The proposed paper describes current doctoral research into how a small sample of social sciences, humanities and interdisciplinary PhD students are adopting and using social and participative media (web 2.0) in their academic practices. The study uses a qualitative, mixed-method design of observation of online activities, participant-reported accounts and successive in-depth interviews. An Activity Theory-based analytical framework of interrelated activity systems is used to describe shifting patterns of practice across multifarious academic contexts and through key phases in the doctoral experience.

The study adopts holistic perspectives of (i) doctoral practices, that legitimises academic activities beyond those related purely to thesis-development and established models of participation and enculturation, and (ii) of social media, responding to the multiplicity, interrelatedness and transiency of web 2.0 tools and platforms. In doing so, it recognises the self-efficacy and heterogeneity of PhD study in the negotiation of multiple socio-technical research communities and networks, and the complex role social media can play in identity-formation and induction into doctoral scholarship and academic professional development.

In addressing the significant gap between the potential of web 2.0 and the reality of low adoption rates and lack of widespread use, the paper proposes that dominant discourses and idealised concepts within the educational technology and media communities do not necessarily reflect the majority of doctoral students’ engagement with social media. Rather, key incentives, disincentives and barriers created by tensions with embedded research cultures within and without the faculty, and inconsistencies in training opportunities and shared practice, heavily influence and disrupt patterns of adoption and use.

The paper will also describe how the dissemination of the activity systems analysis is facilitating the ongoing participant interviews, enabling a negotiated understanding of participants’ use of web 2.0, and encouraging a shared, critical and reflective dialogue for the development of effective social media practices.

This coming Monday, I’m presenting a symposium with Odessa Dariel (and on behalf of Claire Mann), at the SRHE Postgraduate and Newer Researchers Conference at Celtic Manor, Newport.

The presentations will address our ongoing work as student interns with the Visual Learning Lab (VLL). Student interns have played an integral role in VLL activities since June 2008, promoting visual learning across the University of Nottingham, providing support for both staff and students in new learning technologies and related pedagogies. Our role was recognised as offering a unique position with which to undertake research that promotes the development of the ‘student voice.’

We recently conducted a series of focus groups in a number of Schools across the University asking undergraduate students about their learning experiences. In the last few weeks we have started delivering the key findings to teaching staff in participating Schools through interactive workshops based around a video we produced. We are looking to extend this to PGCHE and MA (Ed.) students in the New Year.

We have adopted a Participation Action Research (PAR) model as a broad methodology for the project, with progressive ‘action-refection’ cycles enabling ongoing communication and collaboration between researchers, students and tutors.

We hope to replicate the video workshop in the final part of our symposium, and as such the conference will itself constitute a further strand of our own reflective practice.

However a recent e-mail from the developers reveals a growing concern over the proliferation of these interests, suggesting users become actively involved in merging and re-appropriating them according to hiearchical values. This apparent messiness is indicative of user-generated classification systems not constrained by predetermined structures. I was intrigued to see someone had put skateboarding down as one of their research interests! I can appreciate the value of standardising terms to facilitate searching for like-minded colleagues, but by imposing a structured taxonomy, are the developers enforcing traditional disciplinary and theoretical hierarchies and classifications which might otherwise be challenged? It will be interesting to see how things develop.

My academia.edu page is here.

Similar notions of ‘citation mapping’ have been explored elsewhere, particularly in the natural sciences, and a version has recently been introduced to the citation and journal database ISI Web of Science. And Interactive Designer W. Bradford Paley’s visualization of 800,000 scientific papers uses author citations to explore the interconnections between science paradigms.

*Tight, M. (2008). Higher education research as tribe, territory and/or community: a co-citation analysis. Higher Education. 55, 593-605.