The TwISLE project—Twitter and Informal Science Learning and Engagement—was CCT’s first attempt to explore the ways in which social media are used by adults for public science discussions, and was the first study of Twitter to be funded by the National Science Foundation.

We studied tweets and retweets from several public institutions—e.g., museums, scientific societies, zoos—and from their Twitter followers, and developed, tested, and validated two research measures. The first was based on an analysis of the content of tweets, and the other on interviews and surveys of the followers of certain Twitter feeds in which we asked those followers about their interest in science information and why they used Twitter to follow science organizations. We hope the measures we developed will help with future research on social media.
 
More information on the TwISLE project is available from the National Science Foundation's award abstract.