Tenure and Promotion in the Age of Online Social Media
Anatoliy Gruzd
Dalhousie University
1459 Oxford St
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
gruzd@dal.ca
Kathleen Staves
Dalhousie University
1459 Oxford St
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
kathleenstaves@dal.ca
Amanda Wilk
Dalhousie University
1459 Oxford St
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
amandawilk@dal.ca
paying more attention to and experimenting with OSM in
their professional lives. A recent example of this is the use
of wikis and blogs by complexity theorists to collaborate
and debate the accuracy of "a claimed proof for one of the
most
profound
and
difficult
problems
facing
mathematicians and computer scientists" (Markoff, 2010).
The problem is known as the "P versus NP" problem. A
mathematician, Dr. Deolalikar, allegedly proved that P does
not equal NP. When Dr. Deolalikar first announced that he
had solved the P versus NP problem, other mathematicians
were skeptical and turned to wikis and blogs to debate the
accuracy and validity of this proof. According to Markoff
(2010), the level and pace of collaboration to test this new
proof was unprecedented in the mathematical field. These
quick conversations were made possible as a result of
access to online social media and networking sites. A
similar situation arose on Twitter when researchers claimed
to have found a gene that predicted the human lifespan, in
Science magazine (Mandavilli, 2011). Researchers and
other interested parties turned to Twitter, a microblogging
platform, to discuss and debate these findings in real time.
This led to the discovery of a problem with the
methodology of the study very shortly after it had been
released. The availability of online social media and
networking technologies has made these unofficial peerreviews faster and more widely available. Before the advent
of OSM, debates such as these would have taken months if
not years to develop via peer-reviewed journals and private
emails and listservs.
ABSTRACT
Online social media tools are fast becoming an important
and integral part of the academic life. However, there is
very little hard data on why and how scholars are using
them. This paper presents the results of our ongoing study
on how academics are using these new tools for
communication and information dissemination. We
specifically look at how scholars themselves view the role
that online social media might play in the tenure and
promotion process at academic and research institutions.
The results of our study find that the use of online social
media is currently not widely recognized by most research
institutions as part of their tenure and promotion review
process. However, according to our interview data, this will
likely change in the future as more and more scholars turn
to these new tools to aid them in their professional
endeavors. The trending changes found in this study are
important not only for the future of scholarly knowledge
and information dissemination, but also for the changes it
will bring to universities’ tenure and promotion policies and
to publishers of scholarly work.
Keywords
Online Social Media (OSM), Information and
Communication Technology (ICT), Scholarly Practices,
Information Dissemination, Tenure and Promotion.
INTRODUCTION
Although online social media (OSM) tools such as blogs,
wikis and social networking websites are relatively new, as
compared to other forms of Information and
Communication Technologies, their use has skyrocketed
among the general public. A recent Pew Research Center
survey shows that about 62% of internet users in the US are
using social networking sites (Rainie, et.al., 2011), and this
number is rapidly growing. However, it is not just the
general public, but scholars who are also increasingly
Previous studies have also hinted at other benefits
associated with the scholarly use of OSM, such as keeping
up with current research (Maron, et al., 2008), ease and
immediacy of access (Gardiner, 2006), as well as effective
collaboration and communication (Bonetta, 2007; Menzies,
2007; Procter, et al., 2010). A study of 10 science bloggers,
for example, found that reading their peers’ blogs not only
served to keep them up to date with research and issues in
their field, but also increased their familiarity with other
scholars interested in the same topics (Bonetta, 2007). This
served to extend their peer network and form new
connections, which is another common benefit of OSM use
among scholars (Collins and Hide, 2010). The use of OSM
has also been associated with career advancement,
increased visibility, and opportunities for self-publishing
(Bukvova, et al., 2010; Dubini, et al, 2010).
