Open scholarship in the age
of digital competition
Gráinne Conole,
PhD Research Day
BDRA, 21st February 2012
Key questions
 How
are new open, social
and participatory media
changing educational
practice?
 What
are the implications for
research?
 How
are researcher roles
changing?
 What
new digital literacies
are needed?
 How
can we effectively
harness the power of these
new media?
Short survey on social media: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/3F535LJ
Outline
 Today’s
 Digital
digital landscape
scholarship
 Examples
of using social media
for research
 Tips
and hints
 The
OU’s approach to openness
 The
change nature of
‘community’
 Recommendations
 Final
thoughts
 Personal
reflection
Image by Gilly Salmon
Today’s educational context

Rapidly changing technological
environment

New digital literacy skills
needed for learners and
teachers

New open practices are
emerging

New forms of online community
and interactivity
Social & participatory media
5
Media sharing
Mash ups
Collaborative
editing
Social
networking
Social
bookmarking
Conole
http://magicineducation.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/web-2-0-world-map/
Blogging
Messaging
Recommender
systems
Virtual worlds
and games
Syndication
and Alevizou, 2010
Peer
critiquing
Open
User
generated
content
Networked
Collective
aggregation
Social media revolution
The machine is us/ing us
Personalised
Evidence
•
•
•
•
Horizon report, 2011
NSF Cyberinfrastructure report,
2008
IPTS e-learning 2.0
report, 2008
Review of Web 2.0
tools & practices, 2010
Horizon
report
2011
• Abundance of resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
challenging traditional educational
roles
People expect to be able to work &
learn anywhere, anytime
World of work increasingly
collaborative
Technologies increasingly cloud
based
Importance of digital literacies
New evaluation metrics for new
forms of scholarship and publishing
New business models needed
Technologies to
watch
•
•
•
•
•
•
E-books
Mobiles
Augmented learning
Game-based learning
Gesture-based learning
Learning analytics
Horizon reports
•
•
•
Mobile and ebooks
Gesture and
augmented
Learning analytics
http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2011/
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Ed tech trends
Mobile learning
Personalised learning
Cloud computing
Ubiquitous learning
BYOD
Digital content
The flipped classroom
Debt/drop out
http://learn231.wordpress.com/2011/10/25/trend-report-1
Use in teaching
Web 2.0 tools
Use in research
Ability to
customise and
Personalised digital
Personalised learning
personalise, use research environment
of RSS feeds, etc
Situated, experiential, Location aware
problem-based
devices, 3Dlearning, role play
worlds
Field data collection
virtual ethnography
Role play, inquirylearning
Resource-based
learning
Search engines,
Access to research
online resources
materials and
User-generated expertise, publishing of
content tools,
data and research
media
findings
repositories
Reflective, dialogic
and peer-based
Blogs, wikis, eportfolios, social
Communication and
collaboration
Conole and Alevizou, 2010
Effective use of new technologies requires a
radical rethink of the core learning and
teaching processes; a shift from design as
an internalised, implicit and individually
crafted process to one that is externalised
and shareable with others. Change in
practice may indeed involve the use of
revised materials, new teaching strategies
and beliefs - all in relation to educational
innovation.
Research innovation
Research processes
Gill Clough
Giota Alevizou
Research strategies
Change
+ve impact
-ve impact
Free tools, resources
& services
Access,
personalisation,
supports the long tail
Role of institutions,
lack of control
Ubiquitous access
Technology as core
tool
Narrower, but deeper
digital divide
Multiple
communication &
distribution channels
Increased peer, tutor
and expert dialogue
Fragmentation, no
central repository
Rich media
representation
New forms of sensemaking
Lack of new digital
literacies
User-generated
content
Increased variety of
knowledge, learner
control
Quality assurance
A typology of new technologies
Technology
Examples
Media sharing
Flckr, YouTube, Slideshare, Sketchfu
Media manipulation and mash ups
Geotagged photos on maps,Voicethread
Instant messaging, chat, web 2.0 forums
MSN, Paltalk, Arguementum
Online games and virtual worlds
WorldofWarcraft, SecondLife
Social networking
Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin, Elgg, Ning
Blogging
Wordpress, Edublog, Twitter
Social bookmarking
Del.icio.us, Citeulike, Zotero
Recommender systems
Digg, LastFm, Stumbleupon
Wikis and collaborative editing tools
Wikipedia, GoogleDocs, Bubbl.us
Syndication/RSS feeds
Bloglines, Podcast, GoogleReader
(Conole and Alevizou, 2010), Review of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf
Digital identity
Finding your digital voice
Working across tools
Degree of openness
Personal/professional
New digital literacies
Play
Performance
Simulation
Appropriation
Collective intelligence
Participatory culture shifts the
focus of literacy from one of
individual expression to
community involvement. The
new literacies almost all
involve social skills developed
through collaboration and
networking
Multitasking
Judgement
Transmedia
navigation
Networking
Negotiation
Distributed cognition
Jenkins et al., 2006
19
Digital scholar:
Open
Digital
Networked
Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2010/07/thoughtson-digital-scholarship.html
Using new media for research
Blogs
facebook
Twitter
Working
Courses
across social media
and conferences
Publishing
as you go
20
So why use blogs?
 Of
the moment reflections
 Digital
 The
archive
power of peer review
 Record
 Wider
 Link
of events, reviews and resources
audience reach and hence profile
into facebook and Twitter
 Complements
traditional publication routes
Blogs: promoting digital scholarship
Using facebook
Twitter - ideas for harnessing Web 2.0?
Working across social media
Matt Lindgard set up a
quick survey to ask
people how using
twitter impacted on
how much they blog
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2266
49 comments
1027 views
 summaries & additional co
19 links
 6 references
Twitter and facebook #fb
Combine effect and impact
 Active
 Use
blog posting
of Twitter
 Participation
in online conferences
 Webinars
 Podcasts
 Use
of social media sites like facebook
 Publishing
 The
online draft publications
role of institutional research repositories
28
Open courses: CCK10 and discourse
ltc.umanitoba.ca/blogs/futurecourse/
OU learning & teaching conference
 Went
virtual in 2010
 Use
of Elluminate and
Cloudworks
 Ca.
3500 unique views
 Significant
discussions and
resource aggregation
 International
participation
Works just as well for research
events - virtual or blended
Open publishing as you go...
Tips and hints
 Think
32
about strategies to make the most of each of the following and
then think about how you can do this both in a face-to-face and
virtual context



