--- layout: post status: publish published: true title: ! 'Academia, EdTech, Blogging and Twitter: Enough with the Meta, Already?' wordpress_id: 1515 wordpress_url: https://www.martineve.com/2011/09/27/academia-edtech-blogging-and-twitter-enough-with-the-meta-already/ date: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0yNyAxMzozNjoyNiArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0yNyAxMzozNjoyNiArMDIwMA== categories: - Technology - Academia tags: - twitter - academia - Social Media - meta comments: - id: 6538 author: '' author_email: anne.marie.cunningham@gmail.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0yOSAwMTowNTowMCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0yOSAwMTowNTowMCArMDIwMA== content: ! 'I agree. People who don''t ''get'' social media are not going to be convinced of utility if all they see are discussions about  social media. I see use of social media in the UK to discuss NHS reform by people who would always have been interested in this conversation but are now using Twitter and blogs to increase the pace and dissemination of their messages. I have made some progress in my original task of developing a network of people interested in medical education in the UK, but there is still some way to go. Any tips gratefully received:)' - id: 6539 author: '' author_email: michael.benjamin.moore@gmail.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0yOSAwMTo0MzowMCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0yOSAwMTo0MzowMCArMDIwMA== content: Exactly. SoMe will be adopted if it works. - id: 6540 author: Martin Paul Eve author_email: martin@martineve.com author_url: https://www.martineve.com date: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0zMCAyMToyNzowMCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0wOS0zMCAyMToyNzowMCArMDIwMA== content: ! 'It''s difficult; I encounter quite a degree of ludditism in my field (English Literature). I don''t think this is surprising, nor entirely to be discouraged, but I think that it can be highly profitable; I''ve certainly got good media exposure and public engagement from Twitter. The other thing I probably should have distinguished here is that I''m not objecting to meta-PhD discussion, such as phdchat (although I wonder if people overdo this slightly on occasion). In terms of recruiting, I run workshops at my institution on blogging and social media (so I am one of the meta- geeks. Ah.) Takeup has been limited, but I think persisting in this area could work. Emphasizing the medium as a "social filter" that can actually work to reduce total information exposure is a good tactic -- people want less information and like tools that reduce the load. They instinctively worry that Twitter will just pile on more and more. I think, as I stated, that the best practice is just to use Twitter in the way that you would like others to use it. If people see it being used in an appealing way, they''ll come onboard.' - id: 6542 author: '' author_email: anne.marie.cunningham@gmail.com author_url: '' date: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0wMSAwNTozNjowMCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0wMSAwNTozNjowMCArMDIwMA== content: ! 'Thanks Martin.My real interest is in the use of social media to self-publish about the practice of education- something too rarely covered in journals. But I think there are many social barriers to sharing this kind of information publicly. If I make progress I will let you know.' - id: 6545 author: Dr Ernesto Priego author_email: '' author_url: http://twitter.com/ernestopriego date: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0xNCAxMDo1NTowMCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0xNCAxMDo1NTowMCArMDIwMA== content: I agree with a call to move on from the 'meta', but I would say that the degree with which "the community already values such things" varies wildly. This valorisation may be common in a very general level (in the sense of "I think this is important) but more thoroughly critical approaches are needed. I often see these 'meta' posts, arguing for the value of, say, social media or blogging, which lack, in practice and in a very visible way, any awareness of good practice. In other words, I see a lot of content preaching how to drive from drivers who are not wearing a safety belt, don't know how to use their lights and are breaking the speed limit. So I totally agree we need to stop making the case for the cause, and make the case by doing the cause properly. A post about digital identity signed by a default Admin account, or an uncategorised post about metadata without a permalink and tags, offer case studies for  interesting Meta posts I'd like to see more of.  - id: 6549 author: Martin Paul Eve author_email: martin@martineve.com author_url: https://www.martineve.com date: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0xNiAxOTo1MTowMCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0xNiAxOTo1MTowMCArMDIwMA== content: I think I probably should clarify; "the community" was in reference to the Twitter community, who already value such things. I'm also totally with you on social media "experts" who haven't got anything to show other than their social media "expertise". Scare quotes very deliberate. That said, I don't totally dismiss meta- issues, particularly once a field is established. I feel, though, that many of the conclusions reached by meta-preachers are unwarranted. A similar example takes place in Open Access advocacy. It's an easy-win to say "it increases citations". The truth, though (see Walters, 2011), is that we just don't know. It seems logical to suppose it would be the case, but no study has demonstrated it. With blogging, it makes sense to leave the drastic claims until the field has been well-enough established to support such claims for benefit. - id: 6551 author: Dr Ernesto Priego author_email: '' author_url: http://twitter.com/ernestopriego date: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0xNiAyMDoyMTowMCArMDIwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMS0xMC0xNiAyMDoyMTowMCArMDIwMA== content: ! 'I don''t know Martin, I think there is not just one Twitter community, and in that in any case it is too big and too general a group of users. Also I''m not sure if we can say that all Twitter users who are also academics are convinced Twitter is useful for their work: they will be happy to tweet about their lunch (as the common place goes) but not about their ongoing research.  On the issue of citations,  Mike Thelwall from the Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group (University of Wolverhampton) and others (UCL for example) have been studying academic web interlinking for various years now. No doubt more research needs to be done in this area, but I don''t think that there is a lack of evidence of the positive impact of blogging on    citations. In any case, the evidence is not more widely available it is because closed journals guard their analytics fiercely (in the same way newspapers, books and magazines are not transparent about their actual sales, runs and actual distribution). ' ---

I have some qualms, which have been growing recently, about the vast number of meta- posts that have accumulated on the use of social media in academia. I need to state this is not a critique of any one of those individual pieces, or the people who made them. I agree with their content. Indeed, in the last week or so there have been several excellent articles published by colleagues for whom I have a great deal of respect. I myself have published such articles. The critique I want to put forward though is meta- in itself; an abundance of meta- posts, at the expense of non-meta-, serves to discredit the very meta- argument.

Meta

We spend a great deal of time and effort calling for the use of social media, blogging and so forth in academia; making the case for the cause. I'd like to ask whether, though, if we concentrated our efforts more upon furthering the utopian environment we so often describe, the self-worth of these technologies might not be perspicuous? I appreciate the battle is not won, but the self-valorising approach is clear here -- whenever I write a piece on EdTech or social media in academia, my hits rocket. It's tempting to write these pieces because the community, which already values such things, will value the appraisal that others should also value it.

Thoughts, comments welcome. In the meanwhile, I'm going to think up some material from my research about which to blog for a future post.

Featured image by Christopher S. Penn under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.