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1
Although online social media and networking technologies
are gaining in popularity and importance in scholarly
communities, this trend does not always extend to the
institutions, organizations, and publishing platforms that
support them. Many scholars in previous studies have
claimed that online publishing, and the participation in
online communities and collaborations, are not encouraged,
supported, or rewarded by their institution (Ayris, 2009;
Kirkup, 2010). In some cases, participation in online
communities has led to the termination of a faculty
member, as in the case of one professor who was fired from
a US university for posting unspecified material to her
personal blog (Horwedel, 2006). Institutions are often
cautious about encouraging OSM use by their faculty
because it is still so new, while scholars are hesitant to
contribute because they do not know how their institutions
view such initiatives (Ayris, 2009). So the use and worth of
social media become yet another perfect example of the
classic problem of which comes first, the chicken or the
egg? This quandary has proven to be a major impediment to
the wider use of social media and networking sites by
scholars.
With this as background information, this paper seeks to
answer the key questions as to whether academic
institutions should improve their support of the scholarly
use of these new technologies. And more specifically,
should OSM be formally included as part of the tenure and
promotion guidelines? And if yes, how? This paper is part
of our ongoing efforts to study how scholars in Library and
Information Science and other disciplines are adopting and
adapting to these new tools for communication and
information dissemination purposes.
DEFINING ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA
Before we started our study, we first had to define what is
meant by online social media; as we soon learned it was not
an easy task. Online social media tools are commonly
associated with what is referred to as web 2.0 technologies
and the presence of user generated content (Kaplan and
Haenlein, 2010; Procter, et al., 2010). The term web 2.0
was first used in its modern meaning in early 2000s to refer
to the new way the internet was being used, allowing for
more participatory and collaborative surfing of the web as
well as creation and modification of online content.
Notably, web 2.0 does not refer to a specific application,
but rather to a technological and ideological change in the
way the internet is used. One of the key components of web
2.0 is ‘user generated content’ that often refers to any form
of user created media, which is published on a publically
accessible website or a website accessible to a select group
of people (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Some examples of
early OSM include tools like blogs and wikis, joined later
by social networking sites like Friendster, Myspace, and
Facebook.
However, today more and more websites are beginning to
incorporate user generated content, such as comment
platforms, and social networking features, such as the
ability to subscribe to friends’ updates or share content with
them, all of which are key characteristics that help to define
web 2.0 technologies. The addition of such features to
traditional websites is expanding the definition of social
media sites and services as well as the number of social
activities that users can now conduct on a wide variety of
websites across the internet. For example, traditionally
solitary activities such as online writing, reading, and
reference gathering are now becoming more social due to
the advent of OSM sites and services to support these
activities such as Google Docs (an office application with
social features to collaborate, share and publish documents
online), Scribd (a document publishing, reading, and
sharing platform) and Zotero (a reference management
software with a variety of social interaction features such as
reference sharing and group settings), just to name a few.
In recognition of this trend, we decided to employ a broad
definition of OSM. Specifically, for the purposes of this
study, we chose to refer to OSM tools as any web-based
websites that include web 2.0 characteristics and contain
some aspect of user generated content. This allowed us to
include a wide variety of technologies from
video/teleconferencing tools such as Skype and online
media repositories such as Flickr, to microblogging tools
like Twitter and social networking sites like Facebook and
Academia.edu. We chose to employ this broad definition to
allow for the widest number of social media tools to be
recognized. In doing this we were able to gain the broadest
view of OSM used by academics.
In addition to the OSM tools mentioned above, we also
asked the participants about listserv groups. Although
listservs are not examples of OSM and are not treated as
OSM for the purpose of this study, they do exhibit many
characteristics of modern OSM principles (unlike emails)
such as a community-driven approach to online
conversations and a notion of membership to a group or
network of likeminded individuals. Furthermore, since
listservs have been considered one of the primary channels
for information dissemination and communication in
scholarly communities for the last two decades, responses
about listservs provided us with the baseline data on online
scholarly communication which can then be used to
compare other OSM tools.
