Abstract
The web has had a profound effect on the ways people interact, with online social networks arguably playing an important role in changing or augmenting how we connect with others. However, uptake of online social networking by the academic community varies, and needs to be understood. This paper presents an independent, novel analysis of a large-scale dataset published by Nature Publishing Group detailing the results of a survey about academics use of online social networking services. An open coding approach was used to analyse 480 previously unused text responses. The analysis revealed a wide range of benefits and also problems associated with engaging with online networking, and tensions within this. The analysis provides further insight into the nuances of uptake, by exploring clusters of co-reported benefits and problems within the qualitative analysis. The findings will help move forward current debates surrounding social media use by academics from being viewed in solely beneficial terms, towards an understanding of the problems and tensions that arise through academic work online.
Highlights
Digital scholarship is a research agenda concerned with how the internet and digital technologies are transforming scholarly practice, encompassing a range of social and technological factors (Weller, 2011)
In order to build a more complete inventory of both benefits and problems perceived by academics in relation to online networking, this paper presents an independent secondary analysis of a dataset based on a large scale survey of academics’ uses of online social networking tools (Nature Publishing Group, 2014)
It is important to note that the sample demonstrates self-selection bias due to the opt-in nature of the recruitment, the circulation of information by email rather than social media itself may address the issue of over-representation of existing social media in other studies, and allows for inclusion of academics who are lower level users of social media
Summary
Digital scholarship is a research agenda concerned with how the internet and digital technologies are transforming scholarly practice, encompassing a range of social and technological factors (Weller, 2011). Digital scholarship covers a range of academic activities. Some have gained more acceptance than others, for example online repositories of open access articles are part of common practice. Digital scholarship has a number of potential benefits for academics, Weller (2011) identifies these using Boyer’s framework across all four aspects of scholarly activity: Discovery, Integration, Application and Teaching. Research has begun to emerge in examining how online networking is perceived by academics themselves, which is necessary to understand the context within which these changes are taking place. Digital scholarship can take many forms, including the use of digital tools, new methodologies, and approaches to pedagogy
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