Networked Scholars 

&…Authentic Influence?
Bonnie Stewart
@bonstewart
University of Prince Edward Island
Edinburgh 2014
networked scholarship
h"ps://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/8717211019/	
  
influence = a complex equation
h"ps://www.flickr.com/photos/28517410@N02/5422484194/	
  
networks & institutions

are both reputational economies
Those within the academy become 

very skilled at judging the stuff of
reputations. Where has the person’s work
been published, what claims of 

priority in discovery have

they established, how often have they been
cited, how and where reviewed, what 

prizes won, what institutional ties earned,
what organizations led? 



(Willinsky, 2010)
what does this mean?
NETWORKED SCHOLARSHIP
•  Introduction
•  Context: Information Abundance
•  Content: Influence & Networks
•  Conversation: Authenticity?
dissemination
of knowledge
what people
had for lunch
CHANGE IN
HIGHER ED
Premise:
Online networks enable different forms of 
identity, legitimacy, and belonging 
than institutions do
information abundance	

h"p://www.flickr.com/photos/silaBx/9886617776/sizes/c	
  
backdrop: changing educational culture
knowledge scarcity
knowledge abundance
open systems
public, institutional values
market values
closed systems
increasing pressure to go online
channels of abundance = networks
h"ps://plus.google.com/+DaveGray/posts/CQRVeKEsUvF	
  
not about online/offline binaries
h"p://www.flickr.com/photos/zigazou76/5824384001/sizes/z/	
  
networks require literacies
+ ACADEMICS
networks require time
so.

what counts as influence in scholarly
networks?

public identity = price of admission
not about tech
networked identities = multiple &
participatory
my research
•  ethnography
•  14 (13) participants, 8 exemplars
•  3 months of participant observation on Twitter & blogs
•  10 interviews
dissemination advantage
but there’s more
community
connection
h"ps://www.flickr.com/photos/94342662@N00/3869483214/	
  
access to the conversation
speaking from the margins
speaking back to academia
speaking back to media/culture
participating from afar
but.
liability & constraint
signal/noise filters
h"p://www.flickr.com/photos/promediagroup/5726389205	
  
positioning fatigue
immersion required
not fully immersed yet?
h"ps://www.flickr.com/photos/zeon7/3204734196/	
  
literacies for understanding academic 

networked publics
Institutions Networks
product-focused process-focused
mastery participation
bounded by time/space always accessible
hierarchical ties peer-to-peer ties
plagiarism crowdsourcing
authority in role authority in reputation
audience = institutional audience = world
	
   	
   	
   	
   	
   	
   	
   	
   	
   	
  	
  
authenticity?
h"ps://www.flickr.com/photos/esellers/8090580072/	
  
the word ‘authentic’ can be
dangerous in 

digital contexts
authenticity online?

show your work
h"ps://www.flickr.com/photos/pooniesphotos/4452667112/	
  
is it just a numbers game?
h"p://manipulaBon.no-­‐art.info/overview.html	
  
profiles = identity work	
  
profiles = information
profiles = institutional ++
fluencies that matter
there are real, complex global
conversations happening
keep learning to read them
h"ps://www.flickr.com/photos/koonisutra/7001349018/	
  
“who dares to teach must 

never cease

to learn.”


- John Cotton Dana, 1912
 
thank you.



@bonstewart

bstewart@upei.ca

Networked Scholars &...Authentic Influence?