The Digital Scholar Revisited

Mar­tin Weller
Open Uni­ver­si­ty

The Dig­i­tal Schol­ar Revis­it­ed

Abstract. The book The Dig­i­tal Schol­ar was pub­lished in 2011, and used Boyer’s frame­work of schol­ar­ship to exam­ine the pos­si­ble impact of dig­i­tal, net­worked tech­nol­o­gy on schol­ar­ly prac­tice. In 2011 the gen­er­al atti­tude towards dig­i­tal schol­ar­ship was cau­tious, although areas of inno­v­a­tive prac­tice were emerg­ing. Using this book as a basis, the author con­sid­ers changes in dig­i­tal schol­ar-ship since its pub­li­ca­tion. Five key themes are iden­ti­fied: main­stream­ing of dig­i­tal schol­ar­ship, so that it is a wide­ly accept­ed and encour­aged prac­tice; the shift to open, with the empha­sis on the ben­e­fits that open prac­tice brings rather than the dig­i­tal or net­worked aspects; pol­i­cy imple­men­ta­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in areas of edu­ca­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms, open access poli­cies and open edu­ca­tion­al resources; net­work iden­ti­ty, empha­sis­ing the devel­op­ment of aca­d­e­m­ic iden­ti­ty through social media and oth­er tools; crit­i­cal­i­ty of dig­i­tal schol­ar­ship, which exam­ines the neg­a­tive issues asso­ci­at­ed with online abuse, pri­va­cy and data usage. Each of these themes is explored, and their impact in terms of Boyer’s orig­i­nal fram­ing of schol­ar­ly activ­i­ty con­sid­ered. Boy-er’s four schol­ar­ly activ­i­ties of dis­cov­ery, inte­gra­tion, appli­ca­tion and teach­ing can be viewed from the per­spec­tive of these five themes. In con­clu­sion what has been realised does not con­sti­tute a rev­o­lu­tion in aca­d­e­m­ic prac­tice, but rather a grad­ual accep­tance and util­i­sa­tion of dig­i­tal schol­ar­ship tech­niques, prac­tices and val­ues. It is simul­ta­ne­ous­ly true that both rad­i­cal change has tak­en place, and noth­ing has fun­da­men­tal­ly altered. Much of the increased adop­tion in acad­e­mia mir­rors the wider pen­e­tra­tion of social media tools amongst soci­ety in gen­er­al, so aca­d­e­mics are more like­ly to have an iden­ti­ty in such places that mix­es pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al.  

Key­words: dig­i­tal schol­ar­ship, e-learn­ing, high­er edu­ca­tion, open edu­ca­tion, social media.

DOI10.5840/dspl20181218

Ref­er­ences:

