A piece I wrote recently for the Thesis Whisperer for the 'You & Your Supervisor' series made it into the Times Higher Education supplement's 'Best of the Scholarly Web' feature.

A post in this series related to how assertive you can be with your supervisor when you are a paying 'customer'. It considered the idea of the commodification of education and whether the student/supervisor relationship is one of customer and provider - I don't think it is. The post went live, prompting a lively exchange on twitter.

This was all useful material for me to talk about at the at the post graduate forum – annual conference training symposium (PGF-ACTS) session on careers beyond the PhD at the Royal Geographical Society annual conference. I was invited as a panelist because of my social media presence, particularly my editorship of PhD2Published. I was there to field questions on using social media in research and researcher development.

Academics presented their views on social media, but the emphasis generally was on publishing. It appeared as if academia didn't value blogging.

I explained about the importance of digital identity and social media strategy for professional development including, but not limited to blogging. My more established peers were dismissive about blogging, which made me wonder why are they scared of it?

The academic blogging debate was also rumbling on elsewhere. A comment by Leonard Cassuto in a live chat here on the Guardian Higher Education Network - "I have nothing against [blogs], but I don't read them, either" - had sparked further discussion. Academic Rohan Maitzen blogged about Cassuto's attitude to blogging and publishing and Cassuto then posted his reponse 'The Measure of Blogging'.

As someone who feels the blog has a firm place in academia – especially for early career researchers like myself – I am left bemused by it all.

Here's why. There are two types of blog the personal one and the edited ones which collate submission from numerous different authors such as PhD2Published, which I edit, the Thesis Whisperer, the LSE Impact Blog, Wonkhe, Networked Researcher and so on.

I believe the edited blog has a great deal of value to the academy, it allows authors to comment and debate on current issues.

Publishing traditionally takes a very long time, in some cases up to two years, so these blogs allow for immediate engagement and debate of current issues. If they didn't have value or something to offer then why would the LSE or the publishers SAGE have invested in blogging?

I think the concern relates to the unedited, non-reviewed, personal blog. However, I think this is misplaced. Telling an academic not to have a personal blog is a bit like telling them not to have an opinion, it's just that this opinion is online and can be found on Google.

I believe my work is an extension of myself. It comes from me, from my attitudes, values and personal experiences. When you hire me for a job you are hiring me, the person and I believe the personal blog provides an introduction to that person. Someone could be a publishing regularly in in high impact journals but it's not easy to tell what they are like to work with. By putting my blog out there I am offering my readers an introduction to not only my work but the things that inspire it and the things which make me, as a researcher, as person, as a potential employee tick.

My blogs - both personal and edited contributions - have led to me being offered different roles, and being asked to contribute to other blogs. So I believe they do stimulate interest in you as a researcher. Yes they do take time to develop but that can be said for anything including a peer reviewed publication. The interactive nature of the blog means that people can engage with me and my work, something that I thought as researchers we were supposed to be doing? The one way flow of information of the static web page doesn't allow this.

Blogs have different functions, they compliment and add value to traditional methods of career development and publication.

I don't think we will ever go completely digital, but I think it is naive to assume the academia can remain the same and not see the value added through digital platforms of communication through wide participation and engagement.

Dr Sarah-Louise Quinnell is a social scientist, PhD graduate and managing editor of the site PhD2Published and the founder of Networked Researcher. She tweets as @sarahthesheepu and blogs here.

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