During my workshop at the Research Practices 2.0 event on Saturday, we discussed some of the fundamental questions about sharing work online.

What?

• What type of research work / activities / content etc?

Where?

• What type of social media / online spaces?

When?

• During what stages of PhD / study / project?
• How might this support / compromise ‘formal’ dissemination?

How?

• What types of format / media etc.

Who (to/with)?

• Audience – size, demographic?
• Identifiability – real or ‘imagined’?

I had a great group, who were not given anywhere near the time they deserved to discuss these sufficiently. But they responded brilliantly, generally embracing the idea of research dissemination beyond text-based formats and reporting of findings.

In following up these questions – particularly the ‘What?’ and the ‘When?’ – I referred to my interpretation of Jakob Bardram’s (2007) Fish Model. This plots the student’s engagement in theoretical and empirical work (which I crudely termed the ‘Research Scope’) with the duration of the PhD.

This highly conceptual model is hardly an authentic representation of anyone’s actual PhD, but it does usefully indicate at-a-glance the broad ‘focusing out’ and ‘focussing in’ periods that commonly describe the doctoral research trajectory.

I extended this model to incorporate how, as PhD students; we might at least maintain the scope of academic engagement and learning expansion (represented by A). Indeed, there is justifiably an argument to go beyond a process of mere sustainability in favour of a continuation of the ‘focusing out’ trajectory (as represented by B). Or, crucially, do we relinquish the agency for continued expansive learning to adopt a ‘blinkered’ approach that conforms to the reductionist constraints of ‘finishing the thesis’ without compromising direct disclosure of ideas or findings before ‘formal’ publication.

Holistic models of doctoral practices provide more authentic representations of what doing a PhD actually entails, and the complex socio-educational structures that underpin it – what Cumming (2010) refers to as ‘doctoral enterprise’. Such approaches incorporate activities, forms of intellectual enquiry and social interaction beyond those parameters defining thesis-development, to those that are more attributable to exploring the general research field, and engaging in multiple practice contexts.

For the purposes of the workshop, this was a simple way of demonstrating the ‘dialogical’ relationship between what McAlpine et al. (2009) distinguish as the ‘doctoral-specific’ and the ‘academic-general,’ which describes the potential interrelatedness and influence between the core and the peripheral.

This blog post itself partly represents an example of such a dialogue. It references an event and a project, which can be seen as peripheral activities not directly linked to my PhD research. However, my activities in the project have (not surprisingly) been informed by my research into doctoral practices and social media. Additionally, I may chose not to reference Bardram’s Fish Model in my thesis, but some of the conceptual ideas it has helped describe will be explored. Articulating these ideas in this way is contributing to my process of understanding and conceptualising that will benefit my thesis.

Similar dialogical processes between thesis-development and peripheral activities (such as teaching) may not necessarily involve social media. But it’s taken me a while to realise in my own PhD research, that it is fundamentally the nature of this dialogue – which is social, contested and in a state of flux – that is key to understanding the cultural aspects of social media adoption and use.

References

Bardram, J. E. (2007). The Art of Doing a PhD. Doctoral Colloquium. UbiComp 2007. Innsbruck, Austria.

Cumming, J. (2010). Doctoral enterprise: A holistic conception of evolving practices and arrangements. Studies in Higher Education, 35(1), 25-39.

McAlpine, L., Jazvac-Martek, M., & Hopwood, N. (2009). Doctoral student experience: Activities and difficulties influencing identity development. International Journal for Researcher Development, 1(1). 97-109.

This is the abstract for the workshop I am running in the afternoon session of Research Practices 2.0 event on Saturday. The downside is I don’t get to see the sessions @jennifermjones and @mark_carrigan are running at the same time! However, we will each be feeding back in the plenary that follows.

In what ways can I use social media to disseminate my research?
What are the potential benefits and risks involved?

Social media are providing new spaces for disseminating research work, enabling new forms of dialogue and engagement with different audiences, through various formats and media.

In this interactive session, you will be able to discuss and develop ideas about sharing your work online. Drawing on specific examples of social media – such as blogging and content sharing sites – we will explore how they can challenge and support established forms of research dissemination and publication. We will identify potential reasons for not wanting to share work online, and how we might address this by discussing different stages and contexts of PhD study, and core and peripheral research activities.

We’ve now finalised the timings for the Research Practices 2.0 event on Saturday. Looking forward to a busy day.

