Beyond the Institution: Networked Professionals & Digital Engagement in Higher Education

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

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