Book – The Digital Scholar
Blog – The Ed Techie
Blogging is:
- social – create networks using, reading, commenting
- democratic – anyone can start one
- posts can be long or short
- can be about any topic/subject
- filled with multi-media
- professional or informal (or both)
- anyone can read, no one can read them, 1000s can read them
Questions about blogs:
- do they represent “proper scholarship?
- central or peripheral to practice
- applicable to all domains
- more useful for some functions than others
- which are filled with quality (number of hits, readers, posts?)
- compliment or replace existing channels
- should the authors be rewarded (tenure)
- should blogs use institutional systems or be separated
Digital Scholarship is Digital Network and Open
– common format
– open – a way of thinking, find something you share it
Wolfgang Greller (Netherlands) 1: scholarship is kept within the ‘system’, anything outside is called ‘wisdom’, no?
They Boyer View of Scholarship
- discovery – research
- integration – across domains
- application – taking knowledge and applying it
- teaching
http://www.walshier.com/wall/digschol1 – add your thoughts to this list
Academic scholars do not only do scholarships for money (tenure).
Resource for later – slideshare by Marin = http://www.slideshare.net/mweller/thoughts-on-digital-scholarship
Link to Martin’s last presentation: https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/jwsdetect/playback.jnlp?psid=2010-09-22.0729.M.340DDA914E66190DED68B759DCF9C3.vcr&sid=2008104 (PLENK 2010)
Recognizing Digital Scholarship
Determine the quality of someones research.
– recreate existing model
– find digital equivalents
– generate guidelines
– use metrics
– peer-assessments
– micro-credit
– developing alternative methods
Some of the interesting comments made by participants
Moderator (George Siemens): @Tracy – basically, being a scholar in digital environments
Moderator (George Siemens): i.e. traditionally, an academic or scholar was “validated” by journal articles, review committees, etc
Moderator (George Siemens): with digital scholarship, we recognize activity in online settings
Martin – what scholars do and how it is affected by digital practice. Digital practice blurs the boundaries. You may not typically be recognized in the scholarly role, but the lines of this are now less defined. Demonstrates that people with a good online reputation. Recognized in a manner that is still credible.
Moderator (George Siemens): so anyone who has a passion in a topic and writes about it, engages around it online, then they would be a scholar?
Moderator (Stephen Downes): So far, what I’ve seen of ‘scholarship’ in our field is people who have no knowledge or experience of technology writing in academic journals about technology
Simon Fowler: @SuzGupta – yes, I’m struggling too in seeing how Connectivism (knowledge in networks) has any identifiable measures of ‘quality
jackiegerstein: Charles McClintock defines the scholar-practitioner as “an ideal of professional excellence grounded in theory and research, informed by experimental knowledge, and motivated by personal values, political commitments, and ethical conduct
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2963240/what_is_a_true_scholarpractitioner.html
Moderator (Stephen Downes): Why is one person a ‘scholar’ and another not? Because the one is ‘schooled’ – ie., has read the literature, has relevant experience, etc
Moderator (George Siemens): i.e. one who has read the literature, is informed and knowledgeable
fredgarnett: @NinaC many PhD students have quite a reach through their blogs now
elaine: huge difference between consultant and scholar. In Canada we are experiencing a boom in business and therefore consultancy while scholarship and research is clearly under attack. Eg. Environment Canada researchers are muzzled by government whose permission to speak must be sought. Ghastly!
Moderator (George Siemens): This is my new favorite journal: http://www.math.pacificu.edu/~emmons/JofUR/
Moderator (Stephen Downes): Google Knol – http://knol.google.com/
keith.hamon: @Lindsay: I agree that scholarship is not about money. Open Web allows anyone to be a publisher (however poorly) or a scholar (however poorly). The evaluation is up to the marketplace of the Web to attend to this scholarship or not
Moderator (Stephen Downes): I think there’s a couple of different ways to ‘do scholarship’ – one is to be embedded ‘in the flow’ and to be sharing content, resources, etc., with people – the other way is to be more detached, less embedded, to pull back and reflect on concepts or experiences – each has strengths and weaknesses…
SuzGupta: @elaine: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=scholar
Recorded Presentation:
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2008104&password=M.9F5B4A75EE14B7E56C1A9B3D5967B6