Investigating practices for building an ethical and sustainable scholarly identity with online platforms and social networking sites

Abstract

Informed by 30 semi‐structured interviews with faculty, Ph.D. students, and academic librarians, this exploratory research examines how individuals create, cultivate, and manage their scholarly identity (SI) using online platforms. SI is defined as efforts by academics in promoting their personal “brand,” regarding their intellectual work (Brigham, ). Results indicate that online platforms, including social networking sites (SNS), offer avenues for academics to connect with other scholars and disseminate their research. However, some sites were found to promote practices participants considered problematic, which forms the focus of this paper. Respondents noted that SI work performed on academic SNS (e.g., ResearchGate, Academia.edu) can present moral and ethical quandaries. For‐profit business models pose a serious concern, and several interviewees advocated for open access materials and platforms (e.g., ORCID). Participants also reported a number of logistical problems with online SI work, including time constraints and context collapse (Marwick & boyd, 2011). Data were analyzed using a theoretical framework grounded in Goffman's (1959, 1967) concepts of impression management and face threats. Findings raise awareness of the need for academics and librarians to adopt strategies for creating/sustaining an ethical and sustainable online presence.

Representing academic identities in email: content and structure of Automatic Signatures

“…ASs build scholars' professional identity (Rains and Young 2006), and promote their personal brand (cf. Radford et al 2018), highlighting how they want to be perceived by others (cf. Hyland 2011a), in an institutional context, where peers' approval is at stake (cf.…”

“…ASs function as discursive events of self-categorisation and selfidentification which reflect in-group roles (Moksness and Olsen 2019). At the same time, some ASs are developing as sites for ratifying one's professional reputation (Radford et al 2018). This emerges when they undergo revisions, reporting the writers' recent accomplishments, and signals that the e-writers' awareness of reputation-building changes in their identitya construct in a state of fluxcalls for changes in its representation.…”

The Use of Academic Social Networking Sites in Scholarly Communication: Scoping Review

“…Some studies dealing with cross-cutting topics are assigned to multiple themes. (Agarwal et al, 2016;Ali, Wolski, & Richardson, 2017;Allahar, 2017;Asmi, 2018;Asmi & Margam, 2018;Baro, Tralagba, & Ebiagbe, 2018;Bhardwaj, 2017;Calvi & Cassella, 2013;Camilleri, 2017;Conole & Alevizou, 2010;D'Alessandro et al, 2020;Deng, Tong, & Fu, 2018;González-Solar, 2018;Goodwin et al, 2014;Gorska et al, 2020;Greifeneder et al, 2018;Gruzd, Staves, & Wilk, 2012;Hoffmann et al, 2016;Jeng et al, 2017;Jordan, 2019b;Kapidzic, 2020;Koranteng & Wiafe, 2019;Laakso, Lindman, Shen, Nyman, & Björk, 2017;Manca, 2018;Martín, Orduna, & Delgado, 2018;Meishar-Tal & Pieterse, 2017;Ortega, 2017;Ortega, 2016;Ostermaier-Grabow & Linek, 2019;Li et al, 2018;Ponte & Simon, 2011;Radford, Kitzie, Mikitish, Floegel, Radford, & Connaway, 2018;Salahshour et al, 2016;Salahshour, Nilashi, Mohamed Dahlan, & Ibrahim, 2019;Singson & Amees, 2017;Vasquez et al, 2015;Williams & Woodacre, 2016;Yim & Shin, 2013;Ali & Richardson, 2018;…”

“…ASNs have made it possible to build personal and institutional brands that are important for the reputations of scholars and their institutions. They also provide avenues for mutual connection and research dissemination (Radford et al, 2018). However, there are some moral and ethical dilemmas in integrating them into evaluating scholarly reputation (promotion activities).…”

“…A total of 17 studies are incorporated under this theme. These studies primarily investigated the feature and services of RG, (Bhardwaj, 2017;Chen et al, 2018;Copiello & Bonifaci, 2018Mohammad et al, 2018;Ortega, 2017) Academia.edu, Mendeley, and Zotero, (Bhardwaj, 2017;Mohammad et al, 2018;Sugimoto et al, 2017) General ASNs (Jordan, 2018;Laakso et al, 2017;Radford et al, 2018;Sugimoto et al, 2017).…”