METHODOLOGY
To address the research questions mentioned above, an
extensive literature review was conducted on this subject,
followed by semi-structured interviews with scholars
mainly from the Library and Information Science field who
are also members of the American Society for Information
Science and Technology (ASIS&T). ASIS&T members
were chosen for this study because they are known to be
technologically savvy and tend to be early adopters of new
technology such as online social media and social
networking tools.
In total, the interviewees consisted of 51 conference
attendees or individuals recommended by other
interviewees. The participants were recruited via a direct
email invitation before or in-person during the ASIS&T
2010 annual conference. Of the 51 scholars interviewed for
this study, twenty-five (25) were males and twenty-six (26)
were females. To ensure that there would be a variety of
opinions in our survey, we took steps in our recruitment to
ensure that interviewees hailed from a few different
countries, and were working in a variety of positions within
academia (See Table 1 below). Our secondary recruitment
goal was to ensure that we included both scholars who are
likely and unlikely to use OSM in their professional lives.
We accomplished this by prominently highlighting and
encouraging self-identified users and non-users of OSM to
participate in our interviews.
Gender
Total
%
Female
26
51
Male
25
49
United States
29
57
Canada
17
33
Europe (UK & Denmark)
5
10
Assistant Professor
19
37
Associate Professor
10
20
PhD Student
6
12
Professor
5
10
Researcher
4
8
Director/Dean
4
8
Librarian
2
4
Instructor
1
2
Library & Info Studies
44
86
Computer Science
3
6
Media/Communication Studies
2
4
Business Administration
1
2
Engineering
1
2
their use of 13 different kinds of online social media, and
then asked to elaborate on their use of one OSM tool, that
they defined as their most frequently used tool. After this
participants were asked questions pertaining to: general
online social media use, making new connections and
reaching a wider audience through OSM, problems with
OSM, the recognition of OSM during tenure and promotion
reviews, and OSM in the future. Interviews lasted between
15 and 40 minutes depending on the participant. For the
purposes of this paper, we will primarily focus on the
questions related to the role of OSM in the tenure and
promotion process and the future of OSM.
All interviews were recorded using a digital recorder and
then manually transcribed. The confidentiality and
anonymity of all participants was insured by making the
names of study participants only known to the research
team, using aliases for the interview participants in the
transcriptions and excluding identifying characteristics in
all reports and publications.
Data analysis was completed using NVivo 9, a qualitative
data analysis software program. First, a thematic coding
schema was developed based on preliminary analysis of
interview data. Codes were developed based on the main
OSM tools mentioned (blogs, wikis, etc), as well as general
factors such as overall ‘benefits’, ‘problems’, ‘future
trends’, etc. Two research assistants independently coded
each interview transcript using the developed coding
schema. Once both research assistants completed coding,
both coded datasets were compared using NVivo. This
comparison demonstrated that of 13,677 records (coded
sections of transcriptions), 13,308 (97%) had an agreement
percentage above 90%. One coded dataset was selected for
further data analysis.
Country
Position
RESULTS
Academic tenure is a position awarded to scholars working
at the university level who have completed a set
probationary period at their institution (in the US and
Canada this is usually 5-7 years), and have been awarded
this position by a review committee or committees made up
of their faculty dean, department chair, and a selection of
their peers. This status is an important professional
achievement; as after the attainment of a tenured faculty
position at an academic institution, a scholar cannot be fired
or let go without proven adequate cause (Hohm and Shore,
1998).
Discipline
In order to earn tenure, a tenure-track faculty member must
meet certain requirements as set out by their institution.
These requirements are usually separated into three main
broad components: 1) Research, 2) Service, and 3)
Teaching. Although these components are usually given
approximately equal weight in the tenure and promotion
review process, the weighting of each component may vary
from one academic institution to another, depending on the
institutions’ goals and mandates. The specific requirements
and guidelines associated with each of the three primary
Table 1. Demographic Information of Participants
The first set of interviews was conducted in person at the
ASIS&T conference, which took place in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania from October 22nd-27th, 2010. After the
conference, individuals who agreed to participate in the
study but did not attend the conference were interviewed
over the phone.
