Social scholarship revisited: Changing scholarly practices in the age of social media

Abstract

Christine Greenhow is an associate professor in Educational Psychology & Educational Technology, Michigan State University. She studies various forms of learning with social media, the design of social-mediated environments for learning and changes in scholarship practices with new media. (More information at: http://www.cgreenhow.org and @chrisgreenhow on Twitter). Benjamin Gleason is an assistant professor in the School of Education, Iowa State University. His research interests include teaching and learning through social media, focusing specifically on literacy practices, identity development, and civic engagement in social learning spaces. (More information at AbstractThis conceptual exploration revisits a key question from earlier work (Greenhow & Gleason, 2014): What is scholarship reconsidered in the age of social media? Social scholarship is a framework that expanded Boyers' (1990) conceptualization of scholarship to consider how social media affect discovery and research, teaching and learning, integration, and application. This paper critically reflects on how social scholarship continues to evolve in light of changing understandings in the field of educational technology and the role social media play in the academy. We provide recent examples of social scholarship such as altmetrics, interdisciplinary projects, crowdsourced educational technology syllabi and reconsideration of the needs of research participants. Moreover, we share concrete examples of how scholars might enact social scholarship, with what benefits and challenges, and surface new concerns regarding openness, equity, access, literacy, privacy and ethical considerations. Our paper concludes with recommendations for preparing scholars to enact social scholarship while mitigating the challenges it poses. practices, and in the institutional and societal contexts within which scholars work that warrant a closer, critical examination of this model today.

From tweeting to meeting: Expansive professional learning and the academic conference backchannel

“…Today, critical considerations of the professional development of education scholars are situated within larger discussions regarding access to knowledge, the preparation of public intellectuals, and research access and transparency through social, digital, open or networked participatory scholarship (Greenhow & Gleason, , ; Greenhow et al , ; Pearce et al , ; Selwyn, ; Veletsianos, ). This study focused on one group of educational researchers and observed their practices over two brief time periods.…”

“……when utilizing a digital backchannel, the conversation, communications and commentaries are disrupted across a non-cohesive network in which the recipients are constantly changing…traditional conversation structures are missing from the Twitter corpus, resulting in a different type of participatory culture; rather than following interactions in an ordered exchange, users are placed in a multidirectional discursive space…note taking activity provides an essential mediator in the co-construction of meaning within the conference and to the wider …community of practice… encouraging a more participatory conference culture. (Ross et al, 2011, p. 235) Implications for research and practice Today, critical considerations of the professional development of education scholars are situated within larger discussions regarding access to knowledge, the preparation of public intellectuals, and research access and transparency through social, digital, open or networked participatory scholarship (Greenhow & Gleason, 2014Greenhow et al, 2019;Pearce et al, 2010;Selwyn, 2011;Veletsianos, 2016). This study focused on one group of educational researchers and observed their practices over two brief time periods.…”

“…Early career scholars especially are using social media in their professional lives for communication with peers; strengthening relationships; finding collaborators; keeping up with research trends; publishing and reflecting on ideas; and discussing issues in an open, public format (Gruzd, Staves, & Wilk, ; Rowlands, Nicholas, Russell, Canty, & Watkinson, ; Wright, Niemer, Bruff, & Valle, ). Such trends have prompted discussions of the changing nature of scholarship and the social , digital and networked participatory forms it is taking today (Chapman & Greenhow, ; Greenhow & Gleason, , ; Greenhow, Gleason, & Staudt Willet, ; Pearce et al ., ; Veletsianos, ; Veletsianos & Kimmons, , , ).…”

Infrastructure and technology-enhanced learning: Context, agency, multiplicity

“…In my study, I define social media as "web-based services that allow individuals, communities, and organizations to collaborate, connect, interact, and build community by enabling them to create, co-create, modify, share, and engage with user-generated content that is easily accessible" (McCay-Peet & Quan-Haase, 2017, p. 17). Importantly for my study, Greenhow et al (2019) note that "online social networks [can] facilitate new ways of creating, manipulating, representing and distributing knowledge" in HE (p. 988). These new forms of knowledge production are the principal focus of my study, especially in terms of the interplay of technology, politics and values woven into such knowledge production.…”

“…No studies in the library-practitioner literature, however, frame librarians' Twitter practices as producers of knowledge. This is curious given that, as discussed above, TEL theorists note that social media constitutes a burgeoning area of knowledge production in HE (Greenhow et al, 2019;Lang & Lemon, 2014). The library-practitioner literature, moreover, widely argues that contemporary academic libraries, in addition to being for the storage and retrieval of information and educating users about information literacy, are creators of knowledge, particularly in the area of research support (Dempsey, 2017).…”