Tag: policy

Learning and Performance, Networked Community, Professional Development, Virtual Communities, Workplace

VOTE for our PanelPicker: #NSFWatSXSW

Laura Pasquini

Employees in today’s workforce have either grown-up balancing their “screen time” or have embraced the power of digital tools to enhance communication, collaboration, and workflow. Social and digital technologies have been at our fingertips for just over a decade in our occupational lives. Exposure to social media or mobile applications does not mean new professionals or veteran employees are digitally savvy at simultaneously negotiating their online and offline self. Our social networks have expanded beyond a collection of family/friends and now branch into industry groups, professional networks, and online communities connected to our career.  The expression “in real life” or “IRL” no longer applies, and what we do inside the screen does impact our working lives. What happens when these digital networks witness behaviors or interactions that are unwanted, inappropriate, hateful, and not suitable for work (NSFW)?

#NSFWatSXSW: Your “Professional” netWORKed Community:

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/77084 

Our digital communities and online networks are witnessing unwanted behaviors and reactions.

“Online communities form for personal enrichment, professional networking, and social learning. How do they help or hurt individuals, organizations, and industry? What challenges and barriers arise for community organizers? When it comes to the workplace, what happens when our online and offline life converge? Implications for both individuals and employers will be discussed.”

Being exposed to these virtual spaces and places does not mean employees or employers know how to simultaneously negotiate what happens when these online interactions impact the offline work environment and potentially impact their career advancement. The WEF Future of Jobs report (Leopold, Ratcheva, & Zahidi, 2016) listed complex problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity at the top of the essential skills list for work in 2020; however, digital literacy training and preparation in post-secondary has not fully prepared learners to contribute (Alexander et al., 2017) and meet the technology needs of industry.  As we think about the future of jobs and job training needs (Rainie & Anderson, 2017), it is critical we address these networked behaviors and consider the skills required to cultivate a productive digital ecosystem that is able to go to work with our employees.

In our PanelPicker session, we want to share implications and strategies for supporting professionals in a networked space for the INTERACTIVE: Workplace track. We want to discuss how these networked spaces and, perhaps not NSFW online interactions, impact the future of work, by discussing:

  1. Why do networked communities matter for professional practice and industry?
  2. What are the benefits and challenges in these professional networked communities?
  3. How do we (employer’s, employees, or industry) deal with these digital communities or networked professionals in the workplace?

Please join the online community opportunity to VOTE and COMMENT on our idea, and others! The opportunity to source the most creative, innovative and appropriate for the South by Southwest (SXSW) 2018 event is yours for deciding. The community voting will close on Friday, August 25 (11:59 PM CT). Please take a minute to VOTE for OUR PanelPicker!!

#NSFWatSXSW

Your “Professional” netWORKed Community

 http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/77084 

References:

Alexander, B., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., & Hall Giesinger, C. (2017). Digital Literacy in Higher Education, Part II: An NMC Horizon Project Strategic Brief. Volume 3.4, August 2017. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Leopold, T. A., Ratcheva, V., & Zahidi, S. (2016, January). The future of jobs: Employment, skills and workforce strategy for the fourth industrial revolution. World Economic Forum.

Rainie, L., & Anderson, J. (2017, May 3). The future of jobs and jobs training. Pew Research Center.

Higher Education, Social Media, SocioTech

Sociotechnical Stewardship: Guiding Social Media Policy and Practice in Higher Ed

Laura Pasquini

In a previous blog post, I shared how I am visualizing scholarship via the Research Shorts YouTube Channel (Please SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/researchshorts). If you have not viewed any of these papers, here’s a list of journal articles, that are now videos on this channel, compiled by George. As an open, digital scholar, I thought that producing videos of my own work might be a solid idea to share scholarship. So here I go…

Remember that “really big paper” known as a dissertation? It was on the topic of social media guidance and such? If not — check out the website on the topic here: https://socialmediaguidance.wordpress.com/ Well, I learned one is never really Ph-inishe-D with this research until the research is published in a peer-reviewed journal [More on this #AcWri process and experience in a future blog post… I promise!].