The interviews were semi-structured, with a total of 13
prompting questions. Respondents were first asked about
3
components that makes up the tenure and promotion
process will be discussed below in relation to scholars’
OSM use. Since our study’s primary focus was on OSM use
in the context of research related activities, this paper will
only briefly touch on the teaching component.
Of the 51 people interviewed, only 6 scholars worked for an
institution that currently recognized OSM use or
publications as part of their tenure review and promotion
process in some way. For example, one junior scholar
stated “I looked into it, and they have a sort of cautiouslyworded document […] that says something to the extent of
‘in view of the fact that there are a multiplicity of ways for
scholarship […] evaluation should take into account
publications in other media’.”
Although OSM usage for publication and dissemination of
research work is not yet widely recognized in the tenure and
promotion process, most respondents (33 individuals)
believed that it should be given some consideration,
including 18 people who stated that OSM use or
publications should be evaluated on a case by case basis
(See Figure 1). One junior scholar stated, “I’d really like to
see it become a part of tenure and promotion. Because I
think that a lot of people are using it fully professionally.
They’re making contacts, and they’re also positively
contributing to the field […] and I think that’s a really
important part of what faculty does. They sort of promote
their field…”
followed?” But this respondent also followed up by saying
that “It's the same reason as with bibliometrics. Maybe they
follow you because you do outrageous things and it has
nothing to do with your professional standing.”
The disagreement and uncertainty among scholars on the
merit of OSM-based usage and publications no doubt
reflects the lack of clear policies among academic
institutions. It is this lack of clarity on the role of OSM in
academia that prompted this study. In the following
sections, we will discuss the applicability of OSM usage to
the Research, Service and Teaching components separately.
This section will also discuss indirect benefits of OSM use
in relation to the current tenure and promotion process, and
differences in OSM use between junior and more senior
faculty members.
Research Component
The research component of the tenure review process can
include a wide range of activities, including: scholars’
reputation in their field, conference participation, and
originality of research. Generally regarded as the most
influential and important aspect of a scholar’s research is
their publication quality and quantity, as well as where their
research was published and how influential and recognized
it is in their field (Rhoadea-Catanach and Stout, 2000). The
consistent publication of recognized scholarly articles is not
only of major concern to junior faculty who are hoping to
receive tenured positions, but to tenured faculty members as
well.
Because of the amount of time it takes to publish through
traditional peer-reviewed journals, many scholars are
increasingly turning to self-publishing and other alternative
publishing methods to disseminate their research (Ho,
2011). This is particularly true of scholars in fields like
advanced physics and biology, where developments in their
field of study often progress at a rapid rate, and demand
almost instantaneous publication and feedback (Menzies,
2007).
Figure 1. Should Online Social Media be Considered
Towards Tenure or Promotion?
At the same time, of the respondents who believe that OSM
use or publications should be considered, most raised
concerns about how, and to what degree, they should be
considered and whether they should count toward the
research component or the service component of the
tenure/promotion process. Similar concerns were raised by
those who believed that OSM should not be considered in
any form for tenure or promotion. For instance, one
respondent stated that “I think it's a hard thing to quantify. I
mean what does it mean to say you have 50,000 followers
on Twitter? Does that mean that you are a better
academic? Should that be recognized for promotion and
tenure? I'm not so sure. What's the reason that you're being
Due to this growing popularity of self-publishing venues by
scholars, we asked our interviewees if and how their use of
traditional information dissemination tools (such as
academic journals) has changed since they started using
OSM tools. Only 25% (13) of participants stated that use of
OSM tools has not changed their use of traditional
information resources. About half (27 individuals) stated
that these tools are used as a complimentary resource to
traditional information resources. The level of professional
OSM use of these respondents varies, and is mainly focused
on finding information rather than disseminating it. One
academic stated: “I follow a bunch of academics in my
research area. So…I catch papers other people have
published. So they do the same thing and tweet papers that
they've had published, once they are published.”