Conferences
Networking
Publishing
Conferences
Purpose: presentation & feedback
Network, network, network!
Potential collaborators & bid partners
Put in a symposium of experts
Expert validation workshops
Put papers/presentations online
Follow up contacts afterwards: email,
fb, Twitter, blogs, etc.
Work up into a research paper
Work the hashtag
Live blog or follow conference-related
blogs
A personal example
Networking
 Build
links with international
colleagues
 Get
on national-level
committees
 Invite
key researchers in your
field to be involved in a joint
research activity
 Invite
people to give seminars
at your institution
 Build
connections online via
Twitter, facebook, etc.
 Participate
 Leave
in online events
comments on blogs
Publishing
 Write
books - edited or single authored (post drafts)
 Become
 Keep
 Set
an editor for a special issue of an online journal
publication list up to date in your research repository
up a writing group or workshop (real/virtual)
 Co-write
with lots of different people (using a wiki)
 Disseminate
publications via Tweet, fb etc
 Post
up drafts for comment on blogs etc
 See
Twitter, blogs, journals, books as complementary
Open practices
Design
Delivery
Courses design &
shared openly
Use of free tools &
resources
Open
Research
Sharing of research
data
Evaluation
Critical reflection
Open Design
Open Research
X-Delia
Open Evaluation
Open Delivery
Practicing what we preach

