Social Network Analytics in Education and Research: Lies, Damned Lies and Pretty Pictures

Thursday 23rd February 2012 JISC CETIS Conference 2012 Author: Amber Thomas (c) HEFCE on behalf of JISC www.jisc.ac.uk CC BY except slide templates, a logos and images unless otherwis statedSocial Network AnalyticsAmber ThomasJISC Programme Managerhttp://slidesha.re/z44AqU

Thursday 23rd February 2012 JISC CETIS Conference 2012 Social Networksin Education and Research Social Network Analyticsin Education and Research Examples

Who are the social networks in education?Who is the social network?• inside the institution: o academics: as researchers o academics: as teachers o services: libraries, IT, catering, accommodation, conferences o students• institutional management has different levels of control, each has different motivations• outside the institution: o potential learners and informal learners o the public/society o journalists o employersNot everyone engages in the same way:Users and non users, visitors and residents 3

A first look: Social network use in education wikis as collaboration student as media producerA message and a medium practitioner peer to peer amplification of teaching Social media as speaking (marketing) amplification of events Social media as listening (user broadcasting platforms e.g youtube feedback, market intelligence) blogging as digital scholarship Social media as exchange (learning, scholarship, CRM?) blogging as services update universities on facebook twitter as alerts twitter as exchange 4

The value of social networks in educationLets give social networks the benefit of the doubt:They are a good thingThey are a useful thingLets assume no-one is questioning that.So ... social networks generate data. Can that data help to: Show the value of social networks? Enhance the value of social networks? Improve the way we use social networks?What’s not to like? 5

Is social network analysis a trap? 6

Who’s agenda is this anyway? comfort zone dirty wordsOPEN ACCESS TO RESEARCH IMPACT OPEN INNOVATION BRAND OPEN EDU RESOURCES COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS KNOWLEDGE SHARING METRICS ACADEMIC AUTONOMY KPIs PUBLIC GOOD BUSINESS CASES LANGUAGE OF VALUES LANGUAGE OF THE MARKET 8

[Data capture is not [Analytics] is not Metrics] DATA CAPTUREThe Data Exists Anyway METRICS (come later) 9

Demystifying the role of data in decision-making DECISIONS “Evidence-based decision making” & “Data-driven decision making” DECISION-METRICS EVIDENCE MAKER(s) 10

Demystifying the role of data in decision-making the messy reality“Evidence-informed RESOURCES & data-informed DECISIONS decision making” VALUES STRATEGIES DECISION- EVIDENCE MAKER(s) METRICS ETC ! IMPACT MODELS STAKEHOLDER VIEWS 11

Demystifying data in an age of data Opportunity: LANGUAGE OF THE MARKET Using the techniques of theLANGUAGE OF VALUES market to support our values in the age of data APIs Feeds Web analytics Data visualisation Storytelling 12

Tactics for responding to the age of data• deny its happening• leave the people in suits to work it out• pay lip service• produce numbers• produce stories• deepen our listening approaches• improve our metrics• broaden our impact model• extend our impact timeframe 13

The age of dataIn the age of data, data is everywhere ... even if its not the whole story Decision-makers want numbers... even if they don’t “understand” them and People like pictures

Decision makers want numbers (even if they don’t understand them)http://scaleofuniverse.com/

People Like Pictures

Principles for responding to the age of data In the age of data, data is everywhere Decision-makers want numbers People like pictures BUT Not everything can be measured Not everything should be measured There are legal and ethical issuesData can be mistaken, misunderstood and misused

A Lesson in Glorious Obfuscationhttp://www.tubechop.com/watch/281562

Tactics for responding to the age of dataReduce our fear of numbersBe generous with data, not guardedIncrease our data literacy and our technical skillsCombine data, combine effort, work fasterImagine we’re all talking to strangersEvery data it’s story, every story it’s dataGlanceability in an abundance of data: visual matters 20

Looking again: Social network use in education wikis as collaboration student as media producerA message and a medium practitioner peer to peer amplification of teaching Social media as speaking (marketing) amplification of events Social media as listening (user broadcasting platforms e.g youtube feedback, market intelligence) blogging as digital scholarship Social media as exchange (learning, scholarship, CRM?) blogging as services update universities on facebook twitter as alerts twitter as exchange 21

ExamplesAside from the Hirst and the Hawksey, please see also: Institutional use of social media eg Brian Kelly http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/ New models of impact for research eg ALT Metrics http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/ Learning analytics eg Siemens et al http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_analytics Text mining twitter eg Proctor, Manchester http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/07/twitter-riots-how- news-spread

My SNA Examples Who is the hashtag community?Heart of #UKOERhttp://zoom.it/6ucv5 By Martin HawkseyUKOER Viz Project

My SNA Examples Are two people being listened to by the same people?dkernohan & ambrouk Twiangulate Mutual Followers Analysis Fromwww.twiangulate.com Following 205 people in common of 1050 total tweeps followed

My SNA Examples Are two people listening to the same people?dkernohan & ambrouk Twiangulate Mutual Friends Analysis Fromwww.twiangulate.com Followed by 244 people in common of 1336 total following tweeps

My SNA Examples A Rather Cunning and Brave and Possibly Foolish Experiment:How much use/reach/impact does this presentation have?http://slidesha.re/z44AqUSee topsy tracking links in the notes of this presentationPick your favourite:personal impact = pimpactvanity analytics = vanalyticsTweet/use your favourite term onlineAnd I’ll do something interesting/useful/vain with it

Thank YouAmber ThomasProgramme ManagerDigital Infrastructure TeamTwitter: @ambroukSkype: amber_thomasFull Contact Details:http://www.jisc.ac.uk/contactus/staff/amberthomas.aspxMy blog posts: http://bit.ly/zBQ2er

http://www.scoop.it	676
http://booktype-demo.sourcefabric.org	13
http://www.linkedin.com	2
http://objavi.booki.cc	1
https://si0.twimg.com	1

Social Network Analytics in Education and Research: Lies, Damned Lies and Pretty Pictures

by JISC on Feb 20, 2012

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

5 Embeds 693

Statistics

Social Network Analytics in Education and Research: Lies, Damned Lies and Pretty Pictures Presentation Transcript