I am proud to say this research has been officially published! This blog post shares a quick video overview of the paper, link to the journal article/pre-print paper, and the database of over 250 social media policies from 10 countries analyzed within this study. Thanks to all who contributed to this research and to others who will continue to use this open data set and research to further work in this area. This sociotechnical stewardship framework is organized from the key themes found from text-mining the 24, 243 policy passages reviewed within this corpus. Here are a few things we need to consider when organizing and guiding sociotechnical systems in our organizations:I am continuing to understand how we best guide and support sociotechnical systems for higher education professionals as I interview participants for a current research project[Hint, hint: CONTRIBUTE to our current study that is “in progress” now: https://bit.ly/networkedself

I hope other scholars and practitioners further this research and apply these practices to effectively support campus stakeholders. Want to learn more about this study, here is a quick video summary (4:59 minutes):

Social media technologies transform how we share, communicate, and interact with one another. On our college and university campuses, new media applications and platforms are transforming how students, staff, faculty, and alumni engage with one another. As these social, emerging technologies impact teaching, learning, research, and work functions on campus, we need to understand how social media use and behaviors are being supported. To help higher education administrators and organizational leaders effectively guide social, emerging technologies, we prove a summary of 250 institutional policy documents and we offer a sociotechnical framework to help support strategic, long-term technology planning for organizations and their stakeholders.

Download this research paper:

The article is published in the Journal of Computing in Higher Education here or find the pre-print version of the original paper on my ResearchGate profile.

Download a csv file of the higher education social media policy database:

Pasquini, L. A. (2016). Social media policy document database. Figshare. doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.4003401. Retrieved from https://figshare.com/articles/Social_media_policy_document_database/4003401

Reference:

Pasquini, L. A., & Evangelopoulos, N. (2017). Sociotechnical stewardship in higher education: A field study of social media policy documents. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 29(2), 218-239. doi: 10.1007/s12528-016-9130-0 Published Online November 21, 2016.

 

Dissertation, Social Media

Policing Social Media in Higher Ed: Implementing Policies on Campus

Laura Pasquini

During the course of my dissertation research, a few events connected to the scope of my study, and directly to the social media documents I was gathering.  I ended up building a database of 250 post-secondary education (PSE) institutional guidelines and policies to completely understand HOW the PSE sector is ACTUALLY  “guiding” social media. More importantly my research uncovers the organizational identity and cultural values of social media among 10 different countries. {More to be shared post dissertation defense June 12, 2014.}

If you are interested in either research around policies and/or social media impact to organizations, specifically post-secondary education, then you most likely heard about the Kansas Board of Regents approval to amend their policy manual back in December 2013 to outline “improper use of social media by University of Kansas faculty.” If not, I have an article and infographic of the timeline of events for you:

KBOR Policies

Image and article credits from The Daily University Kansan ().

Concerns about social media use have been a continual debate and topic for higher education for at least a decade. There have been challenges to using social media accounts for “official” use, faculty blogging, HR employee regulations, or just a general “need” for increased policy implementation among a number of colleges and universities.  The PSE sector is not alone. The K-12 sector and other industries also are keen to social media polices around use and sharing for their stakeholders.

All THAT being said, I have a few questions for you:

  • HOW does (or will) a social media policy influence and impact your institutional culture?
  • Does (or will) your social media policy support your student services or research at your organization?
  • What goals and outcomes do you (or will you) achieve by implementing a social media policy on campus?
  • Does your (or will your) policy consider helpful guidelines, suggested practices, and/or training and development?
  • How does (or will) your social media policy be implemented with regards to teaching, service, and research scholarship?

Or is your PSE concerned with communication control and organizational management?  I would hope your institution of higher learning does not limit user interaction, community engagement, or general opportunities to share opinions.

From my dissertation findings, I hope to continue on this thread of research to identify ACTUAL use, related to the social media guideline and policy documents I have studied, to further understand how participation and interactions on these social media channels influence organizational identity and culture on campus. Is your campus listed in my PSE institution sample? Are YOU interested is getting involved in this type of research? Let me know.

Dissertation, PhD, Social Media

Your Higher Ed Website + Search: “Social Media Guidelines” or “Social Media Policy” = A Database for My Dissertation Research

Laura Pasquini

Yes. I know that this may be my  LONGEST blog post title ever. I created it for one reason. It is the equation which will help me move my research forward for my dissertation.

featuredimages_socialmedia

You may recall a previous request for this from an earlier blog post: Gathering #SocialMedia Guidelines from #HigherEd. So, basically what I’m saying is…

I NEED YOUR HELP! => Submit Your Social Media Guidance Please!

My dissertation research methodology (good ol’ Chapter 3) will involve text mining analysis for reviewing all these many social media guidelines (policies, strategies, beliefs, regulations, etc. included) I am gathering right now. The caveat for this type of research is –  I need to build a large enough database of documents to examine and evaluate. BONUS: After collecting all of these documents, I will share this Social Media Guidance database AND my research findings for you here: http://socialmediaguidance.wordpress.com/

As of today (4:30 pm CT), I have collected approximately 176 Social Media Guidance documents from 13 different countries. Hoo-ray!

Check to see if your institution is listed below, and if it is not – please SEARCH YOUR COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY WEBSITE to see if you might just happen to have social media guidelines, a policy, a directory, and/or anything that might be related to social media. Thank you!