The Ed Techie

Blogging impacts on formal academic output

I exported my blog posts yesterday as a back up and thought I'd have a quick play around. I counted up the posts from 2006 when I started, 2007 and 2008. Then I wondered what my 'proper' academic output had been over this time, as I have the feeling it has fallen off somewhat. And yes, whereas I was averaging around 6 or 7 publications pre-blogging, since 2006 it has been about 3.

I think there are two main reasons for this:

1) The motivation to write papers has decreased - apart from getting an RAE ranking, the main reason to publish is to share ideas and fulfill a creative urge to write. Blogging meets these needs better than formal publications.

2) There is more than one way to network. I'm not a big fan of attending conferences (I've got enough bags, thanks), but I used to go to quite a few as this was the only way of getting to know those in your field. So, I used to write conference papers to achieve this aim. Now, I have a much wider and richer network through blogging and twitter, so that motivation is also reduced. I still think it's valid, and meeting people face to face adds to that network, but it doesn't have the monopoly it once did.

Here is a graph of my publishing versus blog activity (no. of blog posts is divided by 10).

Obviously this won't be the same for everyone, Grainne for instance still keeps up a formidable publication record despite taking up blogging. But I think we might see a similar pattern for many academics who get bitten by the blog bug. I think it's a good thing, but if I was an aspiring, newly qualified academic and formal publications were what counted, I guess I'd have to be wary of this effect.

Anyone else noticed a similar trend?

Blogging isn't about fame

I think I was rather muddled in my last post, as all three comments interpreted it as saying 'I want to be more famous'. This wasn't my intention, so let me clarify what I meant.

Firstly, let's place my blog in its role to me as an academic. One of the joys of blogging is that there are no restrictions - blog posts can be long or short, text or multimedia, blogs can be about a subject or an individual, they can be serious or fun. If I was a research student, say, then the role of my blog would perhaps be much more as a tool of self-reflection. As a Professor of Ed Tech at a distance education university, who has a kind of new technology remit, my blog is central both to my academic output and my identity. As such I need to be a little harder on myself about it, than say, a leisure blog about films. I regard my blog as equally important as academic publications, research, teaching, university projects (actually, probably more so, but don't tell the bosses).

Therefore, as a professional it's only right to be reflective on your performance. That's what my last post was meant to be, although in a humourous fashion (okay, not that humourous I confess).

Secondly, when I mentioned technorati ratings, links, comments and number of subscribers, it wasn't because I was interested in these as an end point. Rather that, as in any professional practice, one seeks feedback. If I am teaching I want to know that a) students are learning, b) I'm doing a decent job and c) what I'm saying is interesting. The same goes for publishing an academic article - you want someone to read it and find it useful. So, as part of the reflective practice, you seek external verification that you are communicating effectively, and do not rely solely on your own judgement.

In the blogosphere therefore comments, links, technorati ratings and subscribers act as a very rough proxy that you are communicating effectively and what you are saying is interesting. They are far from perfect, but for the way I perceive my blog, they have some role.

Thirdly, it's not about fame and ego - it's about feedback and conversation. It's nice to know if what you are saying is of any interest, but much more importantly it becomes much more interesting, motivating, deeper and better informed when it becomes part of a wider conversation.

So, that's what I was getting at. My conclusion was that I was doing okay as a blogger, but I could be better. The reason I chose the example of other actors (De Niro etc) wasn't because they were more famous than Affleck, but because they had produced better work (if we ignore late De Niro and Hoffman anyway). I think it's important to take stock and seek to improve. For instance, reflection has led me to conclude that my practice of linking has slipped, usually because I'm rushing to get a post out. The reason I don't link enough is because I don't read as many blogs as I used to. So, my first resolution (blogolution?) is to read, and respond, more.

Bush, digital scholarship and the price of reputation

Our Vice Chancellor gave a talk on Digital Scholarship the other day, a topic that is often on my mind (read: trying to legitimise all this messing around I do). Scholarship, or rather ‘having your scholarship recognised’ which is what people really mean, is all about reputation.

In the pre-digital world this reputation could roughly be pegged to other filters. Publication in journals, books, keynote appearances, research grants: all of these require other professionals to have filtered your contribution, so your reputation could easily be established by the quantity, and quality of these measures. Of course, it meant people learnt to game the system – how to get publications out, how to network so you got invited for keynotes, etc., but on the whole it worked reasonably well if you played along.

But the very nature of the digital world is about the removal of the filter. Anyone can blog, produce a video, podcast, and generally express themselves. So, reputation becomes much harder to verify. This is a problem if we want to start rewarding digital scholarship. Put simply, 100 peer reviewed journal articles probably means you are a decent scholar – 100 (or 10,000) blog posts doesn’t mean anything. So we need to find new ways of establishing someone’s online reputation.

Let’s take Tony Hirst as an example. I think we’d all agree Tony would qualify as a digital scholar. So how would we go about demonstrating this? There would be traditional contributions too, such as developing courses, giving talks, involvement in university projects, etc but let’s focus on the online element. Here are some thoughts:

• Quality of output – Tony, or colleagues, could be asked to nominate significant contributions (blog posts, videos, etc). Personally, I've always liked the Feedistan post.
• Appearance on independent rankings – e.g. Technorati, Jane’s 100+ Elearning Professionals to follow on Twitter, or the Wikio UK blog rankings. I take Matt Lingard’s point that, especially with Twitter, these lists don’t really mean much, but if we were trying to establish an overall ranking of reputation, then collectivelythey add some weight.
• Quantity, or variety, of output – maybe being able to show the range of online activity is important, e.g. blog posts, videos, mashups, etc.
• Impact – being able to demonstrate that what you have done has been used by others. For example, Tony’s work with the OpenLearn material inspired Jim Groom and David Wiley to incorporate openlearn units into blogs.
• Testimonials – quotes from others about your work, eg Jim Groom saying “over in Great Britain there is the legendary Open University, rich with an unfair advantage of knowledge and innovation represented by cats like Tony Hirst"

I think any one of these is easy to cheat or game, e.g. by getting into blog wars you can get your technorati rating up, or by publishing very small posts you can increase your quantity, but when taken overall they provide an indication of reputation.

Which brings me on to George W. Bush. Reputation, online or otherwise, is something that it takes a long time to establish, but only a second to destroy. Bush’s failure to twice get the Paulson agreement through congress seems to me less of a failure of the Bill itself (I have no idea if it’s the right approach, and let’s face it, no-one does), but rather a failure of reputation. Put bluntly, the Iraq chickens have come home to roost. Dave Winer first pointed this out, saying:

Flash back to the United Nations on 2/5/03. An impressive almost Presidential Secretary of State, Colin Powell, delivering some chilling news, not coming right out and saying it, but definitely leading you to believe that Saddam has nukes and chemical weapons and stuff even more horrible and is getting ready to use all of it in some unspecified horrible way. .. Well, I did what a lot of Americans did that day, I sucked it up and got behind my government. And they suckered me. And I'll never forget it. I got fooled, and used, and a lot of people died, in the name of freedom, and it was all a lie.

So Bush is suffering from having sacrificed his reputation in order to legitimise the war in Iraq. And if you are going to sacrifice your reputation you had better be sure that a) it’s worth it and b) you aren’t going to need it again.

An awful lot of what us online folks do is not very easily quantifiable. Exactly how does sending a joke message on Twitter contribute to our bottom line? In the long run what we are doing is establishing our own, and by association, our institution’s online reputation. Given Bush’s reputation collapse the next time someone asks you how much is reputation worth you can answer ‘ooh, about $700 billion’.