Adopting open practices: resources, communication, archiving,
publishing, reviewing, and data collection
 OpenLearn - OER repository
 Online seminars and events
 Blogging research, events, critiquing on other’s blogs
 Active use of social media
 Setting up a departmental collective space - for blogging,
aggregation of resources, pod/vid-casts, interviews, etc.
 Use of the social networking tool, Cloudworks
 Depositing of publications in our institutional repository
 An open-review journal JIME
 Collective intelligence for research data iSpot
The changing nature of
community
 New open, social and participatory
media enable new means of
communication, collaboration, sharing
and co-construction of knowledge
 What does ‘community’ mean in these
new online spaces?
 How can it be fostered, supported?
 A Community Indicators framework to
guide the design and evaluation of
communities
The nature of community
 Complex, distributed, loose communities
are emerging
 Facilitated through different but connected
social networking tools such as facebook,
Twitter, Ning
 Users create their own Personal Digital
Environment
 Mix of synchronous and asynchronous
tools
 Boundary crossing via the power of
retweeting
 Links between interests, rather than
So what is a community?
 [Community does not] imply necessarily co-presence, a welldefined identifiable group, or socially visible boundaries. It does
imply participation in an activity system about which participants
share understandings concerning what they are doing and what
that means in their lives and for their communities
 Lave and Wenger, 1991
 Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the
Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long
enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal
relationships in cyberspace.
 Rheingold, 1993
Community as a process
 Constantly evolving and
changing
 Shifting groups and depths of
relationships
 Dynamic, evolving and
potentially transformative
 Both directed and serendipitous
interactions
Community indicators
Participation
Cohesion
Sustained over time
Commitment from core group
Emerging roles & hierarchy
Support & tolerance
Turn taking & response
Humour and playfulness
Identity
Creative capability
Group self-awareness
Shared language & vocab
Sense of community
Igniting sense of purpose
Multiple points of view
expressed, contradicted or
challenged
Creation of knowledge links &
patterns
Galley et al., 2010
Participation
 Three types of hierarchical
roles
 Veterans: support and
encourage groups and
newbies
 Trendsetters: make a
difference
 Posters: need to be
incentivised to turn from
lurkers to active contributors
Cohesion
 Through support, tolerance,
reciprocity and trust
 Language and tone are
critical factors in the
development of an online
community
 Emotional and peer support
Identity
 Central to the notion of
community are issues of
membership and exclusion. Some
people are in, others are out.
Communities range from being
open to anyone who shares
particular ideas or interests to
communities accessible only to
those who meet certain criteria of
geography, ethnicity, gender, etc
 Erickson (1997)
Creative capability
 Importance of conflict,
disagreement and
negotiation in the process of
collaborative knowledge
creation and developing
understanding
 Social discord as a catalyst
for knowledge construction
and expansive learning
Framework for sociality
 System needs to accommodate both evolution of practices
and inclusion of newcomers
 Both individual and group identity are important
 People more likely to use systems that resemble their daily
routines, languages and practices
 Metaphors that mimic real life practices are likely to be more
successful
Bouman et al., 2007
Can social media change academic
discourse?
Rich multimedia representation of content
Multiple communication channels
Accessible anywhere, anytime
Abundance of free tools and resources
Higher impact to wider audience
Great peer critiquing
Digital divide narrower but deeper
Increasingly complex landscape
New digital literacy skills needed
Access, privacy and ownership issues
Balanced portfolio from traditional publishing routes to
more ‘open’ ones
Recommendations

For learners





Provide support in developing new digital literacies
Facilitate more learner-centred approaches
Encourage communication and collaboration
Shift from a focus on content to activities
For academic staff




New approaches to teaching and research
Adopting more explicit and reflexive practices
Technology immersion – learning by doing, through the technologies
Encourage a networked community of academic staff
Recommendations

For institutions






Strategies/policies that reflect the changing context of education
Resources and support to facilitate the shift in practice needed
Strong leadership with an understanding of the issues
Re-visioning structures and infrastructures
Professional development and incentives for academics
Nationally




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Free resources - OER, research outputs, etc.
Promote and share case studies of good practice
Appropriate strategies and policies and funding
Professional networks and communities
Ongoing horizon scanning of technology trajectories
Final thoughts
 Open,
participatory and social media enable new forms
of communication and collaboration
 Communities
distributed
in these spaces are complex and
 We
as academic staff need to develop new digital
literacy skills to harness their potential
 We
need to rethink how we carry out and disseminate
research
 Open,
participatory and social media can provide
mechanisms for us to share and discuss research ideas
in new ways
 We
are seeing a blurring of boundaries:
teachers/researchers, teaching/research, real/virtual
spaces, formal/informal modes of communication and
publication
Personal reflection
 Can
you think of good examples of using technologies?
 How
has your use of technology for research purposes changed in the last
five years?
 What
are the pros and cons of these changes?
 What’s
your digital research environment?
 How
might you use technologies more effectively in carrying out your
research, communicating with other researchers and disseminating
results?
 What
 How
are your strategies for publishing?
are you using technologies to publish and disseminate your
research?
References
 Galley, R., Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. (submitted), Community Indicators: A
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framework for building and evaluating community activity on Cloudworks, Interactive
Learning Environments. Conole, G, and Alevizou, P. (2010), A literature review of
the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher Education, HE Academy commissioned report,
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf
Galley, R., Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. (2010), Case study: Using Cloudworks for
an Open Literature Review, An HE Academy commissioned report.
Alevizou, P., Conole, G. and Galley, R. (2010), Using Cloudworks to support OER
activities, An HE Academy commissioned report.
Conole, G., Galley, R. and Culver, J. (2010), Frameworks for understanding the
nature of interactions, networking and community in a social networking site for
academic practice, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance
Learning.
Conole, G. and Culver, J. (2010) 'The design of Cloudworks: applying social
networking practice to foster the exchange of learning and teaching ideas and
designs' Computers and Education, 54(3): 679 - 692.
Conole and Culver (2009), Cloudworks: social networking for learning design,
Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(5), pp. 763–782,
http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet25/conole.html.