My very first robot: Programming a Twitter bot to promote open access scholarship

Abstract

Social media is now recognized as an important element in promoting scholarship available on institutional repository sites. To capitalize on the value-added by social media engagement, automated "bots" can be deployed to facilitate social media outreach with minimal administrative investment. In this presentation, I'll provide an overview of social media's value in the context of open access publishing. I will also walk through the steps of creating a Python-based Twitter bot, providing high-level concepts that will be understandable for non-programmers. I will also provide a narrative description of my experience building my first Twitter bot to help reveal the sometimes hidden labor that goes in to the development of behind-the-scenes programmatic tools.