Open scholarship & online identity

Martin Weller

Overview

• Open scholarship• Researchers & technology• Altmetrics• Research approaches• Online identity• A model for thinking about identity• Conclusions• Discussion

What is open scholarship?

Anderson (2009) open scholars:•create;•use and contribute open educational resources;•self archive;•apply their research;•do open research;•filter and share with others;•support emerging open learning alternatives;•publish in open access journals;•comment openly on the works of others•build networks

Weller (2011) open scholars are likely to:•Have a distributed online identity •Have a central place for their identity• Have cultivated an online network of peers •Have developed a personal learning environment from a range of tools•Engage with open publishing •Create a range of informal outputs •Try new technologies •Mix personal and professional outputs •Use new technologies to support teaching and research•Automatically create and share outputs

The Digital Scholar book

Bloomsburyacademic.com

Definition

Researchers use of new tech“frequent or intensive use is

rare, and some researchers regard blogs, wikis and other novel forms of communication as a waste of time or even dangerous”

(Proctor, Williams and Stewart (2010)

Carpenter et al describe researchers as ‘risk averse’ and ‘behind the curve in using digital technology’

Harley et al (2010) “We found no evidence to suggest that “tech-savvy” young graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, or assistant professors are bucking traditional publishing practices”

Is it tenure?

“The advice given to pre-tenure scholars was consistent across all fields: focus on publishing in the right venues and avoid spending too much time on public engagement, committee work, writing op-ed pieces, developing websites, blogging, and other non-traditional forms of electronic dissemination”

Is it caution?

Waldrop 2008 (on blogging)

““It's so antithetical to the way scientists are trained," Duke University geneticist Huntington F. Willard said... The whole point of blogging is spontaneity--getting your ideas out there quickly, even at the risk of being wrong or incomplete. “But to a scientist, that's a tough jump to make,” says Willard. “When we publish things, by and large, we've gone through a very long process of drafting a paper and getting it peer reviewed.”

Is it habit?

Kroll & Forsman

“Almost all researchers have created a strong network of friends and colleagues and they draw together the same team repeatedly for new projects…

Everyone emphasizes the paramount importance of interpersonal contact as the vital basis for agreeing to enter into joint work. Personal introductions, conversations at meetings or hearing someone present a paper were cited as key in choosing collaborators.”

A conflict of cultural norms?What are the cultural norms of blogging?•a willingness to share thoughts and experiences with others at an early stage;•the importance of getting input from others on an idea or opinion;•launching collaborative projects that would be very difficult or impossible to achieve alone;•gathering information from a high number of sources every day;•control over the sources and aggregation of their news;•the existence of a ‘common code’: a vocabulary, a way to write posts and behaviour codes such as quoting other sources when you use them, linking into them, commenting on other posts and so on;•a culture of speed and currency, with a preference to post or react instantaneously; and•a need for recognition – bloggers want to express themselves and get credit for it.(Le Muir 2005)

How ‘sticky’ are these cultural norms?

Openness allows Altmetrics

ReaderMeter

Social Media analysis

• How often do we build analytics into our work?

• How reliable are these figures? (and services)• What the @*@* do they mean in terms of

impact?• If we take them seriously will we just game

them?

• Video• Networks• Data visualisation• Analytics• Curation/filtering• Writing for online• Liveblogging

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/5749192621/

Research skills

The research process• Have an idea• Write a proposal• Submit proposal• {wait}• Get funding• Do research• Write paper• {wait}• Publish

• Have an idea• Do research• Blog it

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mg7een/4550426/

• Liberated curriculum

Different granularity

Heppell (2001) “we continually make the error of subjugating technology to our present practice rather than allowing it to free us from the tyranny of past mistakes”

Online identity

Tag 16 my secret identity by chanchan222 http://www.flickr.com/photos/chanchan222/3219255790/

My online identity

It’s distributed

Reflections by stephen dooley http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/2577006675/

It’s evolving

It’s default

Staircase of the Vatican museum by _robertC_ http://www.flickr.com/photos/r_catalano/404014466/

It’s moving to the centre

It mixes personal & professional

New routes for impact

2400 visitors

52,000 visitors

= 163 hits/month

= 200 hits/day

Open Research Online

There is evidence that open access journals have higher citation measures, downloads and views than those in toll-access databases (e.g. Lawrence 2001; Antelman 2004; Harnad and Brody 2004)

Tweets can predict highly cited articles within the first 3 days of article publication. (Eysenbach 2012)

Blogging leads to more downloads of papers (anecdotal)

Personal reputation, keynote invites (anecdotal)

Complementary to traditional practice

Ewins (2005) “Several committee members expressed concern that a blogger who joined our staff might air departmental dirty laundry (real or imagined) on the cyber clothesline for the world to see.”

Advice to play the game

Can lead to fewer publications

Frustration with old systems

In conflict with existing practice

Seen as frivolous

Academic identity

Henkel (2005) “Autonomy is integrally related to academic identity”

Mead (1934) - the self is developed most fully when the individual integrates community attitudes and values

Canetti (1960) Crowd symbols eg the Revolution

Dennen “the development of identity norms …based on a viral movement of individual actions across blogs.”David Snow, identity = ‘a shared sense of

“one-ness” or “we-ness” anchored in shared attributes and experiences & in contrast to one or more sets of “others”

So…

• Academics define themselves around shared attributes and ‘crowd symbols’

• But open scholarship has different set of attributes & symbols• It also allows a route to re-establishing core academic values such as

autonomy

Mountain folk

“It is true to say that mountain people throughout the world – beyond their cultural, religious or political differences – easily feel at one”“A mountain farmer in the Valais canton has more in common with a moun- tain farmer in Nepal than with someone living on the Swiss Plateau”•Debarbieux and Rudaz (2008)

Growing Alpine identity coming from initiatives & leadersStill many who don’t identify with this though, conflicted.•(Fennia)

Online academics• Resemble mountain dwellers• Have an affinity to their discipline• Also have a dual identity with their online community• Sometimes these are in conflict, sometimes

complementary• It is less problematic for the ‘city dwellers’

The Good News!

• Exciting times• Innovation is possible• New teaching eg Phonar• New Research methods eg social media

analysis, analytics• New dissemination eg video• New connections eg virtual research groups

http://www.flickr.com/photos/306/453957521/

The bad news…

• You have to play the traditional game too• There is risk• Will see increased control• Not well understood by people who matter• Can’t afford not to

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalexanderson/5421517469/

Openness has won

• Open data• Open Access publishing• Open scholarship• Open source• Open tools• MOOCs• OERs• The direction of travel is all one way…

But…

• This isn’t what we thought victory would look like

• Openness as marketing term• Open isn’t always open• It’s more nuanced and subtle now• But this is what victory is always like

For discussion

• Do you feel a tension between traditional and new practice?

• Has openness ‘won’?• What issues around online identity do you

have?• Are there other analogies we could use?