Students and professionals as open scholars

“This section encourages you to think about the options and challenges presented by openness and why this is attracting attention. You will need to make a personal decision about your own openness. You should look at the implications for those you work with as well as for yourself”

The challenges and potential of openness…or to put it simply “what’s the point of sharing online.” Given that module H818 is called the ‘Networked Practitioner’, it’s not a surprise that the first thing we need to think about is our own views of openness. Now, I am on my final module for the masters (MAODE), which means that I have been there before. But if I go back to the start I will probably find that my views and practices have changed, as my identity and experiences have developed. And that’s what life is like. Our experiences shape us. As we grow confident, we are able to share more of ourselves.

This is certainly true for me in many aspects of life. In fact, delivering training a few weeks again, one of my volunteers said to me, and not in a patronising way, how much I had grown as a professional and how much more confident, and natural I was in my approach to training. So I guess that’s my starting point. Openness requires trust and confidence. I hated twitter the first time round. Now it is an important part of my daily life. Trying to blog before felt stunted, as I hadn’t yet found my voice. I hope now that it’s starting to take shape.

Our first reading is Veletsianos and KImmons’s ‘Assumptions and challenges of open Scholarship’ . Their article is a reflection on the need to evaluate and reflect on ‘open scholarship’.  A critical skill which my last module has definitely helped me to develop. We can be optimistic or deterministic, but really a bit of critical evaluation goes a long way. V & K comment on the hopes that manifest around open scholarship, with its breadth of access, reduction in costs and enhancement of the impact of learning and scholarship.

 “anyone can learn anything from anyone at anytime” (Bonk, 2009,pp 7)

But can they? V & K take us through four assumptions about open scholarship, and the challenges for scholars today. (Although I don’t work in formal scholarship, I think my experiences with informal learning and knowledge, has examples that link to the assumptions).

1. Open scholarship has a strong ideological basis rooted in an ethical pursuit for democratization, fundamental human rights, equality, and justice.
2. Open scholarship emphasizes the importance of digital participation for enhanced scholarly outcomes.
3. Open scholarship is treated as an emergent scholarly phenomenon that is co-evolutionary with technological advancements in the larger culture.
4. Open scholarship is seen as a practical and effective means for achieving scholarly aims that are socially valuable.

Openness and equality

Does openness created equality? In the last week we have had stories in the news about how the digital divide is opening in UK schools because of poor broadband access in parts of the country, although Ofcom was quick to point out that these divides are narrowing. V & K raise the question about ‘who profits and who is excluded by openness’, and we should always have that in mind. Technology is not always the great leveller. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean that I can use it, or know how to use it. However, there can be no doubt that open access has changed the way we access information. I couldn’t study the way I do without it, and when I want to know something, there is a world of information at my fingertips to analyse and sort.

The ideological basis? Some could argue that open is just a new business model, or that it’s a useful component for arguing for openness. The recent Tristam Hunt story comes to mind here, in which the prime minister called out some hypocrisy between being a labour minister and his upbringing. Even if you do belong to a privileged few, doesn’t mean that you can’t fight for democracy and equality, and want to change the status quo for the benefit of others. I think that humanity has been doing this for thousands of years.

V & K note that definition of open scholarship is not consistent, and instead focus on three forms of scholarship – Open access and publishing, open education and networked participation. You can find equality in all of these, but it does require you to know where to look. If you don’t know the right people or place to go how do you shift through? If we are not careful it has the potential to cause another social divide, rather than democratisation.

Enhancing scholarly skills

But does being open enhance ones scholarly skills? Or have we just transpose one environment for another? After all, often we network with the people we share an interest in, and this may be no different to network within a faculty. Open scholarship has the possibility of reaching out to others outside of your known world, and maybe even in different disciplines, which might help scholars to grow outside their ‘bubble’. This is why I now share all my interests on twitter. After all, I am not just about learning and technology, but also about safeguarding, women (especially in science), social equality…..so by following different people with different attitudes, and maybe even different views to my own, I can get new perspectives. For me different perspectives help me to refine my own. But do you need to participate to enhance the outcomes, could you just consume? So if we want digital participation to enhance our outcomes we need to be prepared to seek out those who can really challenge us and not just stick with our security blankets.

There is a fear of openness, and sharing work, ideas, especially while they are still being honed. And does being open change the way you say things, both on a personal and on a corporate level. Open courses potentially have a wider audience to deliver to, so does that change the messages and learning which is delivered? I think this comes back to trust and confidence. It’s a bit like posting in an OU forum (and I reflected on this back in H807 Innovations in e-learning). To start with you spend hours thinking about how to reply. Then eventually you just reply, and you don’t care about the spelling mistakes, because you want to hear what other people think. The gooey, misshaped thoughts are what’s exciting about online learning.

It takes time…

However, to be open one needs to skills to participate, and as V & K note, it takes time to appropriate and use digital tools (as I have already alluded to). Participation (yes we have been here before in H800, practices and debates ). Just as one needs to be enculturated into scholarly practices, so one needs to be enculturated into digital scholarly practices. Familiarity with technologies helps a great deal in learning how to use them effectively. Therefore, is it only those who are already ‘digitally literate’ that can truly benefit? Thus we get to questions about teaching these digital literacies at an earlier stage – but I wonder whether as time advances, we don’t necessarily have to teach openness, but rather help our next generation of scholars enhance the abilities they already have. After all, ‘networked’ is something that young people today seem to understand, right?

Technology shaping practice

 “…the relationship between technology and practice is negotiated in that technology shapes practice and practice shapes the way technology is used”

So apparently technology isn’t neutral and the values and norms we have maybe conflict with the values and norms of a digital world. But maybe these cultures and norms need to be challenged? Or maybe there is a fear that openness will shine a light and show us lacking? Much of the literature tries to counter this by showing/telling how technology affords the same as before, just in a different way.

A good example is one of the tools I use often – Padlet (used to be wallwisher which sound so much better). Many of our leaders are from the babyboom generation, and so scout training is awash with the use of post-it notes. Therefore is has been much easier to integrate this into practice, as a way of sharing ideas online. Also, the taking time part is important, and I am now seeing the use of webinars, videos, blogs and digitally content becoming a more normal and accepted way of engaging our audiences.  

But actually technology does allow us to change our practices and do things in new ways, thus shaping our scholarly achievements. As one person I cannot support 300 people across the UK. But as a network group, then we can probably create, develop, support and innovate far more effectively, provide we have the willingness.

Assumptions and challenges…

So we need to unpick assumptions and highlight challenges if we are to be effective advocates for openness in our scholarly endeavours. For me, my colleagues are spread across the UK, and so I need technology to help me connect. Also, one of the principles of Scouting is ‘learning by doing’, so this is a good place to start on this module.

Does openness promote equality – maybe, potentially, but let’s be clear about our purposes for openness and not use equality as a smokescreen for purpose.

Is participation required – yes, if you are talking about being networked. But participation doesn’t need to be ‘vocal’. And we need to make sure that we look for the little as well as the big voices, or at least help them find ways to be heard.

Is there a reciprocal relationship of technology and culture – sure. Technology is a tool, a cultural tool, that allows us to change the way we view things, say things, do things and most importantly how we interact.

Does openness help us in achieving scholarly aims – well that depends on what your scholarly aim is.

Bonk, C. J. (2009). The world is open: How Web technology is revolutionizing education. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley and Sons.

Veletsianos, G. and Kimmons, R. (2012) ‘Assumptions and challenges of open scholarship.’ The International Review Of Research In Open And Distance Learning, vol. 13, no. 4, 166–189 [online]. Available at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1313/2304 (Accessed 6 October 2014).