  1. About Acad­e­mia”, Academia.edu. 2017. Avail­able at: https://www.academia.edu/about (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 15, 2018).
    Ander­son, C. The long tail: How end­less choice is cre­at­ing unlim­it­ed de-mand. Lon­don: Ran­dom, 2007. 288 p.
  2. Bar­ber, M., Don­nel­ly, K., Rizv, S. “An avalanche is com­ing: High­er edu­ca-tion and the rev­o­lu­tion ahead”. The Insti­tute of Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Research. 2013. Avail­able at: http://www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2013/03/avalanche-is-coming_Mar2013_10432.pdf (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 17, 2018).
  3. Benyay­er, D. Open Mod­els: Busi­ness Mod­els of the Open Econ­o­my. With­out Mod­el. 2016. Avail­able at: https://unglueit-files.s3.amazonaws.com/ebf/1254a7fd3c9c4e7e855f4e6884ad91cd.pdf (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018).
  4. Boy­er, E.L. Schol­ar­ship recon­sid­ered: Pri­or­i­ties of the pro­fes­so­ri­ate. Law-renceville, NJ: Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 1990. 148 p.
  5. Castells, M. The rise of the net­work soci­ety. (The Infor­ma­tion Age: Econ­o­my, Soci­ety and Cul­ture, Vol­ume 1). Malden, MA: Black­well Pub­lish­ers, Inc., 1996. 556 p.
  6. Ches­brough, H.W. Open inno­va­tion: The new imper­a­tive for cre­at­ing and prof­it­ing from tech­nol­o­gy. Har­vard Busi­ness School Press, 2006. 227 p.
  7. Chris­tensen, C.M. The innovator’s dilem­ma: when new tech­nolo­gies cause great firms to fail. Boston: Har­vard Busi­ness School Press, 1997. 252 p.
  8. Chris­tensen, C.M., Horn, M.B., John­son, C.W. Dis­rupt­ing class: how dis-rup­tive inno­va­tion will change the way the world learns. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. 288 p.
  9. Cos­ta, C. The par­tic­i­pa­to­ry web in the con­text of aca­d­e­m­ic research: Land-scapes of change and con­flicts: Doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion. Uni­ver­si­ty of Sal­ford, 2013. 309 p.
  10. Cos­ta, C. “Out­casts on the inside: aca­d­e­mics rein­vent­ing them­selves online”, Inter­na­tion­al Jour­nal of Life­long Edu­ca­tion, 2015, vol. 34, no. 2, pp. 194–210. DOI: 10.1080/02601370.2014.985752
  11. Cos­ta C. “Dou­ble gamers: aca­d­e­mics between fields”, British Jour­nal of Soci­ol­o­gy of Edu­ca­tion, 2016, vol. 37, no. 7, pp. 993‑1013. DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2014.982861
  12. Den­nen V.P. “Con­struct­ing aca­d­e­m­ic alter-egos: iden­ti­ty issues in a blog-based com­mu­ni­ty”, Iden­ti­ty in the Infor­ma­tion Soci­ety, 2009, vol. 2, no.1, pp. 23–38. DOI: 10.1007/s12394-009‑0020-8
  13. Donelan H. “Social media for pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in acad­e­mia”, Jour­nal of Fur­ther and High­er Edu­ca­tion, 2016, vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 706–729. DOI: 10.1080/0309877X.2015.1014321
  14. Econ­o­mist “The new polit­i­cal divide”, The Econ­o­mist. Jul 30th 2016. Avail­able at: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2016/07/30/the-new-political-divide (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018).
  15. Edin­burgh MOOC Research Group. MOOCs @ Edin­burgh 2013: Report No.1. Avail­able at: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/6683 (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018).
  16. Espos­i­to A. “Nei­ther dig­i­tal or open. Just researchers: Views on digital/open schol­ar­ship prac­tices in an Ital­ian uni­ver­si­ty”, First Mon­day, 2013, vol. 18, no. 1. Avail­able at: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3881/3404 (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018). DOI: 10.5210/fm.v18i1.3881
  17. Evans P., Wurster T.S. Blown to bits: How the new eco­nom­ics of infor­ma­tion trans­forms strat­e­gy. Boston, Mass: Har­vard Busi­ness School Press, 2000. 288 p.
  18. Ewins R. “Who are You? Weblogs and Aca­d­e­m­ic Iden­ti­ty”, E–Learning and Dig­i­tal Media, 2005, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 368–377. DOI: 10.2304/elea.2005.2.4.368
  19. Gourlay L. “Open edu­ca­tion as a ‘het­ero­topia of desire’”, Learn­ing, Media and Tech­nol­o­gy, 2015, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 310–327. DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2015.1029941
