George Veletsianos, PhD

Category: scholarship Page 7 of 27

Our (mostly) changing social media practices

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On August 8, 2018

In scholarship, sharing

I was tagged in doing the black-and-white photo-a-day-for-a-week Internet meme this week. I don’t usually participate in these things (I know, I know… life of the party right here), but this one was interesting because of the current research that we are doing on understanding how and why faculty social media practices change or don’t change over time. Back in 2009, 2010, 2012 even, a few colleagues used to take a photo a day, and share those photos online, usually in flickr groups. Some still do that, but a lot has changed since then. Over the last week of taking and sharing these photos on Twitter, some of my thoughts included the following:

  • Nowadays, my Twitter feed is scrubbed biweekly. These photos will eventually get deleted (to the extent that photos posted online do, I supposed)
  • I paused each and every time I thought about tagging someone. I am more and more cognizant of what we’re asking each other to do online these days.
  • I don’t have a flickr account any more.
  • The online conversations I used to have circa 2008 are much different than the conversations I am having in 2018. The volume is much less and the topics are more constricted. The tone has changed too, and not for the better. Perhaps that’s a reflection of my social media circles. Perhaps it’s a reflection of broader shifts.

10 interesting papers in the proceedings of the Artificial Intelligence in Education 2018 conference #aied18

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On June 27, 2018

In emerging technologies, papers, scholarship

The 2018 Artificial Intelligence in Education conference starts today. Its full proceedings are freely available online until July 21st, and I scrolled through them to identify papers/posters/reports that seemed potentially relevant to my work. These are of interest to me because some use methods that seem worthwhile, others offer insightful results, and yet others seem to make unsubstantiated claims.  As an aside, I especially like the fact that AIED offers space for PhD students to discuss their proposed research.

Here’s the papers that I identified to read:

Leveraging Educational Technology to Improve the Quality of Civil Discourse

Towards Combined Network and Text Analytics of Student Discourse in Online Discussions

An Instructional Factors Analysis of an Online Logical Fallacy Tutoring System

Adapting Learning Activities Selection in an Intelligent Tutoring System to Affect

Preliminary Evaluations of a Dialogue-Based Digital Tutor

ITADS: A Real-World Intelligent Tutor to Train Troubleshooting Skills

Early Identification of At-Risk Students Using Iterative Logistic Regression

Smart Learning Partner: An Interactive Robot for Education

Do Preschoolers ‘Game the System’? A Case Study of Children’s Intelligent (Mis)Use of a Teachable Agent Based Play-&-Learn Game in Mathematics

A Data-Driven Method for Helping Teachers Improve Feedback in Computer Programming Automated Tutors

 

 

Comment sentiment expressed in YouTube TED talk comments

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On June 12, 2018

In my research, networked scholars, papers, scholarship

The top definition of YouTube comments in the urban dictionary is the following: “the only place where a polite discussion about kittens can lead to a flame war about government conspiracies.”

Inquisitive readers might ask: Is that flame war the same for all videos? Or is it more likely for some videos than others?

Our latest paper (and when I write our, I am referring to Royce k=Kimmons, Tonia Dousay, Patrick Lowenthal, and Ross Larsen) explores whether the sentiment expressed toward scholars who go online varies according to variables of interest. Put differently, scholars are encouraged to be present online, to establish a digital identity, and expand their reach and impact. But, what is the public’s reaction? Does the public react more positively/negatively to some people? There’s many ways to go about exploring this question. We sought to answer this question by examining YouTube comments, but one could investigate tweets, blog comments, self-reported data, and so on. Below is our abstract, summarizing our findings, and link to our paper. Note the impact of gender, animations, and moderation on expressed sentiment:

 

Veletsianos, G., Kimmons, R., Larsen, R., Dousay, T., & Lowenthal, P. (2018). Public Comment Sentiment on Educational Videos: Understanding the Effects of Presenter Gender, Video Format, Threading, and Moderation on YouTube TED Talk Comments. PLOS ONE 13(6): e0197331. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197331

 

Scholars, educators, and students are increasingly encouraged to participate in online spaces. While the current literature highlights the potential positive outcomes of such participation, little research exists on the sentiment that these individuals may face online and on the factors that may lead some people to face different types of sentiment than others. To investigate these issues, we examined the strength of positive and negative sentiment expressed in response to TEDx and TED-Ed talks posted on YouTube (n = 655), the effect of several variables on comment and reply sentiment (n = 774,939), and the projected effects that sentiment-based moderation would have had on posted content. We found that most comments and replies were neutral in nature and some topics were more likely than others to elicit positive or negative sentiment. Videos of male presenters showed greater neutrality, while videos of female presenters saw significantly greater positive and negative polarity in replies. Animations neutralized both the negativity and positivity of replies at a very high rate. Gender and video format influenced the sentiment of replies and not just the initial comments that were directed toward the video. Finally, we found that using sentiment as a way to moderate offensive content would have a significant effect on non-offensive content. These findings have far-reaching implications for social media platforms and for those who encourage or prepare students and scholars to participate online.

Tri-council guidance on using online public data in research

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On March 9, 2018

In emerging technologies, NPS, open, scholarship

I am often asked whether there are Canadian ethics guidelines on the use of online public data in research. The  relevant section from the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans is provided below. I believe that researchers should take further steps to protect privacy and confidentiality pertaining to public data, but with regards to accessing and using public online data, this is a start.

