Digital scholarship

Martin Weller

• What is digital scholarship?

• Scholarship

• Research

• Recognising digital scholarship

• Network weather

• Changing nature of conferences

• Conclusions

What is digital scholarship?

Changes in all aspects of scholarly practice as a result of the application of digital, networked and open technologies and associated practices

Go meta

The wisdom of Wales

This talk

• http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2297

• http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/brunelkeynote

• Twitter #brunelmw

The Boyer view of scholarship

• Discovery

• Integration

• Application

• Teaching

There is a tension in digital scholarship

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timmygunz/34698267/

Research

I’m depressed!

“a majority of researchers are making at least occasional use of one or more web 2.0 tools or services for purposes related to their research: for communicating their work; for developing and sustaining networks and collaborations; or for finding out about what others are doing. But frequent or intensive use is rare, and some researchers regard blogs, wikis and other novel forms of communication as a waste of time or even dangerous”

(Proctor, Williams and Stewart (2010)

Carpenter et al describe researchers as ‘risk averse’ and ‘behind the curve in using digital technology’.

Harley et al (2010) “We found no evidence to suggest that “tech-savvy” young graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, or assistant professors are bucking traditional publishing practices”

“The advice given to pre-tenure scholars was consistent across all fields: focus on publishing in the right venues and avoid spending too much time on public engagement, committee work, writing op-ed pieces, developing websites, blogging, and other non-traditional forms of electronic dissemination”

Kroll & Forsman

“Almost all researchers have created a strong network of friends and colleagues and they draw together the same team repeatedly for new projects…

Everyone emphasizes the paramount importance of interpersonal contact as the vital basis for agreeing to enter into joint work. Personal introductions, conversations at meetings or hearing someone present a paper were cited as key in choosing collaborators.”

Waldrop 2008 (on blogging)

““It's so antithetical to the way scientists are trained," Duke University geneticist Huntington F. Willard said at the April 2007 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference.. The whole point of blogging is spontaneity--getting your ideas out there quickly, even at the risk of being wrong or incomplete. “But to a scientist, that's a tough jump to make,” says Willard. “When we publish things, by and large, we've gone through a very long process of drafting a paper and getting it peer reviewed.”

The negative context

Research is about control

Where is the research equivalent of…

How might digital scholarship affect research?

Granularity

Pushback from outlets

New methodology

New connections

Analytics

Cultural stickiness

Do the cultural norms of blogging, say, override those of disciplines?

What is research?

REF: “a process of investigation leading to new insights effectively shared”

Researchers should lead

Are researchers right to be wary of new technology?

Tenure and reward

3 legged stool

How do we recognise dig schol?

enthusiasm for the development and adoption of technology should not be conflated with the hard reality of tenure and promotion requirements in highly competitive and complex professional environments. Experiments in new genres of scholarship and dissemination are occurring in every field, but they are taking place within the context of relatively conservative value and reward systems that have the practice of peer review at their core.”

Harley et al 2010

Cheverie et al (2009): “While this community talks about ‘publication’, the language used implies that digital scholarship is of significantly lesser value, and word of mouth to younger colleagues discourages digital scholarship in the hiring, tenure and promotion process

Senior people don’t get it

Outsourced evaluation

Waters (2000): “ to a considerable degree people in departments stopped assessing for themselves the value of a candidate as a scholar and started waiting for the presses to decide”.

Recognising digital scholarship

• Recreating the existing model

• Finding digital equivalents

• Generating guidelines that include digital scholarship

• Using metrics

• Peer-assessment

• Micro-credit

• Developing alternative methods

Heppell (2001) “we continually make the error of subjugating technology to our present practice rather than allowing it to free us from the tyranny of past mistakes.”

How might we recognise digital scholarship?

Network weather

What if…

Imagine…

• Teaching

• Conference

• Authoring

Conferences

• Amplified

• Online

• Backchannel

The new conference archive

To make a conference viable you need people to attend and pay fees

To attend people need to get funds from their university or project

To justify this they need to give a presentation

A presentation needs to be peer-reviewed so they can include it on their CV

People only attend conferences that offer this

Alternative formats

• Barcamp

• Pre-presentation

• Voting

• Produce something

Would you attend a non-traditional conference?

How might network weather impact your discipline?

What does it all mean?

A failure of ownership

Technology engagement is key

Potential to radically change practice

These are exciting times!

The challenge

“it was a revolution. And we all know what happens in a revolution. You see what goes, you see what stays, you see what comes”Martin Amis

We determine what goes, what stays and what comes

Edtechie.net

@mwellerhttp://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2297