  20. Gruzd A., Staves K., Wilk A. “Tenure and pro­mo­tion in the age of online social media”, Pro­ceed­ings of the Amer­i­can Soci­ety for Infor­ma­tion Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, 2011, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 1–9. DOI: 10.1002/meet.2011.14504801154
  21. Hall R. MOOCs and Neo-lib­er­al­ism: for a crit­i­cal response. Jul 11, 2013.Available at: http://www.richard-hall.org/2013/07/11/moocs-and-neoliberalism-for-a-critical-response/ (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018).
  22. Hilton III J., Robin­son T., Wiley D., Ack­er­man J. “Cost-sav­ings Achieved in Two Semes­ters Through the Adop­tion of Open Edu­ca­tion­al Resources”, The Inter­na­tion­al Review of Research In Open And Dis­trib­uted Learn­ing, 2014, vol. 15, no. 2. Avail­able at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1700/2833 (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018). DOI: 10.19173/irrodl.v15i2.1700
  23. Jor­dan K. “Exam­in­ing the UK High­er Edu­ca­tion sec­tor through the net­work of insti­tu­tion­al accounts on Twit­ter”, First Mon­day, 2017, vol. 22no. 5. Avail­able at: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/7133/6145 (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018). DOI: 10.5210/fm.v22i5.7133
  24. Jor­dan K. Under­stand­ing the struc­ture and role of aca­d­e­mics’ ego-net­works on social net­work­ing sites. PhD the­sis The Open Uni­ver­si­ty. 2017. Avail­able at: http://oro.open.ac.uk/48259/ (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018).
  25. Keskin N.Ö., Koutropou­los A., De Waard I., Met­calf D., Gal­lagher M., Anzai Y., Buyuk K. “Nation­al Strate­gies for OER and MOOCs From 2010 to 2020: Cana­da, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, UK, and USA”, Admin­is­tra­tive Lead­er­ship in Open and Dis­tance Learn­ing Pro­grams, 2017, pp. 188–212.Available at: https://kyushu-u.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/national-strategies-for-oer-and-moocs-from-2010-to-2020-canada-ja (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018).
  26. Lup­ton D. “Feel­ing Bet­ter Con­nect­ed: Aca­d­e­mics’ Use of Social Media”, Can­ber­ra: News & Media Research Cen­tre. Uni­ver­si­ty of Can­ber­ra, 2014.Available at: https://www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/faculties/arts-design/attachments2/pdf/n-and-mrc/Feeling-Better-Connected-report-final.pdf (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018).
  27. Lup­ton D., Mew­burn I., Thom­son P. “The Dig­i­tal Aca­d­e­m­ic: Iden­ti­ties, Con­texts and Pol­i­tics”, in: Lup­ton, D., Mew­burn, I., & Thom­son, P. (Eds.). The Dig­i­tal Aca­d­e­m­ic: Crit­i­cal Per­spec­tives on Dig­i­tal Tech­nolo­gies in High­er Edu­ca­tion. L.: Rout­ledge, 2017, pp. 1–19.
  28. Map­stone S., Bui­tendijk S., Wiberg E. “Online learn­ing at research-inten­sive uni­ver­si­ties”, LERU. Advice paper, 2014, no. 16. Avail­able at: http://www.leru.org/files/publications/LERU_AP16__Online_Learning_at_RIUs_final.pdf (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018).
  29. McCarthy M.T. “The big data divide and its con­se­quences”, Soci­ol­o­gy Com­pass, 2016, vol. 10, no. 12, pp. 1131–1140.
  30. Medved J.P. “LMS Indus­try User Research Report”, Capter­ra, Apr. 8, 2015. Avail­able at: https://www.capterra.com/learning-management-system-software/user-research (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018).
  31. Mew­burn I., Thom­son P. “Why do aca­d­e­mics blog? An analy­sis of audi­enc-es, pur­pos­es and chal­lenges”, Stud­ies in High­er Edu­ca­tion, 2013, vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 1105–1119. DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2013.835624
  32. Proc­ter R., Williams R., Stew­art J. “If you build it, will they come? How re-searchers per­ceive and use web 2.0’”, A Research Infor­ma­tion Net­work, 2010. Avail­able at: http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/web_2.0_screen.pdf (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018).
  33. Qayyum A., Zawac­ki-Richter O. “Major devel­op­ments, chal­lenges, oppor­tu­ni­ties in online and dis­tance edu­ca­tion — a snap­shot based on a glob­al scan”, TeachOnline.ca, 2017. Avail­able at: https://teachonline.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/e-newsletters/major_developments_challenges_opportunities_in_online_and_distance_education.pdf (accessed on: Octo­ber 7, 2017).
