Slides presented to conference of Universiade Albert - Open University of Portugal in Lisbon Feb. 2019

1. Social Media and
Scholarly Research
Terry Anderson
Professor Emeritus
Athabasca University
nextEd2019 - 1st International Research Conference on
Open, Distance and Networked Education

3. Edmonton Ice Castle Closed Due to Extreme Weather
Photo Credit Edmonton Journal

4. Presentation Overview
Social Media, Attention Capitalism and Higher Education
Social Media and Teaching
Social Media and Research
Social Media and Open Publication

5. Esds www.esds.co.in/blog/past-present-future-cloud-computing/

6. Cloud
Social Media, Google Docs, LMS etc.
Teacher

7. Cloud
Data Flow
‘

8. Cloud
Data Flow
Learning analytics, learning research etc.

9. Zuboff, Shoshana (1918) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the
Surviellance Capitalism
Behavioural Surplus

10. “these platforms allows companies to
“datafy”, quantify, track, monitor, profile
us and sell target adverts to haunt us.”
(Lin, 2018),

11. Each social application we use is a
decision to share some parts of our
activity with a company or an
institution whose values we may not
agree with and even whose existence
we may be unaware.

12. 2. Social Networks Benefits In
Higher Education
Encouraging research results:
○ Timely notifications
○ Increased social presence
○ Increased academic integration in real world
○ Background conversation and network effects
○ Increased persistence
○ Increased learning
■ (see Anderson, T. (in press) Challenges and Opportunities
for use of Social Media in Higher Education. Journal of
Learning for Development)

13. Example: Adding a Social Media
group to an LMS
● Australian, campus based, quasi experimental study
Thai, M., Sheeran, N., & Cummings, D. J. (2019). We're all in this together:
The impact of Facebook groups on social connectedness and other outcomes in higher education.
The Internet and Higher Education, 40, 44-49.

14. Challenges of Social Media
● Growing distrust of major Social Media Platforms
● Lack of teacher control
● Privacy and data ownership
● What if students choose NOT to participate

15. ● “First, social media users want less toxicity, more civility,
and removal of all the bots / trolls / fake news. In short,
they want exactly what Facebook and Twitter seem
unwilling to do.” Justin Kownacki
http://www.justinkownacki.com/social-media-survey-habits-change-2017/

16. Using Social Media the ‘right way’
Zuckerburg’s way
● “The research shows that when we use
social media to connect with people we care
about, it can be good for our well-being. We
can feel more connected and less lonely, and
that correlates with long term measures of
happiness and health.” Mark Zuckerburg
2018
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571

17. Using Social Media the ‘right way’
Stanford Research
Facebook deactivation:
(i) reduced online activity, including other social media, while increasing offline
activities such as watching TV alone and socializing with family and friends;
(ii) reduced both factual news knowledge and political polarization;
(iii) increased subjective well-being; and
(iv) caused a large persistent reduction in Facebook use after the experiment.
llcott, H., Braghieri, L., Eichmeyer, S., & Gentzkow, M. (2019). The Welfare
Effects of Social Media: National Bureau of Economic Research.

18. Feel Sorry for Mark?
“They started out wanting to make the world a better place
using cool technology, and here they are, dealing with all of
this democracy and public responsibility stuff, which they
never signed up for and honestly don’t have the chops to
handle.” Rob Tompson Media Oct 2018
https://medium.com/@sirchutney/why-you-should-love-not-hate-zuckerberg-ce991158e96d

21. The Athabasca Landing Solution
landing.athabascau.ca
Social network owned and controlled by the University
Based on ELGG open source platform
Very flat - all users have same permissions
Secure, and permissions for exposure and use made by individual users
Major challenge is adoption by teachers/faculty
Anderson, T., & Dron, J. (2017). Integrating learning management and social
networking systems. Italian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(3).
http://ijet.itd.cnr.it/article/view/950.

23. 3. Social Software and
Academic Publishing
● Distance Education research focuses on two distinct
audiences:
○ Other researchers and grad students
○ Practitioners
● These groups have different measures of quality and use
different means of communicating. Including social
software.
● Key to research, like education is openness

26. It is not only Open Universities who
argue about what “open” means!
● Gold Open Access– Author fees or support by institutions or societies.
● Green Open Access - Libre – archived on institutional or personal
repositories
● Free OPen Access or Gratis– available with or without copyright
permission on Academia.edu, Research Gate or Sci-Hub etc.

27. Academia.edu or ResearchGate –
adding social media to research
● Adds followers
● Adds tagging
● Pushes out notifications of ‘similar articles’
● Pushes citations or mentions to authors
● Some alt-metrics
● Author submits OR ??? to get past copyright - sortof

29. The Sci-Hub solution
● “as of March 2017, Sci-Hub’s database contains
...85.1% of articles published in toll access journals”
● “Sci-Hub’s coverage of the closed articles in the Web of
Science collection was 97.8%”
● Successfully sued by two major publishers - not likely to
pay!
Himmelstein, D. S., Romero, A. R., Levernier, J. G., Munro, T. A.,
McLaughlin, S. R., Tzovaras, B. G., & Greene, C. S. (2018).
Sci-Hub provides access to nearly all scholarly literature. eLife, 7, e32822.
SocialSciences—48Kjournals,4.9M
of5.9Marticles(82
Psychology—1.1Kjournals,1.3Mof
1.6Marticles(82.9%)
E

31. What is a Fair Profit Margin??
● supermarkets typically ranging from 1
to 2 percent.
● natural, organic and gourmet food
markets enjoy higher averages from
3.5 to 6 percent
(https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/profit-margin-supermarket-
17711.html

32. What is a Fair Profit Margin??
In 2012 and 2013, Elsevier posted
profit margins of more than 40%
The Gaurdian 2017
So a couple of weeks ago, LUMCON made a bold
move. We canceled all of our paid journal
subscriptions. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.
Craig McClain 2018 Lousiana Universities Marine
Consortium

33. Elsevier Gets Swedish Court Order,
Elsevier.Com blocked in Return

34. Translated Interview with Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan

35. Sci-Hub on social media

36. The LibGen Solution
LibGen’s main focus is the distribution of its own library
infrastructure, including its source code, catalog, and
terabyte-sized collection to anyone who wants to start his
or her own library. Balázs Bodó, "Library Genesis in Numbers: Mapping the Underground Flow of Knowledge", in
Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education, ed. Joe Karaganis, MIT Press, 2018, pp 53-77. [2]

37. Proprietary Publishers

38. Conclusion
We desperately need more research on educational and research
using Social Media
1. Quantitative research - How used? Impact on learning
2. Qualitative research: Impact on “lived reality” of media infused
teaching and learning
3. Critical Research: Who is benefiting? who is being exploited by
whom?
4. Pragmatic: Interventions in multiple disciplines and measuring
effects on learning