Advanced LinkedIn Workshop at ANU

Dr Fiona Scotney, ANU

Greetings from Dr Fiona Scotney’s Advanced LinkedIn Workshop at ATEM2025. A few hours ago I was in Sydney, and saw a LInkedIn post from Fiona, saying she was speaking on LinkedIn at ATEM2025. I had no idea what ATEM was and only knew her as a Director at The Australian National University. It turns out ATEM is the Association for Tertiary Education Management and they are having their conference at ANU this week.. 

Fiona provided useful tips, such as writing as you talk and keep in mind you are promoting your team and organisation, not just yourself. Tips included ending posts with a call to action. This is straight from the entrepreneurial pitch playbook (you get trained to end with what your audience to do). I have been using social media professionally for longer than the term has existed, but still learned some things.

Trying Mastodon in Plance of Twitter/X: So far So Good

Recently I have noticed more annoying messages on X/Twitter than interesting content. Not the extreme stuff reported in the media, just annoying. So I am trying Mastodon. As I understand it, Mastodon is a free open source self hosted social network, similar in spirit to the old Usenet. So far I am not seeing much content, which is good. My first post drew criticism, but it was mild, and from an acquaintance, which is a kind of welcome to the system. I have tried looking for some education, defence and computing conference, but I am not exactly sure where to look. But it took me week to work out hot to use Usenet (a long, long time ago). Every now and then I get a hankering to look at Twitter, but so far am resisting the temptation.

Talking to the Media

A few weeks ago I woke to a media report that Optus customers had no landline, or mobile services. So I sent a message to the local ABC Canberra station to say I was available to talk. There was a text back within a minute to say could I speak on air in fifteen minutes. I have been on the Australian National University's list of experts to speak to the media for more than a decade, so this was a routine interview. But other ABC stations who monitor their own media, and rivals heard this, and I spent the next week talking to radio, and TV journalists (and ending up in print). 

The Australian Science Media Centre, which ANU subscribes to, sent out a comment from me:

"The Optus outage is most likely a regular software upgrade gone wrong. The problem is too widespread to be due to a cable break or equipment failure. " 

When it proved my diagnosis of the problem was correct featured me as their expert of the week. The result was mentions in 970 radio segments, 753 online articles, 169 on TV, and 22 in print. This is not as impressive as it looks, as many are local stations of the same network (each ABC local radio station is counted separately, when carrying the same item, for example).

The key to speaking to the media as an "expert" is not saying more than you know. In this case there was a national outage at Optus, effecting a large range of services. So I speculated it was due to a software upgrade in the routers (the specialized computers which send data around Optus' network). This turned out to be the case. I was asked if Optus could have had a backup, telecommunications but explained that because this was likely a problem with software, that would not have helped.

Another part is providing explanations which the public can understand. Technical jargon just confuses. It also helps to provide something the public can do. In this case I suggested if you have multiple phones at home have them on different networks (although this may cost more):

"This is a reminder to have backups for essential services. Even if you have another Internet connection, if you are using two-factor authentication to your bank, or employer, you will not be able to get the code on your phone to log in. If you buy a spare SIM card, check it is not using the same network as your usual telco, and your phone is not locked to them."

Also to keep the university happy it is important to ensure the interviewer mentions the name of the institution. The expert is not there to plug the university, I do like to tie the topic back to research, and education, where relevant:

"At the Australian National University, we are completing grading of the final assignment for computing students, before they graduate. The last thing they do is spend a year working in a team, building and testing, a real system for a real client. This is the ANU Techlauncher Program. An important part of this is to have more than one set of eyes on each line of code, and have students realize that failures of systems have real-world consequences for people."

If you are an academic, don't just pick up the phone and start talking to the media. First do the the media training offered by your media unit. Check on the rules for speaking publicly with your media unit. Get yourself added to the experts list. 

Online Dating for Conference Deligates

Currently I am in Singapore for five conferences. One thing I noticed was that they are using applications like Swapcard, for delegates. This provides the agenda for the event, a QR code to get your badge at the event. But it also provides a way to find people, before, during and after the live event. This aspect is likely to be of great interest to businesses wanting to contact potential clients, as well as academics wanting to meet up.

