1.
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

2.
Going beyond?

3.
Or…did we ever really leave?

4.
A Caveat.

5.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/adriensifre/10193979686/
Higher Education Professionals

6.
knowledge scarcity
knowledge abundance
open practices
public models
market models
closed practices
Tensions in Higher Education

7.
http://orig05.deviantart.net/c98f/f/2012/105/9/3/spare_change_by_noflowerinmyhair-d4w9ss3.jpg
“If you fear change, leave it here”

8.
"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

9.
Abundance ≠ Tech
http://www.telecomtv.com/articles/tablets/retro-chic-apples-original-macintosh-reimagined-12100

10.
Abundance = Tree of Knowledge?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Anvar_saifutdinov_Abundance_tree.jpg

11.
Abundance = Overload. And possibility.
The exceeding of boundaries
http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2191408271/

12.
Abundance = Strange directions?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jessiewhittle/2619583364/

13.
Abundance = Potential for abuse of
traditional formats
https://svpow.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commercial-scholarly-publishers/

14.
+ New governance visions/divisions

15.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94342662@N00/3869483214/

16.
…So. We are already “beyond libraries”
& “beyond the institution.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longship#/media/File:Tapisserie_bato1.jpg

17.
Higher ed is over.
Everybody go home.

18.
WAIT.

19.
Structure of Abundance = Networks
https://plus.google.com/+DaveGray/posts/CQRVeKEsUvF?pid=5751686447270321954&oid=117373186752666867801

20.
NETWORKS = many-to-many
communications

21.
Networks are not just for consuming, but
connecting
https://www.flickr.com/photos/baggyjumper/6635779085/

22.
Many-to-many
communications make
communicators into network nodes,
forming webs of visible (& invisible)
connections

23.
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

24.
Networked practice beyond the boundaries:
1. Opening up identity
2. Opening up engagement & contribution
3. Opening up publics

25.
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.

26.
Networked education looks like THIS
https://www.flickr.com/photos/122135325@N06/15117809516/in/dateposted/

27.
Price of admission = public identity

28.
You need to work on digital identity
before it will work for you

29.
Digital identity can offer control…

30.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theeerin/331217199/
But where are the other controls?

31.
Networked platforms can reduce
identity to algorithms

32.
Networked identities can be difficult to
contain & compartmentalize

33.
Networked identities can amplify
vulnerability
via commodification + re-inscription of societal biases

34.
…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

35.
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

36.
“Deviant trajectories” – Costa, 2014
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Love_your_country,_not_government.jpg

37.
“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/

38.
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

39.
How might “getting beyond” matter to
scholarly engagement/contribution?

40.
Destabilizes hierarchies

41.
Can extend conversations,
resource-sharing, & visibility of work
https://www.flickr.com/photos/legends2k/3473962847

42.
Can open new conversations

43.
Can enable multi-mode contributions
@hypothes_is!

44.
Cannot be directed top down.

45.
VISION 3: PUBLICS

46.
How to navigate many-to-many
communications with minimal
harm / damage?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ooocha/2632434274/sizes/z/in/photostream/

47.
Call-out culture

48.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/conversation-smoosh-twitter-decay/412867/

49.
Speech-based
expectations
Call Out Culture = Collapsed Publics
Print-based
interpretations

50.
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

51.
Can open new relationships

52.
…And bring care.

53.
Networked practices = scholarship
¤ Scholarship of discovery
¤ Scholarship of integration
¤ Scholarship of application
¤ Scholarship of teaching
!
(Boyer, 1990)

54.
But a scholarship of abundance
https://www.flickr.com/photos/92998734@N03/8466586880/

55.
Do our professional identities, engagement
& publics reflect the networked complexity
of contemporary higher ed?
https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8013/7464195058_24f7388dc3_b.jpg

56.
Our schoolhouse of “getting beyond”

57.
Join in...?
THANK YOU.
@bonstewart
bstewart@upei.ca
http://giphy.com/gifs/flirting-charlie-chaplin-film-G3ywhC6eNDVew