Post on 15-Jan-2017
BEYOND THE INSTITUTION: Networked professionals & digital engagement in higher education
Bonnie Stewart
@bonstewart University of Prince Edward Island
Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians Congress 2016�
Going beyond?
Or…did we ever really leave?
A Caveat.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adriensifre/10193979686/
Higher Education Professionals
knowledge scarcity
knowledge abundance
open practices
public models
market models
closed practices
Tensions in Higher Education
http://orig05.deviantart.net/c98f/f/2012/105/9/3/spare_change_by_noflowerinmyhair-d4w9ss3.jpg
“If you fear change, leave it here”
"For the first time in human history, two related propositions are true. One, it no longer is possible to
store within the human brain all of the information that a human needs.
Second, it no longer is necessary to store within the human brain all of the information that humans need.
Education needs to be geared toward the handling of data rather than the accumulation of data.”
Context for Communication, Berlo, 1975
Abundance ≠ Tech
http://www.telecomtv.com/articles/tablets/retro-chic-apples-original-macintosh-reimagined-12100
Abundance = Tree of Knowledge?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Anvar_saifutdinov_Abundance_tree.jpg
Abundance = Overload. And possibility.
The exceeding of boundaries
http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2191408271/
Abundance = Strange directions?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jessiewhittle/2619583364/
Abundance = Potential for abuse of traditional formats
https://svpow.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commercial-scholarly-publishers/
+ New governance visions/divisions
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94342662@N00/3869483214/
…So. We are already “beyond libraries” & “beyond the institution.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longship#/media/File:Tapisserie_bato1.jpg
Higher ed is over.
Everybody go home.
WAIT.
Structure of Abundance = Networks
https://plus.google.com/+DaveGray/posts/CQRVeKEsUvF?pid=5751686447270321954&oid=117373186752666867801
NETWORKS = many-to-many communications
Networks are not just for consuming, but connecting
https://www.flickr.com/photos/baggyjumper/6635779085/
Many-to-many communications make
communicators into network nodes, forming webs of visible (& invisible)
connections
So what visions do we have for “going beyond” into networked practice?
What do professional identities *look
like* beyond the boundaries?
¤ Abundance is not a deterministic system, but a complexification of systems
¤ Higher ed is not over, just complexified
¤ Important to work towards new systems that operate on logics of learning, not just
business or media
Networked practice beyond the boundaries:
1. Opening up identity 2. Opening up engagement & contribution 3. Opening up publics
VISION 1: IDENTITY
In institutional structures, an individual
has a role.
In a networked culture, an individual
has an identity, which it is his/her job to
differentiate.
Networked education looks like THIS
https://www.flickr.com/photos/122135325@N06/15117809516/in/dateposted/
Price of admission = public identity
You need to work on digital identity before it will work for you
Digital identity can offer control…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theeerin/331217199/
But where are the other controls?
Networked platforms can reduce identity to algorithms
Networked identities can be difficult to contain & compartmentalize
Networked identities can amplify vulnerability
via commodification + re-inscription of societal biases
…can we just go back in the schoolhouse?
• 76.4% of instructional staff in US higher ed are contingent (AAUP, 2014)
• 67.5% of instructional staff in ON colleges are p/t (Colleges Ontario, 2013)
• StatsCan stopped tracking full-time faculty in 2011 L
Cyborg identities
Non-binary, subversive, & unfaithful to their origins
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13521837@N00/2577665727/
“The dichotomies between mind &
body, animal & human, organism & machine, public &
private, nature & culture, men &
women, primitive & civilized are all in
question ideologically” - Haraway,1991
“Deviant trajectories” – Costa, 2014
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Love_your_country,_not_government.jpg
“Cyborg writing is about the power to
survive, not on the basis of original
innocence but on the basis of seizing the
tools to mark the world that marked
them as other.” - Haraway, 1991
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rizzato/2342959844/
VISION 2: ENGAGEMENT & CONTRIBUTION
In institutional structures,
gatekeeping is a hallmark of official communication &
contribution.
In a networked culture, the means/modes are open, but
the communicator must cultivate his/her audience.
https://thestateofchange.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/water.jpg
How might “getting beyond” matter to scholarly engagement/contribution?
Destabilizes hierarchies
Can extend conversations, resource-sharing, & visibility of work
https://www.flickr.com/photos/legends2k/3473962847
Can open new conversations
Can enable multi-mode contributions
@hypothes_is!
Cannot be directed top down.
VISION 3: PUBLICS
How to navigate many-to-many communications with minimal
harm / damage?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ooocha/2632434274/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Call-out culture
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/conversation-smoosh-twitter-decay/412867/
Speech-based expectations
Call Out Culture = Collapsed Publics
Print-based interpretations
https://www.flickr.com/photos/seandavis/16528463225/
Hashtag activism = cyborg engagement?
“Bodies are maps of power and identity. A cyborg body is not innocent; it was not born in a garden; it does not seek unitary identity and so generate antagonistic dualisms without end (or until the world ends). The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment.” - A Cyborg Manifesto, Haraway, 1991
Can open new relationships
…And bring care.
Networked practices = scholarship
¤ Scholarship of discovery
¤ Scholarship of integration
¤ Scholarship of application
¤ Scholarship of teaching
!
(Boyer, 1990)
But a scholarship of abundance
https://www.flickr.com/photos/92998734@N03/8466586880/
Do our professional identities, engagement & publics reflect the networked complexity of contemporary higher ed?
https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8013/7464195058_24f7388dc3_b.jpg
Our schoolhouse of “getting beyond”
Join in...?
THANK YOU. @bonstewart bstewart@upei.ca
http://giphy.com/gifs/flirting-charlie-chaplin-film-G3ywhC6eNDVew