Finally, 10 scholars stated that the use of OSM tools
professionally has inspired a large change in the way they
use traditional information dissemination channels or made
them more aware of the drawbacks to traditional
information dissemination resources. Participants in this
group often described this change as a move away from use
of traditional (mainly print) resources, to an increased
dependence on OSM tools for finding, and circulating
information. In response to the microblogging tool Twitter,
one of our interview respondents stated: “Twitter is really
useful. In terms of knowing what’s going on, what the
trends are…so it’s also a way to aggregate what’s going
on…without necessarily having to read all the journals,
follow all the conferences, things like that”.
Figure 2). A number of more senior scholars in our study
explained that they already have an established network,
implying there is a lesser need for them to create new
connections. Expanding on this, one senior professor stated:
“so, if I have an existing network, I’m in conferences all the
time, I am at a major research university…I’m not looking
for more social contacts […] if you’ve got a more senior
person, they’ve already got their network, they’ve already
got their networking techniques worked out.”
The scholars we interviewed also highlighted OSM’s
usefulness in both collaborating and communicating with
team members, sharing ideas, and making writing both
easier and faster, especially with team members who are
geographically distributed. One person said: “I have a
friend [and], we’ve done presentations together, and she’s
in [a different State]. So rather than sending an email back
and forth, we find it’s easier to do it on Google docs...”
All together, the majority (37 individuals) of our scholars
stated that their use of these tools has inspired and or
altered the way they used traditional information
dissemination resources. This reinforces the fact that OSM
tools are quickly becoming an integral part of modern
scholarly life and practice. It also signifies a time in the
near future when the use of these tools will also alter the
current tenure and promotion review process.
This is in line with a number of previous studies in this area
that also found and confirmed OSM’s ability to connect
scholars and facilitate communication between peers
(Barjak, 2006; Biernholtz et al., 2009; Letierce et al., 2010;
Gardiner, 2006).
Service Component
5 people in our sample suggested that OSM use should
count towards the service component of tenure and
promotion (see Figure 1). The service component of the
tenure and promotion review process is perhaps the least
clearly defined in many institutions’ tenure policies. It can
include: an evaluation of the scholar’s contributions to the
institutions’, departments’, or fields’ positive reputation,
their time spent volunteering on committees and boards,
and their positive contributions to the local community in
general (Rhoadea-Catanach and Stout, 2000). To make
positive contributions to these communities, OSM can be
useful when used as part of scholars’ professional practices.
The dissemination of information for example, was a
frequently cited motivation for the use of social media and
networking sites by scholars (Barjak, 2003; Letierce, et al
2010). This was shown to be especially important to
scholars in educating the 'lay' public about scientific topics,
especially ones which receive a lot of attention in the press
(e.g., Bonetta, 2007; Bukvova, et al., 2010; Collins and
Hide, 2010). OSM platforms allow the fast and wide
dissemination of scholars’ current research and in this way
can aid in fulfilling the service requirements in the tenure
and promotion process.
Figure 2. Percentage of Benefits Associated with OSM
Use by Position
Indirect Benefits
Junior vs. Senior Faculty
Although some of our survey participants felt that OSM use
itself should not be considered as part of the tenure and
promotion process, most recognized that its professional
use does create many indirect benefits that could result in a
scholar receiving a promotion or tenure: including
establishing new professional contacts (30 respondents),
maintaining existing contacts (17 respondents), keeping up
to date (15 respondents) and promoting one’s work (13
respondents).
As the previous section suggested, there are some
differences in OSM use between junior and senior faculty
members. Since the focus of this paper is on tenure and
promotion, we decided to compare responses between
senior faculty (presumably the majority of which have
achieved tenured), and junior faculty (who have not yet
achieved tenure, but presumably will seek tenured positions
in the future and thus have the highest stakes in this issue).
