academic or industry software engineering (SE) background. Surprisingly, 39% of LinkedIn posts discussing SE research aren't from the researchers themselves. And a whopping 71% of comments on the posts come from industry professionals. Our study offers actionable insights for researchers and practitioners to further enhance LinkedIn discussions for a stronger bridge between creators and innovators in software engineering.

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Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We spend plenty of resources on software engineering research. Let's make sure that it reaches its target audience with some science communication. To accomplish this, however, we first need to understand what constitutes effective science communication in SE. We took a look at how SE research is shared and discussed on LinkedIn.