fostering collaboration iamcr_2010
TRANSCRIPT
Fostering Collaboration: Social Media and International Relationships
Sharon Strover, Derek Lackaff, Chris McConnellUniversity of Texas at Austin
Artur Pimenta AlvesINESC, University of Porto
UT Austin | Portugal Program
Portugal crafts agreements with US universities in select domains
2007: UT Austin | Portugal Program in Digital Media begins
Development of joint Ph.D. program, research collaborations, coursework, and internships
International School for Digital Transformation (ISDT)
Discuss the process and prospects of using new technologies to enhance civil society, governance and social inclusion
Week-long residential program augmented with social media tools
77 faculty, students, and activists from 15 countries
Social Media and Social Capital
Ellison et al. (2007): bridging capital Wellman (2001): extending patterns Sessions (2010): f2f stimulates online
communication Goodfellow (2005), Haythornthwaite
(2000): mediation challenges Laat et al. (2007): mandates and incentives
for interaction Wagner & Leydesdorff (2005):”supernodes”
and authorship networks
Research Questions
1. Does participating in an international, intensive, residential intervention aimed at cultivating peer-to-peer relationships yield a social network characterized by enduring and increased numbers of connections?
2. What types of research-related relationships are produced by the intervention?
3. What is the role of social media in creating and maintaining research relationships?
Research Implementation
Online survey Network metrics: relationship
matrix› Activities and types
Social media metrics 51/77 respondents
Prior foru
m use
email blogs twitter sns foru
ms imin
degree
out degree
betweenness
centrality
status .05 -.16 -.04 -.04 .25 .00 .12 .33** .18 .17
prior forum use - .16 -.15 -.05 -.08 -.03 .01 .29** -.09 -.16
email - .09 .07 .09 -.05 .18 -.11 .17 .23
blogs - .52*** .05 .45*** .43*** -.14 -.13 -.02
twitter - .38** .37** .40*** .00 -.04 .10
sns - -.07 .23 -.01 .22 .38**
forums - .27 .17 .05 .07
im - -.10 -.08 .04
Model R2 F(3, 47) Variable B(SE) BetaEmail .16 3.72* Gender 77.92 (33.49) .31*
Status 43.27 (26.03) .22Email use 37.01 (15.22) .33*
Blogs .05 1.60 Gender 64.28 (35.64) .26Status 33.31 (27.24) .17Blog use 4.72 (14.05) .05
Twitter .07 1.95 Gender 66.51 (34.74) .27Status 34.09 (26.96) .17Twitter use 12.07 (11.62) .14
Social Network Site
.18 4.29** Gender 62.79 (32.34) .25Status 15.28 (26.12) .08SNS use 34.68 (12.68) .36**
Web Forums .05 1.60 Gender 60.44 (34.95) .24Status 32.98 (27.22) .17Forum use 5.39 (15.61) .05
Instant Message .05 1.60 Gender 63.18 (35.03) .25Status 31.73 (27.43) .16IM use 5.54 (15.63) .05
Conclusions
Participants were positioned to benefit – and did see increase in social capital
Both active and passive media contribute to social capital outcomes
ISDT appears to have positive impact on research
Limitations in design – unable to evaluate unique contributions of face-to-face and social media platforms
Fostering Collaboration: Social Media and International Relationships
Sharon Strover, Derek Lackaff, Chris McConnellUniversity of Texas at Austin
Artur Pimenta AlvesINESC, University of Porto