Beyond LinkedIn For Professional Social Media to Help Your Career

Next week, I am talking to the ANU computer project students about using social media for your career. Some thoughts. Suggestions, corrections and comments welcome:

1. Can you?: Before setting up a profile on social media, consider if your employer, or your government allows particular platforms, or any social media presence at all. In particular, if you are considering a career in government computer security you need to not overshare person, or professional, details online. I had a high online profile before joining HQ Australian Defence Force. So it was not possible to undo that, or simply disappear from public view, so I continued to blog about public aspects of my job.

2. Commercial Sites: 

A LinkedIn Profile

Here is a screenshot of my LinkedIn page. Note at the bottom "Open to work" and "providing services".

Now owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn was developed specifically to help recruiters find staff. The free version of the service allows entering a CV, and to receive offers of jobs. There are also discussion forms on professional topics. A very useful feature is being able to search who you might know at a particular organisation, location, or field, and people you know who know people, to 2 degrees of separation. Currently I have 1,161 followers and 500+ connections. 

3. Professional Sites: 

A Collabratec profile,IEEE 2022

 Professional associations have tried to provide LinkedIn type services, with limited success. One of the better ones is IEEE Collabratec. This provides for a CV, and discussion forums. The ability to search for people is more limited than LinkedIn.

4. Personal Blogs:

Higher Education Whisperer Blog

Professionals, especially those who work freelance, or on short contracts, may like to have their own blog. I use The Higher Education Whisperer to write about issues to do with universities. However, keep in mind, your client, or employer, needs to be happy with what you write. As a part time academic, the university is comfortable with what I write. When a public servant working for a security agency, I had to be very careful with every post.

Social Media for Researchers

Some time ago, one of my colleagues suggested I join ResearchGate, describing it as "social media for researchers". I was skeptical, but signed up. I am still skeptical, but occasionally it surprises me.

This morning I noticed a large number of suggestions for researchers to follow. These were authors of papers I had cited in a recent paper (a short paper, but with a lot of references). The reasonable assumption seems to be that if I was interested enough in their past work to cite it, I would be interested in future work of these researchers. There were also alerts about two papers from authors I had cited: Yusuf and Prasad (?),  and Ouadoud, Chkouri, and Nejjari (2018).

Yusuf and Prasad  report on the use of videos in an undergraduate course at the University of the South Pacific (USP). Interestingly, the editor added a comment to the paper pointing out that films were widely used for training from World War II on-wards. However, the authors found that while the students they surveyed liked the videos and thought them useful, viewing dropped off sharply after the first week of a course.

The attendance at live lectures also drops off rapidly (Hughes-Warrington, 2015). It might be interesting to look for the common factors between the two. It would be tempting to see this as a failure on the part of the students, or the instructor. However, it may just be that students only need the presentations, live or recorded, early in a course. It may be that universities are wasting a considerable proportion of the resources, by providing unused, and unnecessary lectures.

Ouadoud, Chkouri, and Nejjari (2018) looked at how Behaviorist, Cognitivist and Social constructivist theory applies to the use of a Learning Management Systems. There was not much new here, but the authors provided very useful diagrams showing the roles of those involved, and how each model applies to this.

ps: One problem with ResearchGate is that you get an alert of new papers, but these may be so new it is hard to work out where they have been formally published and how to cite them.

Reference

 

Ouadoud, M., Chkouri, M. Y., & Nejjari, A. (2018). Learning Management System and the Underlying Learning Theories: Towards a new Modeling of an LMS. International Journal of Information Science and Technology, 2(1), 25-33. URL http://www.innove.org/ijist/index.php/ijist/article/viewFile/24/17

Hughes-Warrington, M.  “That Sinking Feeling: Counting the Cost of Live Lectures,” Making Sense of University Business, 2015. [Online]. URL
https://missunitwocents.tumblr.com/post/123364615920/
thatsinking-feeling-counting-the-cost-of-live

Yusuf, J., & Prasad, D. Using instructor-generated short videos in an undergraduate accounting information system course. URL https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/154347626.pdf

Katharine Murphy on Climate Change

Greetings from the ANU Climate Change Institute in Canberra, where journalist Katharine Murphy is speaking on politics and climate change. She started by using a metaphor of car manufacturing from her book "On Disruption". She claimed that the "disruption" to journalism by the Internet was unexpected and sudden, like car workers turning up and funding their jobs replaced by robots. However, I don't find the claim the Internet's changes to journalism were unexpected to be credible.