———-

Research Practices 2.0
Social and Participatory Media in Academic Life

Saturday 29th October 2011
Business School South, Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham

9.30–10.00 Registration & Coffee
(Foyer)

10.00–10.30 Introduction Session
(Lecture Theatre A25)
Claire, Andy & Emily

10.30–11.30 Morning Sessions
(A24, A26, A06, A07)
Lead Facilitators – Warren, Claire, Jennifer & Kat

11.30–12.00 Coffee & Networking
(Foyer)

Sign up for the afternoon sessions
Opportunity to watch participant videos in A08

12.00–12.45 Plenary
(Lecture Theatre A25)
All Facilitators

Reporting back from morning sessions
Open discussion and questions

12.45–1.45 Lunch
(Foyer)

Opportunity to use the IT Suite A03 and watch participant videos in A08

1.45–2.30 Afternoon Sessions
(A06, A24, A26, IT Suite A03)
Mark, Jennifer & Andy plus IT drop-in facilitators (Claire, Emily & Kat)

2.30–3.00 Coffee & Networking
(Foyer)

Opportunity to use the IT Suite A03
Fill in assessment forms

3.00–4.00 Plenary
(Lecture Theatre A25)
All facilitators

Reporting back from afternoon sessions
Open discussion and questions

The BBC has now released a podcast of every edition of Radio 4′s weekly broadcast In Our Time. Whilst we’ve been able to ‘listen again’ to these for a while, this is the first time the complete archive has also been made available to download.

In Our Time invites experts to discuss topics within its wide remit of cultural, historical, philosophical and scientific themes. It’s a simple format, largely unaltered since it was originally broadcast in 1998. The discussions, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, are largely convivial and rarely confrontational, but regularly feature some of the best academics, intellectuals and literati in their field. Read the terms of service and use appropriately folks.

The Research Practices 2.0 one-day event is fast approaching on Saturday 29th October. This is the culmination of the project and internship programme that developed out of the Graduate Centre workshop sessions I conducted with LeRoy Hill. It also compliments a web resource (to be located on the University of Nottingham Graduate School site), which we will be launching at the event.

In addition to me, Claire Mann and Emily Buchnea from the project team, we are delighted to have @WarrenPearce, @jennifermjones, @mark_carrigan and Kat Gupta (@mixosaurus) helping facilitate the event. Most of them contributed to the video interviews we conducted, which will constitute a significant part of the web resource.

We had a meeting yesterday to finalise a collaboratively-designed workshop session that we will be running in the morning across four groups. Later in the afternoon, me, Mark and Jen will be leading three separate sessions focused on more specific practice contexts. In addition, there will be opportunities for attendees to use a ‘drop-in’ IT clinic and to view the videos. We are looking at filming the plenary sessions for later inclusion on the web resource.

It was good to see the 100 places taken up within a week or so of publicising the event. We have a considerable number on a reserve list that we’d love to accommodate, but many more would compromise the interactivity of the sessions.

We wanted the event to be as inclusive as possible so it’s particularly satisfying to see attendees from across the disciplines. And whilst this project has been developed primarily for the University of Nottingham doctoral community, it was always our intention to make both the web resource and the event accessible to external PhD students and researchers. So it’s great we have a good representation from a number of other (primarily East Midlands) universities.

Pitching events like this is difficult. People will come with a range of experiences, competences and perspectives on social media, and different assumptions and expectations of the event. We hope to be responsive and collaborative by creating an informal and interactive environment for discussion and an opportunity to listen to and share experiences of using social media.

I’ll be blogging more on this, before and after the event, in the next few weeks.

I’ve recently had my paper, ’Negotiating Doctoral Practices and Academic Identities through the Adoption and Use of Social and Participative Media,’ accepted for the 10th European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL 2011) at the University of Brighton, 10-11 November. This will be an early opportunity to present some of my original research contributing towards my thesis. I’ve reproduced the abstract below:

This paper describes current doctoral research into how PhD students are using social and participative media (web 2.0) in their academic studies. It examines the role these media can play in identity-formation and induction into academic scholarship and professional development. The practice-context and situated approach of this study challenges some of the dominant discourses and idealised concepts within the educational technology field to address the significant gap between the potential of web 2.0 and the reality of low rates of adoption and use.

The study reconciles social media adoption and use with the self-efficacy and heterogeneity of doctoral practice. By taking an ecological approach, it recognises that doing a PhD requires the negotiation of multiple and interrelated academic and peripherally non-academic contexts. Such an approach legitimises doctoral practices beyond those related purely to thesis-development, and challenges models of doctoral education defined by a trajectory of increased participation and enculturation within a single, localised institutional research community. In addition, rather than focusing on one particular tool or platform, the study adopts a holistic perspective to social media that recognises the multiplicity, interrelatedness and transiency of web 2.0.

The empirical research uses a small sample of social sciences, humanities and interdisciplinary PhD students as participants. Adopting a qualitative approach and mixed-method design, data were collected through the observation of online activities across a range of social media, participant-reported accounts, and a series of in-depth participant interviews. Activity theory is used to support a grounded and recursive approach to analysing participant-produced digital artefacts, field notes and interview transcripts through open coding and thick description. From these data, an analytical framework of interrelated object-oriented activity systems was generated with which to identify and describe shifting patterns in social media practice through key phases in the participants’ doctoral experiences, and across a range of practice contexts.