Our participants were fairly evenly split between junior or
senior scholars. In total there were 18 senior (the Associate
level and up) and 19 junior faculty members (Assistant
Interestingly, junior faculty members were twice more
likely to mention the benefit of establishing new
professional contacts than senior faculty members (See
5
professor level). (See Table 1) For comparison purposes,
we relied on percentages instead of raw counts. Tenured
faculty members were likely to be more senior not only in
professional status but in age as well, making generational
preferences a factor. These differences in age and
professional position are important to note in the analysis of
this question since both factors have been shown to
influence OSM use among scholars in our study.
The results of our study showed that junior faculty
members are utilizing OSM tools more often than senior
faculty members (see Figure 3). Specifically, junior faculty
members are more likely to use: blogs, microblogs, social
bookmarking tools, academic social networking, and
bibliographic management sites than their senior cohorts.
Listserv groups were the only tools that were used more
often by senior faculty; 78% of the senior professors in our
study used listservs, compared to 53% of junior professors.
to finding potential collaborators and increasing publication
output. These tools are also ideal in reaching out to the
academic or the lay community in general, and facilitating
scholars’ participation in institutional or community
specific events. And, as the section on Service Component
indicated, contributing knowledge through a blog, wiki, or
microblog to various communities could be an important
part of the service component in the tenure and promotion
review process. As more frequent users of these tools,
junior faculty members no doubt recognize these benefits
and therefore would want them to be properly recognized at
their institutions.
Interestingly, earlier studies on internet usage by scholars
suggested that more senior scholars, who are usually in
positions of security because of an established identity in
their field, felt more confident in their use of new
publication, communication, and networking sites. For
example, in 2003 over 1,600 European scientists surveyed
on their use of the internet for informal communication
revealed that senior scholars had the highest usage levels
(Barjak, 2006). A study conducted in 2005 on scholars’
ability to form new scholarly ties with previously unknown
scholars also found similar results. Junior scholars were the
least likely group to initiate contact with an unknown
scholar, or to receive unsolicited communication from
unknown academic sources (Genoni, et al., 2005).
However, more recent studies have demonstrated a reversal
of these findings; junior faculty members are now
increasingly embracing new technologies such as online
social networking sites in their professional lives. A 2010
study conducted on 1,200 academic researchers in the UK
found that the most common age for frequent users of web
2.0 technologies, especially blogs, were between the ages of
35 and 44 (Collins and Hide, 2010). From this and our
study, it seems that for a variety of reasons junior faculty
members are much more likely to adopt OSM technologies
than their senior colleagues. Thus, it is only natural that in
the years to come, the current class of junior faculty
members will likely insist OSM use and publications be
accepted formally as part of their tenure application
packages.
Teaching Component
Figure 3. Percentage of OSM Use by Position
Many of the OSM tools that junior faculty members are
using tend to be those that are also useful in building and
reinforcing social and professional connections and creating
a higher profile, like: blogs, microblogs, and academic
social networking sites. As the previous section suggested,
junior professors might be utilizing these tools more than
senior professors because they are still developing
connections, while senior professors have already
established connections and do not need OSM tools for this
purpose. The establishment of a network of peers is
important for scholars professionally, especially as it relates
The teaching component of tenure evaluates how effective a
scholar is as a university instructor. The method for
evaluating this can include a review of student comment
forms, and appropriateness of course materials and
publications by the scholar related to their course (RhoadeaCatanach and Stout, 2000). The use of online social media
can be incorporated into a few of the evaluation criteria for
the teaching component. Although we did not specifically
focus on scholars’ use of OSM tools in their teaching and
instruction as part of this study, it has been recognized in a
number of studies to aid in these practices (e.g., Tian and
Yan, 2011; McNely, et al., 2010). The use of OSM tools
has been growing in university classrooms, with some
surveys claiming adoption rates as high as 80% among
university classrooms in the US (Moran, et al., 2010). This
is in part driven by a high adoption rate of these tools
among students. According to a recent study done by the
EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, over 90% of
students under 25 reported using social networking sites
(SNS) (Smith and Caruso, 2010). It seems that instructors
across North America are also quickly catching on to this
fact, and are starting to incorporate SNS and social media
into their lesson plans. In fact, almost two-thirds of faculty
members in North America have used social media during a
class (Moran, et al., 2010). For example, Dr. Alec Couros,
an Associate Professor at the University of Regina, has
started incorporating wikis into courses such as Educational
Technology and Media (Chant, 2010). On the course wiki,
students are invited to contribute to reading lists,
discussions regarding assignments, and so on. Since the
wiki is open, both current and past students are able to
engage in the dialogue and contribute ideas. Another
interesting example is from the University of Chicago Law
School, where faculty and students created a microblogging
platform
called
TweetChicago
(http://webcastlaw.uchicago.edu/tweetchicago), in which they contribute
tweets regarding what they are doing and thinking about
during the day. The purpose is to share projects, articles, or
links of interest with the entire law school community, as
well as provide prospective students with an idea of what
daily life is like at their School.