A better metaphor would be if some car workers were seconded to a robot development program, and rather than keep this secret, gave their fellow assembly line workers regular reports over a decade warning the robots were going to take their jobs. The assembly line workers dismissed the reports, and rather than look for another job, re-skill for the change, or raise opposition, just kept working on the assembly line until one day they were replaced. This is essentially what happened with the media.

Katharine Murphy suggested that climate policy should not let "perfect be the enemy of good". She criticized the Greens for opposing Keven Rudd's carbon policy. She suggested we needed to "harness the moment" for climate policy. One of the audience asked about what was the role of scientists to support the young on climate change. In reply Katharine Murphy pointed out how many of the young registered to vote for marriage equality. She went on to express concern that the public become numb to news reports of climate catastrophe.


Getting back to the issue of the Internet's disruption of journalism, something similar is now taking place in universities. Students are not attending most lectures, to the point were universities are demolishing lecture theaters. Students now study mostly on-line, but most university "lecturers" do not accept this reality. At some point in the next few years the change will become very public, with closures of campuses, consolidation of institutions, students studying online at overseas institutions and unemployed academics. At that point the lecturers who ignored calls for change for years will express shock at this "sudden" and "unexpected" change. Those of us who re-skilled for the change and proposed how to adapt, will have to just say "that is unfortunate".

Social Cohesion, inclusion and diversity

Greetings from the ANU Grand Challenges pitch night in Canberra.  Four teams are presenting their ideas. One will receive funding. The third is "Social Cohesion, inclusion and diversity". This proposes five phases: synthesis, stock-take, solve, scale-up and share. The approach appears similar to that of
Burstow, Newbigging, Tew, and Costello (2018). One aspect the team might like to investigate is online aspects of community building in the face of so-called social media.

Reference 

Burstow, P., Newbigging, K., Tew, J., & Costello, B. (2018). Investing in a resilient generation: Keys to a mentally prosperous nation. URL http://repository.tavistockandportman.ac.uk/1792/1/Burstow%20-%20Investing.pdf

Teaching Crowds: Learning & Social Media

In "Teaching Crowds: Learning & Social Media" Jon Dron and Terry Anderson (Athabasca University Press, 2014) emphasize the value of learning together. In the final chapter they argue that modern open and distance universities "should not have to ...  replicate structures designed to fit scholastic life in medieval Europe". They look to a future with variable length courses, competence based assessment, badges, new forms of on-line publication, flatter institutional hierarchies, cross disciplinary studies, teaching collectives, personalized learning, cMOOCs, e-portfolios, and other innovations. However, we need to get to this future from the present and I suggest not making the changes too radical, or too fast.

Dron and Anderson's book is available for purchase a Kindle or paperback. It is also available free on-line as one  PDF download and as separate chapters in PDF and HTML (useful for including as a reading for a course):

Chapters:

1. On the Nature and Value of Social Software for Learning 
2. Social Learning Theories
3. A Typology of Social Forms for Learning 
4. Learning in Groups 
5. Learning in Networks 
6. Learning in Sets 
7. Learning with Collectives 
8. Stories From the Field 
9. Issues and Challenges in Educational Uses of Social Software 
10. The Shape of Things and of Things to Come

Social Networks Reducing Student Achievement?

Posso (2016) in a study of Australian adolescent school students concludes that online social
networks reduce their maths results, whereas online games increases results. However, I suggest this may be a correlation, not a causal relationship. Students who are better at maths may prefer games to social media.

