networked scholars, or, why on earth do academics use social media and why should we...

Emerging Technologies in Authentic Learning Contexts Conference August 2015, Cape Town, South Africa

Networked Scholars, or,

Why on earth do academics use social media and why should we care?

George Veletsianos, PhD Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning & Technology

Associate Professor

School of Education and Technology Royal Roads University

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

What is Networked Scholarship? What do networked scholars do online? What do professors do on social media? Why are professors on social media? What are some of the challenges they face? Small-group discussions Large group discussions

Overview

What is Networked Scholarship? What does it entail?

Discussion prompt #1

Networked Scholarship, or Networked Participatory Scholarship, refers to:

“scholars’ use of participatory technologies and online social networks to share, reflect upon, critique, improve, validate, and further their scholarship” (Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012)

•  A non-deterministic perspective

What is Networked Scholarship?

Networked Scholarship

Networked Scholarship differs in distinct ways from: Digital Scholarship – Using technology to improve various scholarly processes (e.g., data sharing infrastructures). Social Scholarship – Emphasizes use of social tools for collaboration, sharing, etc Open Scholarship - Emphasizes broadening access and reducing barriers (with or without technology)

(Kimmons, 2014)

What does “Networked” mean?

Networked Scholarship

Increasing desire to engage with with

open, digital, & networked practices

in teaching, learning, and scholarship.

Emergent forms of scholarship are seen as major breakthroughs in rethinking the ways in which knowledge is created and shared (Nielsen, 2012; Weller, 2011).

Hope for a variety of positive outcomes (lower costs, increasing scholarly impact & reach)

Examining networks & social media = understanding & advancing scholarship

Why the increasing interest?

Networks of scholars have arisen that function (& succeed) outside formal university structures


The ways that emerging technologies and social media are used and experienced by scholars are poorly understood

Open/digital/social scholarship are largely driven by advocacy rather than evidence (Kimmons, 2014)

We need to understand “state-of-the-actual” rather than the “state-of-the-art” (Selwyn, 2011)


What do scholars do on social media?

•  Academic-specific technologies •  Repurposed technologies

What technologies do they use?

Veletsianos (2013)

Announcements

Post draft papers

Author open textbooks

Share Syllabi + Activities

Live streaming Live-Blogging

Collaborative authoring

Debates + commentary

Open teaching

Public P&T materials

The doctoral journey (e.g., #PhDChat)

Crowdsourcing

Activities

Veletsianos (2012)

Activities

Faculty use these Twitter to:

Share information, resources, and media Open classrooms Provide opportunities for learning Request assistance Provide help and support

Activities

But how many engage in these activities? Unclear. Surveys in the US show: Adoption increasing, personal > professional use, Some surveys show that adoption varies by tool: 50-70% adoption Others show 15-40% adoption (Bowman 2015; Greenhow et al 2015; Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-Kane, 2011; Moran & Tinti-Kane, 2013).

Activities

Adoption appears to be goal-oriented and often tactical. Universities encourage academics to adopt social media for scholarly purposes (eg raise citations), but adoption often seems to be guided by community-seeking. Adoption also seems to vary by role (e.g,. Faculty vs students)

Who are we when we are online? Do we reveal everything about ourselves? What don’t we reveal? Why do we reveal what we do reveal?


Why are professors on social media?

Why are professors on social media?

•  Faculty use social media to: –  Explore scholarly ideas –  Share knowledge –  Debate & critique –  Advice & reflect –  Connect with other researchers –  Reach multiple audiences –  Re-envision their identities (as public intellectuals) –  Activism and social justice

Kjellberg, 2010; Kirkup, 2010; Martindale & Wiley, 2005; Mewburn & Thompson, 2013; Kimmons & Veletsianos 2015; Veletsianos & Kimmons 2015)

What challenges do faculty face on social media?

Why challenges do faculty face on social media?

•  Social media activities are rife with tensions, dilemmas, and conundrums. – High-profile cases (e.g., Salaita, Kansas Board of

regents) –  Time demands & Homophily –  Surveillance & termination – Mismatch between social media conventions and

academia •  what counts as scholarship expands to include new, non-

institutional terms (Stewart (2015) – personal-professional boundaries – concerns regarding academic freedom – Context collapse & unwanted attention

What are some social media participation strategies that work (or might work) for you and your needs?

Brainstorm

Certain practices question elements of traditional scholarly practice

Social media transforms practice Practice transforms how we use social media

How can universities support and encourage networked participation without fear?

Implications

Do Twitter metrics or other social media metrics mean anything? Should social media metrics be used to evaluate a scholars’ reach or impact?


Based on an analysis of 469 accounts we found that, those scholars who

•  follow more users, •  have tweeted more, •  signal themselves as professors, •  and have been on Twitter longer will have more followers.


https://tags.hawksey.info/ “a free Google Sheet template which lets you setup

and run automated collection of search results from Twitter.”

FAQs: What are some tools I can use to archive and analyze tweets?

A free social network analysis and visualization plugin for Microsoft Excel.


A shoestring approach may also work depending on your needs

E.g., In ethnographic studies: A journal A spreadsheet Screenshots …and a lot of patience


Public vs Private

Local laws

Local research ethics boards

Depending on your research, commonly used qualitative techniques may be helpful to consider (e.g., asking for participant preferences, revising quotes to reduce incidence of identification)

But, is it ethical?

And increasingly: who has the power and means to collect and analyze such data?

FAQs: Is it ethical to capture, store, and analyze social media data?

What else are you interested in discussing?


Forthcoming in 2016

Thank you!

Research available at:

http://www.veletsianos/publications

This presentation:

www.slideshare.com/veletsianos

Contact:

[email protected] @veletsianos on Twitter