At a time when people from all walks of life are using various social media platforms to send their message across, the trend is just the opposite in case of university scholars.
University scholars are largely resisting the use of social media to circulate their scientific findings and engage their tech-savvy students, a Michigan State University (MSU) researcher claims.
“While social media is widely used in fields like journalism and business, it has failed to take hold in academia’s so-called 'Ivory Tower',” said Christine Greenhow, an assistant professor in MSU’s College of Education.
This is a disturbing trend given that universities in the US and Europe are trying to increase access to public-funded research.
“Only a minority of university researchers are using free and widely available social media to get their results and published insights out and into the hands of the public, even though the mission of public universities is to create knowledge that makes a difference in people’s lives,” Greenhow explained.
Greenhow surveyed 1,600 researchers and surprisingly found that only 15 percent use Twitter, 28 percent use YouTube and 39 percent use Facebook for professional purposes.
The paper titled “Social scholarship: Reconsidering scholarly practices in the age of social media”, appeared in the British Journal of Educational Technology.