References

Posso, A. (2016). Internet Usage and Educational Outcomes Among 15-Year Old Australian Students. International Journal of Communication, 10, 26. Retrieved from http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/download/5586/1742

Climate Feedback

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where I am taking part in a workshop on "Science in Climate Change Media Coverage". Climate Feedback is a US based group of climate scientists attempting to correct the bias they see in the media over the science of global warming. While well intentioned their approach seems a little naive. The scientists seem to want to have media comment for the public as if it was in a scientific journal. Journalists are not, in general, scientists and they are writing for the general pubic.

If scientists want to communicate with journalists, or directly to the public, they need to learn how to do it (which is not easy). Universities run courses for scientists on media communication, such as by ANU Strategic Communications and Public Affairs (SCAPA). There are also specialist science communicators, such as the ANU Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (CPAS). Universities subscribe to specialist services, such as the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC). It might be useful to have trained educators involved, as they have expertise in communicating complex topics in simple language (scientists are not necessarily educators).

Online Help for Fair Trade

Greetings from the famous room N101 at the Australian National University in Canberra, where Jennyfer Lawrence Taylor is speaking on "ICT Pathways for Consumer-Producer Feedback Loops within the Fair Trade System". She is asking if social media-like systems help connect first world consumers to third world producers, where there is a large cultural gap.

With schemes such as Fairtrade it is assumed that the developing nation producer deals directly with the first world distributor. However, normal trading arrangements would assume a local intermediary and I suggest perhaps they could deal with consumer questions. As an example, when teaching  web design to museum staff of the pacific, I was asked about web sites for museum shops. My students pointed out to me that they have essentially the same items on sale in the shop as on display in their museum. The shop then acts as an intermediation to educate the consumer about the items.

Research Questions

• How is ICT currently used in fair trade supply chains to facilitate feedback loops? How might ICT be applied in future to improve these information flows?

– What types of feedback do consumers currently provide to producers, and what are their motivations for giving feedback?

– What consumer feedback would producers like to receive, and how would they use this feedback to influence supply chain operations?
– How is feedback modified, filtered and translated back through the supply chain to producers by intermediaries such as Australian importers?

Communicating a Big Idea in Science

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where ABC science journalist Robyn Williams is telling scientists how to communicate with the media. He mentioned the value of the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) in Adelaide, which helps scientists contact journalists.

Social Media for the Beijing Capital Museum

Greetings from the second day of the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Computer Science and Education (ICCSE 2014) in Vancouver. Binyue Cui from Beijing Jiaotong University is speaking on "Investigation about Popularity of Cloud Services on Social Culture Education Resource". This is a project to provide educational materials to the general public for Beijing Capital Museum.

Study of the Chinese Internet

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Professor Geremie R Barmé, Director, of the Australian Centre on China in the World, where is is opening "Studying the Chinese Internet" (研究中国互联网／ 研究中國互聯網).  A small group spent yesterday learning social network analysis today, using the free open source NodeXL and VOSON software. Today'ss presentations discuss the results of using such research.

Professor Barmé mentioned an article he co-authored in Wired magazine in 1998, where they coined the term: The Great Firewall of China".

Day 1 (Thursday 31 July) – Small group training in social media analysis

Instructor: Dr Robert Ackland, Guest lecturer: Prof Jonathan Zhu

Day 2 (Friday 1 August) – Research presentations
9.00 Welcome

9.15-10.30 Keynote presentation

“Charting the Landscape of Chinese Social Media: What We Know and What We Don’t Know from Existing Research”, Professor Jonathan Zhu, Web Mining Lab, City University of Hong Kong
中国社会化媒体研究的已知与未知 / 中國社會化媒體研究的已知與未知

Professor Zhu commented that while the Chinese Internet was heavily controlled domestically, the government also allows (and encourages) the companies to be publicly listed on Western stock exchanges. Also he commented that as these companies are listed on sock exchanges, their reported statistics are likely to be accurate, due to strict commercial law (as an example, Weibo has to report more accurate user numbers). However, he said these were less insightful than consultant's analysis and academic papers (which might be less accurate).

Tencent earns most revenue from e-commerce, other leading sites from advertising. China has 632M Internet users, 83% mobile, with a 47% penetration rate (but there may be less than 100M active social media users). Instant messaging is most popular, blogs second most popular (Professor Zhu is sceptical of this figure), then microblogging and BBS. He commented BBS were still a livery source of discussion in China.