properly setting privacy settings and forming clear
boundaries through the use of these tools (Young, 2010).
Even with this risk, these tools are becoming a popular way
for professors to engage their students, and connect them to
information in and outside the classroom.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Despite the current lack of official support by the
institutional scholarly community, some academic
institutions are beginning to see the importance of social
media and networking sites and are beginning to advocate
for its use (Dubini, et al., 2010). In a survey of 61 semantic
web scholars, 9% cited that “it was considered compulsory
by the scholar's institution” as motivation for use of social
media and networking sites (Letierce, et al., 2010). In our
interviews, some scholars also indicated that their
institutions’ policies are becoming more open-ended in
terms of qualifying ‘scholarly publications’ and activities
on OSM sites under the research or service component.
Publishers of scholarly journals are also increasingly adding
social media and networking capabilities to their digital
resources (Stuart, 2010). Scholarly journals are not only
using OSM themselves, but are developing ways to
measure scholars’ impact in the realm of online social
media. For example, the Public Library of Science (PLoS)
has developed ways to measure the number of times an
article is bookmarked, and the number of mentions of the
article on OSM such as blogs. By incorporating mentions of
scholarly articles in these venues, this publisher is
recognizing their importance in scholarly publication. The
nod to these OSM tools’ from publishers will no doubt
reinforce the benefits and importance of their use by
scholars, who rely on publishers to lend credibility to their
work and therefore play a major role in the tenure and
promotion process.
Evidently, there are many potential benefits to using OSM
tools in a classroom setting. For example, by having access
to OSM tools, students can continue discussions started in
one class and carry them over to another. Students also
have a chance to view and build on conversations by others
who took the same class in a previous semester. If used
correctly, these new communication tools are a great way to
create a sense of community among students and improve
their ability to learn. Whether it is submitting questions via
Twitter, blogging about current events related to general
themes of the class, or using Facebook to carry out class
discussions, students' class participation and engagement
are likely to increase once OSM tools are introduced into
the mix.
Major scholarly conferences are also exploring social
media’s reach in academia by including sessions focused on
these tools. Of particular interest to these conference
audiences is how OSM use for information dissemination
and publication can be measured and therefore
acknowledged by academic institutions in promotion
policies. At the 2011 ACM Web of Science Conference, for
example, this was the subject of a workshop titled
“altmetrics11: Tracking scholarly impact on the social
Web” (Altmetrics, 2011). This workshop focused on what
in academia is often referred to as Scientometrics, the study
of scholars’ impact across multiple online tools (Priem and
Hemminger, 2010). In particular, the workshop participants
discussed how scholarly work is reaching a wider audience
through online social media, networking sites, and
repositories. Some considered this a good idea, stating that
these new tools provide an opportunity for wider
dissemination of research, and a new way to reach the
general public. Others cautioned against jumping on this
band wagon too fast, saying that these new online
dissemination tools should not be viewed as easier and
more effective alternatives to their print counterparts. There
The way these tools are being used by faculty for teaching
is especially important. Their main function is as an
additional information resource provided to students
(Moran, et al., 2010). Professors recognize that most
students already know how to use popular social
networking tools such as Facebook, making them resources
with low learning curves for classrooms (Young, 2010).
