The Structure and Characteristics of #PhDChat, an Emergent Online Social Network

Abstract

#PhDChat is an online network of individuals that has its roots to a group of UK doctoral students who began using Twitter in 2010 to hold discussions. Since then, the network around #PhDchat has evolved and grown. In this study, we examine this network using a mixed methods analysis of the tweets that were labeled with the hashtag over a one-month period. Our goal is to understand the structure and characteristics of this network, to draw conclusions about who belongs to this network, and to explore what the network achieves for the users and as an entity of its own. We find that #PhDchat is a legitimate organizational structure situated around a core group of users that share resources, offer advice, and provide social and emotional support to each other. Core users are involved in other online networks related to higher education that use similar hashtags to congregate. #PhDchat demonstrates that (a) the network is in a continuous state of emergence and change, and (b) disparate users can come together with little central authority in order to create their own communal space.

Early career academic mentoring using Twitter: the case of #ECRchat

“…While by no means comparable to larger online communities, by the end of its first year of operation, #ECRchat had established itself as a part of the online ecology of academia (see for example inclusion in surveys by Ford, Veletsianos, & Resta, 2014;Gibson & Gibbs, 2013). There were over 400 unique participants during live chats (not including use of the hashtag at other times), which the literature on online participation suggests is likely to be only a fraction of the overall audience.…”

The #acadv Community: Networked Practices, Professional Development, and Ongoing Knowledge Sharing in Advising

“…Guidry and Pasquini (2013) shared the #sachat case study of student affairs educators using a hashtag for nonformal learning during weekly moderated chats and nonscheduled chat time to discuss trends, issues, and ideas for campus support services. Ford, Veletsianos, and Resta (2014) investigated an emergent social network, #PhDChat, and found that this organic community offers social and emotional advice, support, and resources for doctoral scholars. The learning and teaching in higher education chat (#LTHEchat) refers to synchronized Twitter discussions, facilitated by a guest moderator, that involve a variety of pedagogical topics and instructional themes each week (Beckingham, Nerantzi, Reed, & Walker, 2015).…”

“…Similar to researchers of previous studies (Beckingham et al, 2015;Ford et al, 2014;Gao & Li, 2017;Guidry & Pasquini, 2013;Veletsianos, 2017), we focused on the way academic advising professionals use a hashtag to conduct a synchronous Twitter chat and support a distributed network, that is, an interconnected group designed to share resources and accomplish a common goal, typically structured through Internet-based computing, for professional development. To better understand knowledge sharing and professional development activities of postsecondary educators on social media, we needed to see the way platforms are embedded into work-life experiences and practices over time.…”

Open educational resources for research training: quality assurance through a collaborative evaluation

“…As a result, researchers explore support possibilities available on the Internet. Examples of this type of support are online communities, such as the #PhDChat generated on Twitter (Ford, Veletsianos, and Resta 2014), or specific communities, for instance CoVIF (a learning 2 Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2019, 27: 2271 -http://dx.doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v27.2271 (page number not for citation purpose) community for researchers in training in the field of educational technology; Moreno and Salinas 2011). The use of Open Educational Resources (OER) as a possible source of content has not yet been exploited to address the shortcomings or the need to deepen knowledge in certain aspects of research training.…”