For someone who uses Facebook perhaps a bit too much, I seem to be having a hard time getting my thoughts in order this week to talk about using social network sites as a method of building academic communities– perhaps because, so far, I have not found the same sort of interaction and vibrancy in any of the academic or interest-based communities with which I am familiar with.
The only H-Net list I have much experience with is H-Announce, which I signed up for through the GHA last year, and which regularly fills up the GHA email inbox with lists of academic positions, calls for papers, lists of book reviews, and other info. There doesn’t seem to be much activity over on H-Public at first glance, though that may have something to do with the way that the list itself is moderated–most posts on the log pages originate with the “H-Public Editors”, (aka Cathy Stanton, from what I can tell), and it’s only by digging down into the messages that you can find the original posters (most of the activity this past month has been announcements and calls for papers in any case, which I already recieve). It is different over on H-German, which I decided to look at in comparison– there, the logs give the appearance of a very active community, messages coming from a number of people, and topics ranging over much more than upcoming conferences or open positions.
As Kate wrote in her post for this week, perhaps adding a more open format to H-Net might give other boards a leg up in developing the same sort of activity that H-German shares– or perhaps not. The Massachusetts Studies Network, which went live early this past July, is shooting for just such a mix of professional networking and personal network that Kate (and boyd and Ellison, for that matter) might have in mind– but the network is off to a fairly slow and rocky start. Early adopters found that there was not much more to do than log in and find your colleagues, and though I, for one, added it to the “list of things to look at while I drink my morning coffee”, after a few weeks I stopped checking in, since there didn’t seem to be a lot of activity. It wasn’t until about a week or so that I actually posted something on the site.
Last year, I had the same sort of experience moderating the Connections2007 website and messageboards: we never seemed to build up to the “tipping point” where activity on the network would be self-sustaining (and unfortunately, never shall– the boards were closed by the powers-that-be soon after the conference and semester’s classes were over). So I suppose my question concerning SNSs for academia ends up being how to promote the “network” over the “networking”, as boyd and Ellison make the distinction…
Anyhow, that’s just some of my thoughts– sorry it’s taken a while to get to it. On a related note, did we ever set a tiem for tomorrow’s meeting?
Hi Bill,
I agree that actually getting an academic audience to use a social networking site is the crucial issue here. I too thought about the Massachusetts History Network while I was writing my post. It seems like the problem with that site, and many other failed online community hubs, is that the creators don’t really focus enough on their motivations for creating the site.
The MA history network certainly would seem to have a ready-made audience, but that audience may be too small and selective to sustain an entire social network site. Facebook was built around a small and selective audience (Harvard students), but that audience spends a fair amount of its time organizing social events, posting pictures, and talking to each other anyway. The people on the Massachusetts History Network, on the other hand, probably didn’t socialize or interact with each other much at all before joining the site. The MA History Network really does exist solely for “networking” purposes.
I think the reason that a site like Academia.edu or a social network version of H-Net might have a shot at working is because people in academic departments and in disciplines (especially those people who are used to conducting discussions on listservs) already have a concrete “network” that does not just exist for networking purposes.
Hi Bill,
Interesting how the Mass Studies Network came to mind for all of us. I too stopped checking it, after first spending a few days agonizing over what my profile should say (what ARE my interests, anyway?).
Kate raises an interesting point about Facebook — it was organized around a select audience at Harvard that was already doing all of these things (social events, posting pictures, chatting, etc.). To take that one step further, I wonder if part of the devastatingly slow progress here is generational? Yes, our professors are using email, and some are learning to put their syllabi up on a personal website, and some like Jon are further ahead in the game than we are, but I would guess that the vast majority have not used social networking sites in the past. Or perhaps they’re coming to it just recently (like all of my aunts who suddenly want to be my Facebook friends).
Maybe as more and more newly minted Ph.D.s enter the workforce, they’ll take their social networking experiences developed in college, grad school, etc. with them onto the job. As it becomes second nature, another daily habit like checking emails, networking at conferences, and downloading articles on JSTOR, perhaps we’ll see these online communities grow.
Hi Bill,
Ditto the comments about the Mass Studies Network. I haven’t visited the site since I signed up, and I’d have to dig deep within my mailbox in order to figure out what my password for it was. I’d like to see it revived, it seems that the graduate students network quite nicely on to facebook; more than once has someone suggested a book I should read and I have found valuable.
Piggybacking on what Laura has said, do you think that this will go beyond email and forum posting, and move in to faster, instant messaging kind of format. If that were the case, then through these communities, it would also be possible to have conventions or conferences online. Perhaps there would be no avatar to indicate where you are on the web, but it would be possible to instantly get a hold of someone that has worked in the same field you do. There are problems with this, as everyone wants to talk to everyone at the same time, but if it’s done in the same way online news teams conduct their chats with celebrities, perhaps something feasible can be worked out after all.