Leicester academic cited as social media superstar

Dr Vikas Shah (pictured) from our Medical School has been cited as a ‘superstar’ for his use of social media in enhancing teaching and learning.

Jisc has announced their top ten higher education social media superstars of 2017. Among them is Dr Shah who is a Consultant Radiologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester, and an Academic Champion in Clinical Radiology & Imaging at our Medical School.

Each winner not only makes the top ten list, but also wins an edtech experience for their class, robot and virtual reality included. The competition sets out to celebrate the innovative ways in which social media is being used in HE to add value to sector-practice.

Jisc is the UK’s expert member organisation for digital technology and digital resources in higher education, further education, skills and research. They will be launching a similar competition for FE social media superstars next year.

Dr Vikas Shah, Instagram: thexraydoctor; @DrVikasShah , was cited for his ‘impressive Instagram following, bringing radiology to the masses.’

The judges stated: “In addition to image and video posts, he’s an active user of Instagram stories, using them to post new teaching material every few hours. Vikas has used the new “polls in stories” feature since day one, increasing engagement with his quiz posts.”

Dr Shah said: “When Twitter rolled out the ability to tweet multiple images, I used the feature to create #radquiz which is a radiology image with three flashcard options which can be selected as potential answers. In 2015 I blogged a weekly case study, promoted using the hashtag #xrayoftheweek on multiple networks.”

His expertise in the field led to co-authoring an article in Academic Radiology on the use of #SoMe (social media) in radiology education, with promotion of this article on various social platforms, yielding the highest Altmetric score for any article in that journal this year.

“My knowledge of the platforms and their new features enables me to exploit them for the benefit of learners. My learners come from a variety of professional backgrounds and countries, often with poor access to formal education, and the ability to provide open access to knowledge is my primary motivation," he added.