Emerging findings indicate the role of social media in contributing to, and revealing, the tensions inherent in negotiating multiple and interrelated practice contexts through boundary crossing and interdisciplinary activities. The study reveals how participation in emergent online research networks and communities is enabling new forms of professional academic engagement, often beyond the immediate scope of thesis-related work. It examines how this contributes to the participants’ mapping of the research field by providing additional insights into the socio-cultural infrastructure that underpins academic discourse. It also highlights how the development of doctoral social media practices and identity agendas are influenced by localised research cultures and often compromised by ambiguous or perceived audiences.

The title refers to a banner displayed by Manchester United supporters in the Winter of 1989-90, in protest that, after three years in the job, manager Alex Ferguson had failed to bring the success the club deeply craved. It has become part of footballing lore that Mark Robins’ goal against Nottingham Forest in the 3rd Round of the FA Cup that season saved his career. This may or may not be true, but United went on to win the Cup and over the subsequent years Ferguson has become the most successful manager in the history of English football.

This reminds me that preparation and hard work are often not recognised until everything comes together; that after three years of my PhD, I will soon have something to show for it; and that it might just possibly lead to something bigger.

Over the last week or so I’ve had a chance to catch up with Martin Weller’s new book, The Digital Scholar. Those who follow The Ed Techie blog will be familiar with his enthusiastic support of open scholarship, and it’s great to see that an open access version of the book is now available to read online.

Drawing largely on Ernest Boyer’s four components of scholarship as a framework, The Digital Scholar provides an excellent overview of the role of digital technologies in the current academic landscape. It is clearly written and accessible to a wider academic audience, so I hope it gets the recognition and readership it deserves.

As a complementary work, I would highly recommend Christine Borgman’s Scholarship in the Digital Age, which provides a more in-depth look into the socio-economics of information that underpin academic discourse and publishing. It’s a great book, but one that felt conspicuously out of date when it was first published. A second edition, incorporating the influence of web 2.0, would be most welcome.

References

Borgman, C. L. (2007). Scholarship in the digital age: Information, infrastructure, and the internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Weller, M. (2011). The digital scholar: How technology is transforming scholarly practice. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

I’ve just added a new category to my side menu, with links to websites additional to my ‘core’ resources (Wiki, Twiitter, Delicious etc.). Most are those bounded, special interest ‘Ning’-type community thingies that I always seem to be signing up to. I’ve added these mainly for my own purpose as I often sign up, say hello, create a basic profile page and then barely contribute. There’s probably a few more that I’ve forgotten about completely…

After explaining that ‘Eichmannism’ is “that form of bullshit which accepts as its starting and ending point official definitions, rules, and categories without regard for the realities of particular situations,” Neil Postman adds:

“One final point about Eichmannism, and I would like to state it as Postman’s First Law – so perhaps you will want to write this down: “Everyone is potentially somebody else’s Eichmann. So be careful.” Postman’s Second Law is: “Everyone is already somebody else’s Eichmann. You weren’t careful enough.””

This extract from Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection* – a paper delivered at the National Convention for the Teachers of English, Washington D C in 1969 – is typical Postman. In fact, Eichmannism represents one of many forms of bullshit. Others he suggests include:

• Pomposity – the use of “fancy titles, words, phrases, and sentences,” usually employed to hide insufficiencies
• Fanaticism – a malignant form of bullshit that at its worse is manifest as bigotry
• Inanity – public utterances from “people whose opinions would otherwise not be solicited,” increasingly amplified through the development of mass media
• Superstition – “a belief, usually expressed in authoritative terms for which there is no factual or scientific basis”
• Earthiness – the assumption that “by using words like crap and shit,” one is making more sense

“What,” asks Postman, “can be done about all this bullshit?” In developing the process of ‘crap-detecting’ – a phrase borrowed from Ernest Hemingway – Postman emphasises art over technique.

Fundamentally, he sees crap-detecting as a “set of attitudes toward the function of human communication: which is to say, the function of human relationships.” Not that language isn’t important. Indeed, according to Postman, it’s the most precious thing we have. But communication is located within social and discursive practices, with deeply embedded and profound hidden agendas.

His point is that crap detecting – or critical thinking if you prefer – is more than developing a set of skills or literacies, but is embedded in the values and belief systems of each of us. “If you want to teach the art of crap-detecting,” Postman suggests, “you must help students become aware of their values.” After all, as his ‘Third Law’ states:

“At any given time, the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself.”

* There appear to be a number of different versions of the text online, several of which seem to be truncated. I’m assuming the longest is the most authentic, though I may be talking crap.