This workshop is divided in 2 parts. In the first part, I will discuss how/why academics use social media and online networks for scholarship, and explore the opportunities and tensions that exist in these spaces. In the second part of the workshop, I will facilitate small group and large group conversations on this topic based on participant interests. Potential topics of exploration may include but are not limited to: social media participation strategies; self-disclosures on social media; capturing and analyzing social media data; ethics of social media research; social media use for networked learning.

1. 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

5. 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

6. What is Networked Scholarship?
What does it entail?
Discussion prompt #1

7. 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?

8. 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)

9. What does “Networked” mean?

10. What does “Networked” mean?

11. What does “Networked” mean?

12. What does “Networked” mean?

13. What does “Networked” mean?

16. Networked Scholarship
Increasing desire to engage with with
open, digital, & networked
practices
in teaching, learning, and scholarship.

17. 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?

18. Networks of scholars have arisen that
function (& succeed) outside formal
university structures
Why the increasing interest?

19. 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)
Why the increasing interest?

20. What do scholars do on social
media?

21. • Academic-specific technologies
• Repurposed technologies
What technologies do they use?

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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).

25. 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)

26. 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?
Discussion prompt #2

27. Why are professors on social media?

28. 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)

29. What challenges do faculty face on
social media?

30. 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

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

32. 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

33. Do Twitter metrics or other social media
metrics mean anything?
Should social media metrics be used to
evaluate a scholars’ reach or impact?
Discussion prompt #3

34. 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.
Discussion prompt #3

35. 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?

36. A free social network analysis
and visualization plugin for
Microsoft Excel.
FAQs: What are some tools I can use
to archive and analyze tweets?

37. 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
FAQs: What are some tools I can use
to archive and analyze tweets?

38. 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?

39. What else are you interested in discussing?
Discussion prompt #5

40. Forthcoming in 2016

41. Thank you!
Research available at:
http://www.veletsianos/
publications
This presentation:
www.slideshare.com/
veletsianos
Contact:
veletsianos@gmail.com
@veletsianos on Twitter