Professor Zhu  commented that much of the literature about the Internet in China is based on case studies and is anecdotal, rather than being statistical (what in social science is called "qualitative"). He gave as an example "The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online" ( Guobin Yang, 2011). Also he commend that many studies have been by computer scientists and may be unknown to social researchers. Hopefully he has seen my paper. ;-)

Professor Zhu used Hasswell's 5W model of communication to categorise research on Chinese social media. The studies primary dealt with the communicator and audience, not content, media, or effects. The studies showed that media professionals, the elite and government officials are important sources of information on Chinese social media. One interesting finding was that police were early social media users.

What receives less mention are "grassroots" opinion leaders (as they are usually anonymous), e-marketeers and foreign individuals and entities.What was not mentioned was what role government entities marketing as something else play. The DARPA is studying Social Media in Strategic Communication (SMISC). In terms of content,

Professor Zhu said the conventional view shown in research was the contentious nature of the content and the strong censorship presence by government. But he commented most social media is used for entertainment not political comment and it is not clear how much censorship is self-censorship. He commented that some early research showed that 20% of posts were jokes, whereas only 3% were political commentary.

In terms of media, Weibo has been compared with Twitter in many academic studies.However, other platforms have not been studied, even though they are at least as popular as Weibo (but harder to get data about).

Professor Zhu pointed out that most researchers concentrate on the active users, who are probably only 12% to 20% of Chinese Internet users. He said this impacted on the ultimate question about the Internet in China: what effect does it have?

10.30-11.00 Morning tea

11.00-12.30 Paper session 1

“A Web Analysis of HIV Information Delivery in China”, Dr Robert Ackland, Australian National
University and Dr Jiaying Zhao, Australian National University
爱滋病信息的传递 :
基于网络的分析 / 愛滋病信息的傳遞 :
基於網絡的分析
“Predicting Depressed Individuals with Suicide Ideation Using Social Media Data”, Jin Han, Australian
National University
微博社交网络抑郁用户识别 / 微博社交網絡抑鬱用戶識別
“Analyzing Events in Chinese Microblogs”, Dr Lexing Xie, Australian National University
社交网络上的新闻事件分析 / 社交網絡上的新聞事件分析

12.30-1.30 Lunch

1.30-3.00 Paper session 2

“Preliminary Analysis of Muslim Networking on the Chinese Web”, Dr Wai Yip Ho, Hong Kong Institute of
Education and Dr Robert Ackland, Australian National University
中国穆斯林网络的初步分析 / 中國穆斯林網絡的初步分析
“Multiple Identity Formation via Social Media by Professional Chinese Immigrants to Australia”, Dr Jerry
Watkins, University of Canberra and Dr Chong Han, University of Western Sydney
社交媒体上的多重身份构建:以澳大利亚中国技术移民为例 /
社交媒體上的多重身份構建:以澳大利亞中國技術移民為例
“Human Flesh Searching in the Greater China Region”, Dr Lennon Chang, City University of Hong Kong
分析大中华地区人肉搜索之现象 / 分析大中華地區人肉搜索之現象

3.00-3.30 Afternoon tea

3.30-4.30 Paper session 3

“Institutional Analysis of Chinese Internet Governance: Some Tentative Thoughts”, Ryan Manuel,
Australian National University
关于互联网体制与管理若干问题的分析 / 關於互聯網體制與管理若干問題的分析

Ryan outlined some of the complexity of China's Internet regulation system. There are multiple ministries involved in Internet regulation, under the central secretariat. He argues that large Internet companies will do well out of this, as they can take much of the cost of the implementation of central censorship requirements off local government. The major Chinese Internet companies have close party connections. It would seem to me that the Chinese system for Internet regulation is an adaptation of the system used for conventional media. In addition to censorship there are state paid posters of material (as well as the "Water Party" commercial Internet PR companies).