A sample project to which these guidelines may apply is the following:  The researcher will collect and analyze Twitter profiles and postings of higher education stakeholders (e.g., faculty, researchers, administrators) and institutional offices (e.g., institutional Twitter accounts). This research will use exclusively publicly available information. Private Twitter accounts (ie those that are not public and involve an expectation of privacy) will be excluded from the research. The purposes of the research is to gain a better understanding of Twitter metrics, practices, and use/participation.

 

=== Begin relevant Tri–council guidance ===

Retrieved on December 12 2014 from http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/chapter2-chapitre2/

REB review is also not required where research uses exclusively publicly available information that may contain identifiable information, and for which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. For example, identifiable information may be disseminated in the public domain through print or electronic publications; film, audio or digital recordings; press accounts; official publications of private or public institutions; artistic installations, exhibitions or literary events freely open to the public; or publications accessible in public libraries. Research that is non-intrusive, and does not involve direct interaction between the researcher and individuals through the Internet, also does not require REB review. Cyber-material such as documents, records, performances, online archival materials or published third party interviews to which the public is given uncontrolled access on the Internet for which there is no expectation of privacy is considered to be publicly available information.

Exemption from REB review is based on the information being accessible in the public domain, and that the individuals to whom the information refers have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Information contained in publicly accessible material may, however, be subject to copyright and/or intellectual property rights protections or dissemination restrictions imposed by the legal entity controlling the information.

However, there are situations where REB review is required.

There are publicly accessible digital sites where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. When accessing identifiable information in publicly accessible digital sites, such as Internet chat rooms, and self-help groups with restricted membership, the privacy expectation of contributors of these sites is much higher. Researchers shall submit their proposal for REB review (see Article 10.3).

Where data linkage of different sources of publicly available information is involved, it could give rise to new forms of identifiable information that would raise issues of privacy and confidentiality when used in research, and would therefore require REB review (see Article 5.7).

When in doubt about the applicability of this article to their research, researchers should consult their REBs.

=== End relevant Tri–council guidance ===

What audiences do academics imagine finding online?

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On March 5, 2018

In my research, networked scholars, scholarship, sharing

When online, people draw on the limited cues they have available to create for themselves an imagined audience. This audiences shapes our social media practices and the expression of our identity. While institutions encourage scholars to go online, and many scholars perceive value in online networks themselves, limited research has explored the ways that scholars conceptualize online audiences.

Audiences by NordForsk/Stefan Tell

 

In a recent paper, we were interested to understand how scholars conceptualize their audiences when participating on social media, and does that conceptualization impacts their self-expression online. Below is a short summary of the results. The full study is here: Veletsianos, G., & Shaw, A. (2018). Scholars in an Increasingly Open and Digital World: Imagined Audiences and their Impact on Scholars’ Online Participation. Learning, Media, & Technology, 43(1), 17-30.

We used a qualitative approach to this study, interviewing 16 individuals who represented a range of academic disciplines and roles. Data were generated from two sources: semi-structured interviews with each participant, and examination of the social media spaces they used (e.g. blogs, Facebook, Twitter).

Participants identified four specific groups as composing their social media audiences: (1) academics, (2) family and friends, (3) groups related to one’s profession, and (4) individuals who shared commonalities with them. Interviewees felt fairly confident that they had a good understanding of the people and groups that made up their audiences on social media, but distinguished their audiences as known and unknown. The known audience included those groups and individuals known to interviewees personally. The unknown audience consisted of members whom participants felt they understood much about but did not know personally. Interviewees reported using their understanding of their audience to guide their decisions around what, how or where to share information on social media. All participants reported filtering their social media posts. This action was primarily motivated by participants’ concerns about how postings would reflect on themselves or others.

The audiences imagined by the scholars we interviewed appear to be well defined rather than the nebulous constructions often described in previous studies. While scholars indicated that some audiences were unknown, none noted that their audience was unfamiliar. This study also shows that a misalignment exists between the audiences that scholars imagine encountering online and the audiences that higher education institutions imagine their faculty encountering online. The former appear to imagine finding community and peers and the latter imagine scholars finding research consumers (e.g., journalists).

Educational Technology Magazine archive (1966-2017)

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On February 2, 2018

In papers, scholarship

Larry Lipsitz, the founder and long-time editor of Educational Technology magazine, passed away last year and is missed by many (see the tributes and remembrances many of us wrote in the last issue of the magazine).

With Larry’s insight, Educational Technology published cutting-edge, critical, thoughtful, and important work.

Educational Technology was a print-only publication. However, Howard Lipsitz, Larry’s brother, has collaborated with JSTOR to preserve Larry’s legacy and make all articles available online where they can be read for free. Here’s the Educational Technology magazine archives (1966-2017).

 

 

Words to live by

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On January 12, 2018

In scholarship

William Pinar’s writing is powerful. This is particular is something worth sharing:

“we scholars must treat each other with the same pedagogical thoughtfulness and sensitivity with which we claim to treat students in our classrooms, and with which we ask our students (prospective and practicing teachers) to treat theirs” (p. 266).

Though Pinar here writes about peer-review, this to me highlights the sort of relationships that institutions of higher education should foster and support.

 

Kumashiro, K., Pinar, W., Graue, E., Grant, C., Benham, M., Heck, R., … & Luke, C. (2005). Thinking collaboratively about the peer-review process for journal-article publication. Harvard Educational Review, 75(3), 257-285.

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