Critical perspectives in educational technology on digital scholarships

CJ Bruton Image adapted from http://guideimg.alibaba.com

Definition of “Digital Scholarship”?Digital scholarship is the use of digital

evidence, methods of inquiry, research, publication and preservation to achieve

scholarly and research goals.

Digital scholarship can encompass both scholarly communication using digital media and research on digital media.

Important aspect of digital scholarship is the effort to establish digital media and

social media as credible, professional and legitimate means of research and

communication.

"E-learning" by Buyerlerdeqalardim - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:E-learning.jpg#/media/File:E-learning.jpg

Definition from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_scholarship

Ideas to encourage and support digital media and tools

• The scholar needs to question his methods with scholarly enquiry through the use of unique and effective research methods.

• The scholar should read original texts closely, while supplementing his research with new and innovative methods.

• These methods could be data visualisation, textual encoding and analysis and asking new and unique questions in order to become a critical thinker.

Image from http://ecologyofeducation.net

There is a need to Understanding open content licencing for

educatorsCzerniewicz and Wilmers (2015) have published a 3-step guide for academics – see full reference on last slide. Important aspects are to1. Assess your policy frameworks (do you want people

to adopt your content or use it commercially)

2. Identify your intentions (get to know your institution’s policies, grant agreements, stipulations & contact agreements)

3. Select and apply the licence.(Understand Creative Commons licensing and apply it to various content types).

Digital scholarship allow for the intersect of interdisciplinary fields and concerns and “public scholarship”.

• Scholars and researchers are sharing their knowledge on public platforms such as

Facebook, Twitter and You Tube and are making them accessible to the non-academic world. This encourages public participation and engagement• Overlapped disciplines encourage a holistic

approach e.g. ergonomics and computer technology; political science and sociology.

• The use of smart phones allows this data to more easily be obtained and offers individuals a “voice” Image from

Mandyktran.wordpress.com

What are critical perspectives?

Ralph Tyler developed the “three minute pause” when reading from a critical perspective point of

view:

1.Read for three minutes2.Summarise the key ideas

so far3.Add your own thoughts4.Pose clarifying questions

(Tyler, date unknown)Image from salesstores.com

Consider the research cycle when thinking and researching in a

structured way:

You need to• Question• Plan• Gather• Sort, Sift and analyse• Evaluate after critical action has

occurred. MacKenzie, 2015

Digital scholarship use the same skills that are vital to non-digital

scholarship. Skills like• Writing an essay or a dissertation, • Reading a book with critical understanding• Working with digital tools and resources and

using the same interpretative tools• Thinking critically about the relationship

between different forms of documents (digital, visual, aural, visual) but using the same interpretive skills

• Finding patterns and deciding which of those items are important in your field of interest and those which are not.

Digital technology allows students and researchers to produce new forms of content. Examples might include

• Hyperlinked text in essays• Audio and video material to support research

material offering a richer Experience in the topic under discussion (multimodal scholarship)

• Digital objects such as databases, timelines, graphs, interactive media

Image adapted from Digitalnative.com

References• Documents.mx,. (2015). Thinking and writing from a critical perspective.

Retrieved 22 November 2015, from http://documents.mx/education/writing-from-a-critical-perspective-559c1b42edaa0.html

• Haverford College Libraries,. (2015). Digital Scholarship. Retrieved 23 November 2015, from http://library.haverford.edu/services/digital-scholarship/

• McKenzie, J. (2015). The Question Mark. Questioning.org. Retrieved 23 November 2015, from http://questioning.org

• Sherman, L., & Sherman, R. (2015). What is Digital Scholarship? | Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre. Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship. Retrieved 22 November 2015, from http://scds.ca/what-is-ds/

• Willmers, M., & Czerniewicz, L. (2015). Open content Licencing: a three step guide for academics (1st ed., pp. 1 - 25). Cape Town: University of Cape Town. Retrieved from http://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/12937/WillmersOpenLicensing2015.pdf?sequence=3