“Internet Use in China: Citizens, Consumers, and Social Consumption in Chinese”, Dr Michael J. Jensen, University of Canberra and Wei Si, University of Canberra
因特网在中国的应用 :
公民 ,
消费者与社会消费 / 因特網 在中國的應用:公民,消費者與社會消費

Wei Si described an image based interface for a social media application, changing from something text based (which looked like Facebook to me), improved user acceptance. One thing which occurred to me was how much China's Internet user behaviour was influenced by using a mobile device first. Most Australian users will have used a PC interface for Internet use before moving to a mobile device.

4.30-5.00 Wrap up

: 

Helping Distance Education Students Feel Part of the University

Athabasca University (AU) have an introductory course for new students, before starting their first regular course. This provides an overview of not only how the e-learning system (Moodle) works, but issues such as plagiarism. AU also have a social media platform called "The Landing" for students, which looks lively and might be worth emulating at other universities. This would help counter some of the isolation which  part time and distance students, in particular, feel. The Athabasca systesm are described in: 

Virtual Platforms at Athabasca University by Rory McGreal, Jon Dron & Evelyn Ellerman,  2012 IDRC Canadian Learning Forum on Virtual Platforms, Knowledge Management and International Development. Winnipeg, February 7-8, 2012. URL: http://idl-bnc.idrc.ca/dspace/bitstream/10625/50475/1/IDL-50475.pdf

Video of MOOCs with Books: Technology Plus Traditional Teaching for an On-line Education Revolution

The recording of my webinar "MOOCs with Books: Technology Plus Traditional Teaching for an On-line Education Revolution" is now available, courtesy of the SA e-Leaning Unit of the National VET E-learning Strategy. Also available are the notes and slides. See the National Calendar for other National VET events. My next presentation on ICT trends in Education is scheduled for 4:45pm, 12 November 2013, in Canberra, hosted by the Australian Computer Society. I will be in Perth 23 September to 18 October and available to speak there in person.

Social Science Research Using Twitter

Rob Ackland will speak on "Some approaches for social scientific research using Twitter" in the CSIRO seminar room at the Australian National University in Canberra, 4pm 2 September 2013.

Some approaches for social scientific research using Twitter

Rob Ackland (ANU)

4-5pm Monday 2 September 2013
CSIRO room S201, CSIT Building, ANU, North Road, Acton, Canberra

In this presentation I provide preliminary findings from two Twitter research projects. The first involves the use of social movement theory and logistic regression to investigate the factors that predict whether a Twitter user will contribute to the emergence of a new hashtag, using a collection of Occupy Wall Street Twitter data as an example dataset. The second involves the use of index number theory (from economic decision theory) to develop new measures of attention and information consumption in social media. CSIRO room S201 (next to the seminar room, note change of venue), 4-5

Digital Technologies Job Available Teaching Governance for Melanesia

Recently I was asked if there were any jobs available in higher education at ANU. So I looked at the Current Vacancies at The Australian National University web page. There are currently sixteen positions available: eleven Academic Vacancies and five General Vacancies. One which caught my attention is a Digital Technologies Research Fellow in the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Program (SSGM). This involves the use of social media and new technology for teaching.

MOOCs with Books: Technology Plus Traditional Teaching for an On-line Education Revolution

I will be speaking on "MOOCs with Books: Technology Plus Traditional Teaching for an On-line Education Revolution" in a webinar hosted by the National VET e-Learning Strategy, 1pm AEST 17 September (12:30pm Adelaide time). There will be a face-to-face version of the event hosted by the Australian Computer Society in Canberra, 4:45pm 12 November 2013.

TOPIC: MOOCs with Books: Synchronisation of large scale asynchronous e-learning
PRESENTER:  Tom Worthington,  Adjunct Lecturer, Australian National University

A quiet revolution is taking place in Australia's schools, TAFEs and universities, with education moving on-line. Award winning education designer Tom Worthington will provide an overview of the trends and its implications for education:

1. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS)
2. Social media for education
3. Open Source e-Portfolio software
4. Cloud based Learning Management Systems (LMS)
5. e-Book textbooks
6. Portable course-ware formats

See also:

1. Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques
2. A Green Computing Professional Education Course Online
3. On-line Professional Education For Australian Research-Intensive Universities in the Asian Century