  34. Redeck­er C. Euro­pean Frame­work for the Dig­i­tal Com­pe­tence of Edu­ca­tors: Dig­CompE­du / Punie, Y. (ed). EUR 28775 EN. Pub­li­ca­tions Office of the Euro­pean Union, Lux­em­bourg, 2017. DOI: 10.2760/159770, JRC107466.
  35. Sel­wyn N. “Data entry: towards the crit­i­cal study of dig­i­tal data and edu­ca-tion”, Learn­ing, Media and Tech­nol­o­gy, 2015, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 64–82. DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2014.921628
  36. Slade, S., Prinsloo, P. “Learn­ing ana­lyt­ics: Eth­i­cal issues and dilem­mas”, Amer­i­can Behav­ioral Sci­en­tist, 2013, vol. 57, no. 10, pp. 1510–1529. DOI: 10.1177/0002764213479366
  37. SPARC Europe. An Analy­sis of Open Data and Open Sci­ence Poli­cies in Europe. May, 2017 https://sparceurope.org/new-sparc-europe-report-analyses-open-data-open-science-policies-europe/ (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018).
  38. Stew­art B. “Open to influ­ence: What counts as aca­d­e­m­ic influ­ence in schol-arly net­worked Twit­ter par­tic­i­pa­tion”, Learn­ing, Media and Tech­nol­o­gy, 2015, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 287–309. DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2015.1015547
  39. Stew­art B.E. “In abun­dance: Net­worked par­tic­i­pa­to­ry prac­tices as schol­ar-ship”, The Inter­na­tion­al Review of Research in Open and Dis­trib­uted Learn­ing, 2015, vol. 16, no. 3. Avail­able at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2158/3343 (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v16i3.2158.
  40. Stew­art B. “Col­lapsed publics: Oral­i­ty, lit­er­a­cy, and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in aca­d­e­m­ic Twit­ter”, Jour­nal of Applied Social The­o­ry, 2016, vol. 1, no. 1. Avail­able at: https://socialtheoryapplied.com/journal/jast/article/view/33/9 (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 8, 2018).
  41. Thom­son P. “Can I cite a blog post?”, Patthomson.net, 2017. Avail­able at: https://patthomson.net/2017/12/14/can-i-cite-a-blog-post/ (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 12, 2018).
  42. Toetenel L. Rien­ties B. “Analysing 157 learn­ing designs using learn­ing ana-lyt­ic approach­es as a means to eval­u­ate the impact of ped­a­gog­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ing”, British Jour­nal of Edu­ca­tion­al Tech­nol­o­gy, 2016, vol. 47, no. 5, pp. 981–992. DOI: 10.1111/bjet.12423
  43. Sec­ond World OER Con­gress Ljubl­jana OER Action Plan 2017. UNESCO, 2017. Avail­able at: https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/ljubljana_oer_action_plan_2017.pdf (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 7, 2018).
  44. Velet­sianos G., Kim­mons R. “Net­worked par­tic­i­pa­to­ry schol­ar­ship: Emer­gent tech­no-cul­tur­al pres­sures toward open and dig­i­tal schol­ar­ship in online net­works”, Com­put­ers & Edu­ca­tion, 2012, vol. 58, no. 2, pp. 766–774. DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2011.10.001
  45. Velet­sianos G., Stew­art B. “Dis­creet open­ness: schol­ars’ selec­tive and in-ten­tion­al self-dis­clo­sures online”, Social Media+ Soci­ety, 2016, vol. 2, iss. 3. DOI: 10.1177/2056305116664222
  46. Wat­ters A. “The Weaponiza­tion of Edu­ca­tion Data”, Hackeducation.com, Dec. 11, 2017. Avail­able at: http://hackeducation.com/2017/12/11/top-ed-tech-trends-weaponized-data (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 6, 2018).
  47. Wat­ters A. “The Myth and the Mil­len­ni­al­ism of ‘Dis­rup­tive Inno­va­tion’”, Hackeducation.com. May 24, 2013. Avail­able at: http://hackeducation.com/2013/05/24/disruptive-innovation/ (accessed on: De-cem­ber 17, 2017).
  48. Weller, M. The Dig­i­tal Schol­ar: How Tech­nol­o­gy Is Trans­form­ing Schol­ar­ly Prac­tice. L.: Blooms­bury Aca­d­e­m­ic, 2011. Avail­able at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-digital-scholar-9781849666268/ (accessed on: June 12, 2017). DOI: 10.5040/9781849666275
  49. Weller M. “MOOCs and the Sil­i­con Val­ley nar­ra­tive”, Jour­nal of Inter­ac­tive Media in Edu­ca­tion, 2015, iss. 1, pp. 1–7. DOI: 10.5334/jime.am
  50. Weller, M. “The Open Flip – a dig­i­tal eco­nom­ic mod­el for edu­ca­tion”, Jour­nal Of Learn­ing For Devel­op­ment — JL4D, 2016, vol. 3, no. 2. Avail­able at: http://www.jl4d.org/index.php/ejl4d/article/view/152 (accessed on: Jan­u­ary 14, 2018).

Comments are closed.