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.

It has been necessary in my PhD research to track my participants’ ‘off-radar’ social media activities. This is the term I use to describe any active contribution to sites that I am not routinely observing – such as commenting on a blog I am not following. My participants took on the responsibility of reporting such activities, and some found it useful to use Evernote.

Evernote is a private online annotation tool that enables the user to ‘grab’ specific content (such as a paragraph of text or an image) from web pages, and collect them on a personal site as ‘notes’ stored in folders called notebooks. Evernote also enables users to set up confidential links through its shared notebooks facility.

Not all my participants chose to use Evernote, preferring instead to keep a log or simply e-mail updates. But those that did generally found it a quick and unobtrusive method of self-reporting, and one participant adopted it into her everyday practice.

Here’s a guide for researchers who may want to use it in this way:

Set up

The researcher and each of the participants will need to first sign up at http://www.evernote.com/

Click the Create Account button, complete the Register for Evernote panel and follow instructions. Evernote is free for a monthly upload allowance of 60mb.

Create a Notebook

Each participant will need to set up a notebook for all the content they specifically want to share with the researcher.

In the Notebooks panel (top left), select New Notebook and give it a name
(They can set up as many notebooks as they want for other purposes if they wish.)

To save files

The easiest way for participants to save content to Evernote is using the Web Clipper tool. This is a simple ‘bookmarklet’ that adds a button to the browser toolbar (Evernote supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome). To set this up, they need to go to:

http://www.evernote.com/about/download/web_clipper.php

Once this is set up, participants can simply highlight any content on a web page and click the Evernote button. They do not need to have their Evernote site open at the time, but the next time they view it they will see the content has been added as a note.

To share Evernote notes

This is the set up procedure for participants to allow the researcher to access the notes they wish to share. They will only need to do this once:

In the Share drop down menu (top right), click on Share Notebooks…
In the Notebook Sharing panel, click the Start Sharing button next to the notebook to be used for the research
In the Share with individuals panel, select Invite individuals to access this notebook
In the Email invitations to box, type in the researcher’s e-mail
Under the heading Recipients may:, select View this notebook
Keep the Require log in to Evernote box ticked
Click the Send invitations button

Some alternatives to Evernote can be found here.

In a celebrated scene from The Jerk (1979), dim-witted Steve Martin – excited by a dog’s apparent ability to save lives – is rebuked by an aggrieved observer, who suggests he calls it something very different – which Martin proceeds to do for the remainder of the film, to comic effect.

Similarly, it’s easy to get enthusiastic and passionate about a specific technology, sometimes to the point where it seems we cannot live without it. But it’s worth remembering that we draw on our own experiences, knowledge and culturally defined values to determine the affordances of technologies, and that our desire to share our excitement with others might not always be fully appreciated.

Following my previous post on Professor Pat Thomson’s new blog, a few things have been nagging at me in terms of the wider context of professorial blogging and the nature of influence in social media practices across academic hierarchies.

It is reasonable to assume that professors who choose to blog play a role in inspiring early researchers within their disciplines to do the same, but does this necessarily lead to adoption? If I see a professor presenting at a research conference, I might be inspired, but I may not be eager to jump up there and do the same.

In my experience, some of the most crucial barriers to postgraduates starting to blog centre on perceptions of academic quality, reputation and audience – something along the lines of:

• “I don’t have much to say / contribute (at this stage in my studies)”
• “Nobody is interested in what I have to say”
• “I don’t have the confidence to share my thoughts on a public platform”
• “I may regret putting my ideas online that will appear academically naive in the future.”

We might reasonably assume that senior academic bloggers are highly knowledgeable, confident and articulate, with a rich portfolio of research and experience to draw on, and an ability to attract a critical mass of fellow academics. However, whilst they may inform and inspire, might the apparent maturity, assuredness and gravitas of their blogging practices actually deter early researchers from blogging themselves?

Of course, we should not necessarily assume that senior academics have the experiences and competencies of using blogging platforms. They may be new adopters to social media generally, and cautious of the potential implications to their own professional identities and reputations.

But we cannot realistically expect these busy academics to spend any amount of time on informal online dissemination without good reason. I’ve written before on the multiple purposes of blogging (that are often interrelated in complex ways), and there is no reason why a professor should be any different. For some it may be no more than a minor box-ticking exercise in demonstrating research impact, an online platform for self-promotion, or a resources dump. Others may seek to develop more dynamic, discursive and reflective blogging environments, which invite debate, engage with their current practice and research, and demonstrate a willingness to share ideas and expose their own inconsistencies, doubts and challenges.

Which of these are the most likely to influence and affect social media practice in their field?