Times Higher Education - By the blog: academics tread carefully

By the blog: academics tread carefully

9 October 2008

Using his department's blog, "Metaphysical Values", a lecturer at the University of Leeds posts an early draft of a paper he is preparing.

Another academic, at the University of Newcastle, polls readers about the United States election on "The Brooks Blog", while "Digital Urban", run by a researcher at University College London, has a recent post advertising merchandise - mugs and messenger bags - bearing the blog's logo.

Although they are still lagging behind their colleagues in the US, British academics are slowly but surely moving into the blogosphere. The appeal of academic feedback, as well as the opportunity for public engagement and the potential for enhancing reputations, has those who blog hooked.

Mary Beard, professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, has been blogging since late last year, despite some initial scepticism. Her blog, "A Don's Life", is one of UK academia's most widely read.

"When I started blogging it was very experimental and I thought it was all rather 'cheap', but I have changed my mind completely," she says. "One of the things that attracts me is the possibility of letting a wider community know what it is like being a university academic."

"I do it to pin my ideas down," explains Ruth Page, a reader at Birmingham City University, whose blog "Digital Narratives" charts her current academic projects and attempts at using e-learning in her teaching. "It is also a useful way of getting feedback from people working in my field," she adds.

Jennifer Rohn, a scientist at UCL, whose blog "Mind the Gap" paints a picture of what it is like to work in a laboratory, adds: "I was angry that my profession was so completely invisible to normal people."

The experience of being in the blogosphere is summed up by Peter Smith, a senior lecturer in philosophy at Cambridge and author of the blog "Logic Matters", as being a "lopsided conversation over virtual coffee".

He says: "I find out informally what other people are working on and thinking about and they find out about my projects."

Paul Ayres, a research officer at the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol, says: "Some academics are dipping their toes in the water but many aren't entirely comfortable with using the medium to voice their opinions."

Those who have taken the plunge often use their blogs either to make their subjects more accessible to a wider public or as soapboxes to push particular viewpoints or to campaign on issues they care passionately about. Some use blogs to talk about life and work in general.

Cameron Neylon, a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Southampton, says he is the only academic in the UK keeping a full online laboratory notebook. In his blog, "Sortase Cloning", he records everything he would put in a physical notebook, from the weight of his chemicals to the results of his experiments.

For David Colquhoun, professor of pharmacology at UCL, his blog "Improbable Science" is a way of campaigning against anti-science and what he calls the "rise of the endarkenment", sometimes pipping journalists in his quest to reveal information.

Lindsay Marshall, a senior lecturer in computing at the University of Newcastle, uses "Bifurcated Rivets" to "micro-blog" about everyday life. "I'm feeling all shaken today - pranged the car a bit this morning," reads one entry.

Exactly how many academics are blogging is undocumented, but anecdotal evidence suggests that only a scattering of UK scholars blog. As an indication of scale, Birmingham City, one of the only institutions to list its academic bloggers, has links to 18 blogs.

Most academics seem to blog on platforms outside their universities, using only oblique references to their day jobs. Some even blog anonymously. Younger academics, unsurprisingly, appear more actively involved in blogging.

"There are enthusiasts but I think the enthusiasm is fairly thinly distributed," says Michael Jubb, director of the Research Information Network, who has been closely monitoring blogging trends in universities. "It has not reached the kind of critical mass that it has among US academics ... you are very much at the cutting edge if you are doing it at the moment."

Yet any sense that there is a united UK community among the academics who blog seems strangely non-existent. "I can see that I am (part of a group of UK scholars who blog) but I don't self-identify," says Beard.

Instead, most are more likely to identify with bloggers on similar topics, whether they are academics or not, and regardless of where they are based.

In August, the first UK science bloggers' conference was held by Nature Network, a networking website for scientists run by the journal.

"That is the group I feel part of," explains Peter Murray-Rust, a professor of molecular informatics at Cambridge and a blogger.

While the concept of a cohesive group to represent their interests seems very far away, UK academic bloggers face many of the same problems.

The first is undoubtedly tensions with universities around academic freedom: the age-old question of what it is acceptable to say in the public space when your employer is a university; but in a new medium where it is easier than ever to speak your mind.

While many academic bloggers appear either not to be blogging about anything that would rile their universities, or to be exercising a kind of "self-censorship", there have been well-publicised cases in the UK and the US of academics falling foul of their employers in the blogosphere.

Erik Ringmar, a former lecturer in government at the London School of Economics, resigned in 2006 after his blog - which dared to discuss the institution - sparked a row with the university over free speech. He details this experience in his book A Blogger's Manifesto: Free Speech and Censorship in a Digital World (2007).

In June 2007, David Colquhoun was asked to remove his blog from the UCL server after alternative therapists complained to the university. A public campaign forced the university to backtrack, but Colquhoun made a decision, which he describes as a "moral victory", not to return. His blog is now hosted on a non-university site.

One social sciences academic, speaking anonymously for fear of losing her job, explains how she had been blogging in her own name to a wide audience when she received word that her department did not believe her blog was appropriate.

"The take was that it was not academic, that it was quite populist and that was a problem ... that if I had time to do extra work then I should be writing grant applications," she explains.

As a result she agreed to remove any mention of her university affiliation from the blog, and she now keeps quiet about her secret hobby. "I think many academics just don't understand what a blog is," she says.

Derek Morrison, associate head of e-learning at the Higher Education Academy, is co-ordinating a large project to help academics interested in using web technology, including blogging. While he acknowledges that some universities can appear overly sensitive to blog posts, he says academics can't expect to be given free rein. "The simple rule for everyone should be 'don't affect the share price', no matter what technology you are using," he comments.

This issue feeds into one that Brian Kelly, web adviser at UKOLN, a centre for digital information management at the University of Bath, sees developing around ownership and management of blogs and for which, he explains, best practice is yet to be determined.

At issue is whether universities should be setting up their own blogging platforms to give their academics the option of using a university space if they want to. Thus far, the University of Warwick is one of the few universities to provide a blogging platform for its academics and students (and has since 2004). Bath intends to follow suit by the end of this year. But how might moves in this direction by universities affect academic freedom?

Jubb says academic bloggers seem to feel more comfortable revealing themselves on private domains than on university ones.

For one blogger the issue is clear cut: "There are people in power who really don't like blogging."

There is also a debate about whether blogging can be career-limiting, with many feeling that their blogging activities cause them to be frowned upon by colleagues.

"I've certainly heard other senior academics express contempt for it - that bloggers are like adolescent girls scrawling in their diaries - but I suspect they are merely ignorant of the level of content on serious academic blogs," Smith says.

One theme to emerge from the science blogging conference was that more senior scientists need to be blogging if the medium is ever going to achieve the recognition its enthusiasts seek. Conference organisers have now launched a competition, challenging science bloggers to get the most senior academic they can to set up a blog.

Another of the concerns raised by delegates about blogging centred on how much those blogging about their research should reveal, for fear of it being stolen by competitors, although this seems more acute among scientists. Many philosophers, for example, seem quite happy to post early drafts of their research papers online.

Maybe, argue some, radical changes are needed to the publishing system - being first to blog a result, for example, could mean you are at least partially credited with an idea or discovery. For others it is a daft notion and papers must remain key.

In any case, as one young blogger aptly puts it, the medium "breaks down traditional hierarchies that stifle academia". What will happen as the young bloggers of today become tomorrow's professors is anyone's guess.