Their wide familiarity to post-secondary students, coupled
with the fact that many OSM tools are often free and easily
accessible makes the use of these sites in the classroom an
easy and relatively risk free supplement to classroom
learning. Privacy however, is still a major concern when
integrating these tools into teaching. Promoters of OSM
tools for the classroom stress that professional boundaries
need to be clearly separated from personal ones, by
7
are also some concerns around questions of preservation
and accessibility of scholarly records on OSM. Due to their
distributed nature and the availability of a variety of OSM
tools, there is no single repository where OSM scholarly
activities or publications are being archived. As a result,
something in OSM that is cited today like a blog post or a
wiki page will likely not be accessible or findable in a
decade or two.
Despite some reservations in the scholarly community
about using these tools to spread research and publications,
the workshop positively highlighted a number of sites that
are changing the way scholars share their work, and are
doing so in an innovative way, including sites like
peerevaluation.org and citedin.org (Wassaf, 2011;
Waagmeester and Evelo, 2011). These sites not only
provide scholars with a personal online repository, and
ways to share their work, but also new ways to evaluate
how important and widely disseminated that work may be
(through the evaluation of traditional metrics, but also
through user reviews and ‘reputation ratings’).
In sum, the idea of incorporating social media
mentions/publications into scholars’ overall scholarly
impact is growing in popularity and acceptance. By
measuring activity such as social bookmarking, blog
mentions, additions to reference managers, etc, of scholarly
articles, a more complete picture of academics’ research
and impact can be formed. The increasing interest from
academic institutions, publishers, and event organizers
demonstrates the growing importance of OSM, and will no
doubt encourage more scholars to use these tools in the
future.
While we did not find any explicit evidence of any
academic institution with a formal policy of recognizing
their faculty’s use of OSM at this time, we did find some
institutions with tenured policies that were more receptive
to arguments for the inclusion of OSM use and publication
in the tenured process. DePaul University in Chicago, for
example, defines ‘community service’ as “communication
in popular and non-academic publications”. They also state
“In some instances it will not be obvious whether an
activity counts as community service. In those cases, it is
the responsibility of the faculty member under review to
make the case demonstrating that the activity should count
under these policy guidelines” (DePaul University, 2010).
East Michigan University also provides room for
interpretation in their tenure policies by defining scholarly
activity as “a list of specific items presented for evaluation
and other approved activities with enough description to
make them understandable to the reader; [and] the manner
in which the results of these [academic] activities were
disseminated” (Eastern Michigan University, 2011). This
leaves the responsibility in the hands of the scholar, to
claim their OSM use as a valid contribution to the service
component of the tenure and promotion review process.
Our interview participants overwhelmingly agreed that the
use of online social media for scholarly purposes is not just
a passing fad that will fade away with time. Many are of the
opinion that these new OSM tools represent a fundamental
shift in the way scholars communicate, collaborate, access,
share, and disseminate knowledge and information. This is
a significant finding as the majority of our participants
work in the field of Library and Information Science and
therefore are not only early and enthusiastic adopters of
new OSM tools, but also study related topics, making them
experts in this subject, and able to intelligently make
predictions about the use of these tools. As OSM continues
to evolve, and be refined over time, universities and
scholarly publishers will eventually have to devise ways to
assess the quality, credibility and influence of OSM use and
publications by their scholarly constituents. A clear policy
setting out the standard for the inclusion of OSM would be
a good start. As stated by one respondent: “I don’t think it’s
going to go away. Some people thought the internet might
go away, but it never happened”.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and NCE Graphics,
Animation and New meDia (GRAND) grants.
We would like to acknowledge and thank all of our
interview participants, who kindly volunteered their time
and professional opinions to our study. We would also like
to thank Philip Mai and Melissa Goertzen, members of the
Social Media Lab at Dalhousie University, for their
contributions to the data gathering and analysis for this
paper. Finally, we would like to thank anonymous
reviewers for providing very helpful comments.
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