Embracing social media and being ‘open’
The idea of having to write a blog for the Open Knowledge in Higher Education (OKHE) assignment filled me with horror, anxiety and dread. Blogs are self-centred, narcissistic, self-promoting and mostly vacuous, were my initial thoughts. The content we covered during the three OKHE sessions forced me to reflect on these initial perceptions and question my hesitation. Why do I shy away from using social media and being actively rather than passively ‘open’?
I joined the University of Manchester in 2007 as a new lecturer. Part of my role was that of ‘programme champion’ for a new post-experience management programme. I was tasked to write short pieces for practitioner magazines and journals based on our group’s research, participate in interviews, and present at practitioner events around our research informed teaching approach, and briefly dabbled with blog posts. I received no training in public relations or engagement, I had to learn quickly to adapt my public speaking and my writing style for a general audience. Out with management jargon and in with ‘fluent human’ as Andrew Marr calls it. During this time the perceptions from some senior academics was that these activities were not adding value, that I was wasting my time and effort on activities that were not a priority for my ‘career development’.
Fast forward to 2016 and some things have changed. First, there is an increasing demand from funders and higher education institutions to demonstrate how academic research developed has an impact beyond the academy sphere. The Research Councils UK for example provides prescriptive guidance on what they call ‘pathways to impact’. Second, there is an increasing expectation for academics to share ideas with a wider audience and get out of our ‘ivory towers’ (Brent, 2015). Finally, senior academics are increasingly coming to the view that being active and open on social media is essential for ‘academic performance and development’ (see for example the UoM’s PREP form sections B and C). I will focus on this last point.
Social media facilitates social interaction through web-based and mobile applications. It permits individuals, groups and organisations to develop, communicate and share a wide variety of content (words, pictures, videos) through digital environments (Davis III et al. 2012). Not being a ‘digital native’ this type of on-line social interaction does not come naturally to me. I am quite happy to talk about and share ideas in lectures, discussion with students, conferences and through knowledge transfer activities. My initial experience in being ‘open’ was about sharing and communicating our research to a practitioner rather than academic audience, but mainly through traditional media (news, magazines, radio), its purpose was for the marketing and promotion of a programme rather than self-promotion. The concerns I have are around embracing social media technology for this purpose, which have also been echoed my others (Reuben, 2008).
The use of social media technologies requires a much more personal level of openness which is uncertain. Reaching out to a wider audience requires a different way of working, different style of writing, a different language almost, and a different way of engaging and interacting. By using social media we can develop the skills and experience in presenting sometimes abstract concepts at a practical level, our writing will improve and interactions could lead to further research and collaborations.
There is a sense of vulnerability and a fear of losing control (Havergal, 2016). The implications of some research can make some audiences uneasy. But, being ‘open’ also means being open to criticism, and being prepared for unjustified attacks on one’s research. Here we can follow Badgett’s (2016) tips for ‘growing thicker skin’ and also having a clear and sound ethical foundation for our activities.
Creating and maintaining an effective social media presence requires a significant investment of time. We already have plenty of things we need to focus on. Although the institution’s expectations about our social media profile and ‘impact’ plans are becoming clearer, there is limited guidance about how to do this effectively. There is also the potential for information overload through the use of multiple social and traditional media. Therefore we need to think strategically about our purpose and selection of tools and services, we need to be aware of the social media landscape (Cavazza, 2008). For example recent reports on academic social networks question how transformative they could be (Matthews, 2016).
Mulholland (2016) argues that the strategy of self-promotion and public engagement is more about popularising research rather than about having an impact and contributing to change. In some disciplines impact can take a long time after the body of research has developed. Higher Education institution need to be cautious about taking a one size fits all approach. Therefore, we also must consider how altmetrics could be used for measuring our scholarly impact and performance (Priem et al. 2012 and Bar-Ilan et al. 2012). For example, a study looking at Twitter success and scholarly merit raised questions about using social media data to measure scholarly impact (Veletsianos and Kimmons, 2013).
Embracing social media and being open for me is about reaching out to wider audiences with a clear vision of why you want to do it and how. Many of my initial concerns have been attenuated. To some extent it is about detaching oneself from the research output and becoming the press office and promoter of the research. In her book “The Public Professor” Badgett provides some practical guidance on three areas: the importance of understanding the bigger picture, networking effectively and communicating beyond the academic sphere, guidance I will be taking on board and acting on.
Self-centred,self-promoting and mostly vacuous; a blog can be all of these things. But it does not have to be.
