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Measuring metrics for Social Media in Higher Education

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 1 Nov 2011, 21:03

'Do a blogger and a non blogger in the same disciplines have less in common than two people who blog?'

So asked Martin Weller of the Institute of Educational Technology this morphing during a day long event on Social Media Metrics.

I'd say so.

I find I have an affinity with those who use social forums, who blog and discuss online. They are traceable conversations, cumulative conversations unlike there non-digital counterparts that have short unshared lives.


'Even at the professional end you are giving more of yourself, your points of view, your political beliefs.' He added.

And so the academic who chose such a life to avoid the limelight finds themselves thrusted into it.

I remarked through the Twitter feed that the lonely writer in the garret now found himself in a greenhouse with the digital world looking in. Will this be the era of the celebrity academic?


Scholarship has become more demanding, or has it?

Doug Belshaw has had his PhD thesis online since its inception in 2007.

It isn't being written form him, but his reputation is being established.


There are new social norms that academia has to accept and tolerate rather than resist.


What do views mean, comments mean and how do they compare to citations?


You social media identify drives the views of your papers.


E.g. Online identity as a result of paper is Tweeted about, blogged and shared, and then you get invited to keynotes and a virtuous circle begins.


A set of alternative representations of you.


What can metrics be used?


Visual representation this is your digital academic footprint, within my community ...


Metrics will become part of what we do.


We mustn't be guilty of subjugating new methods into old.


Martin Weller then talked about writing for the sword-dancing community as if in these troubled times his toes and dancing between sharp blades.

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