Professional Networks

1

Professional Networks

Sarah Westley

5/5/2008

I. Introduction

Computer Supported Learning Communities developed in the response to an increase in technology that didn’t have a new teaching/learning paradigm to complement it. CSCL seeks to create learning communities supported by new technologies such as chats and whiteboards. The goal is to help students/learners build knowledge by following and interest or problem and investigating it. This requires diversity among group members, a shared objective, a focus on how to learn and the ability to disseminate shared information.

CSCL research has been directed toward K-12 learning environments. Newer research has also begun to focus on the needs of college level learners as they face challenges in adapting to higher-level research needs. At the K-12 level students tend to work in groups that can meet face to face and also use computer supported technologies. As research takes an international focus, technology tends to have a heavier influence, as meeting face to face would incur large expenses for travel.

A classroom with face-to-face meeting and computer-supported technologies already has a social infrastructure based on the face-to-face classroom. To focus on the social infrastructure means that the classroom culture needs to be examined. The classroom culture is the overall philosophy and norms created among teachers and students. A standard classroom culture created by CSCL is that of the creation of a learning community. In the face-to-face environment this can easily be conveyed through lectures or the routine of an ordinary school day. Groups can be changed or altered and the students will have seen or met the students entering their group. The online environment it is harder to examine the social infrastructure in a classroom of students because meetings happen in cyberspace and within the context of the learning group and not the classroom roster.

II. Review of Literature pertaining to Social Networks

The Internet is the world’s largest social network. Within this framework sub networks cater to individual interests. In the search to find existing professional networks, many social networks appeared. Social networks have great popularity and have caught the interest of scholars, so that there is professional discourse of social network sites. However, there is not much literature available on professional networking sites as a whole, although there are papers examining specific professional networks. Even with search statements designed to locate articles based on professional networks, articles on social network seem to appear. With the trend and interest following social networking, it seems the best design for a professional network must be hidden somewhere with the success of social networking.

Some social networking sites already exist like MySpace.com. The rules of the networks tend to follow what is known as social contract theory. Social Contract Theory is the view that a person's moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them and society. It is the rules by which we live and the consequences to those rules. Social contract theory is apparent in things like sellers rankings on Ebay, personalize recommendations from Amazon.com, or friend’s lists on social networking sites. Social network theory can have many benefits, for example high seller ratings are influenced by the quality of the business site and the individual’s truthful advertising and shipping speed.

Social networking can be used to meet friends, establish relationships and communicate casually. Social networking sites have potential issues when not logged in users such as employers or universities view information provided by the individual user for social purposes. These social networking sites also expand internationally after becoming popular in their country of origin, which gives each individual nation a chance to create their own version of a social networking site.

Social networking sites have the ability to allow users to create a detailed profile. The following list is compiled from many social networking sites to show the features available to the user. The features are:

Name, E-mail, physical address, phone number, academic classification, major, website, RSS, academic status, gender, hometown, birth date, photo, friend network, group affiliation, sexual orientation, relationship status, interests, job/occupation, favorite music, favorite books, favorite movies, personal statement, favorite TV shows, school information, zip code, country, AIM Screename, favorite quotes, summer plans, school course schedule, heroes, religion, drinking status, smoking status, children, income, networking, ethnicity, body type and height

III. Problem Statement

Even if social structures are created for CSCL that allow technology to be used to its full potential, there is no maintenance for the social structure after the group ceases its main task. Additionally many networking sites focus on social aspects more than professional and these school-networking sites tend to be utilized more by undergraduate students more than graduate students or professors. Early cooperative technologies such as listservs and forums also do not preserve social structures created by the collaborative groups. Listservs allow users to manage electronic mailing lists and forums allow for user-based discussion, but these two technologies do not support items like a Curricular Vitae which needs to be updated and preserved for searching.

Currently there is little support for online professional networks. One platform for encouraging a professional network is the space that Drexel reserves for students to create their own web pages. These web pages do have guidelines for use, but do not have to be reserved for academic pursuit and individuals can create websites for personal interests. The website format does have its difficulties as it places burden on the user to learn the necessary command language to create the web site. The website also has the burden on the user to update there pages and it does not provide a date modified for the searcher. While it may be argued that html command language is not complex, it does provide a deterrent to not have a website. Once a student graduates from Drexel, the space reserved for their website is no longer available and the cost of hosting is also burdened on the user.

Even searching for existing professional networks provides difficulty. When doing a quick Google search for professional networks, most of the results focus on professional sites that allow users to get a job. Linkedin.com a site for professional networking has very little customization and very few other members. For Kutztown University there are only 4 current members. These websites have very limited functions and they do not provide an interface that supports CSCL. Linkedin seems more like a cross between a resume and a longer business card. Additional searches on Google with different search statements also received interesting results. When using the search term “Academic Networking”, the first result is for the Bulgarian Academic and Research Network and a Wikipedia article on JANET, the network of Great Britain. The professional networks discovered through these quick searches have one major failing which is that they don’t really provide the creativity and technology of Web 2.0. These sites provide a professional display but not the file sharing and creativity demanded of web 2.0 technologies.

IV. Proposal

To assist in creating the knowledge building communities as well as provide support for these communities after project goals are complete, professional networks should be created. The sites would be remotely related to social networking sites but heavily modified to better serve the needs of the academic or professional community.

Unlike social networking sites, users would need to be logged in to view pages and members would have to be sponsored through their affiliation with a professional organization, University, or corporation. This would help add credentials to the network as well as to the individual member pages. It also implies that success of a professional networking site will rely on the utilization of Colleges, Universities and corporations to ensure that there are many members available to optimize the collaboration.

Some of the features of a professional network are described as follows:

Affiliation Information- This would highlight the information to the corporation, professional society, or College/University providing the professional account. There would be contact information for that group and the ability to search Professional pages by Affiliation.

Contact Information- The member would have this space to put any contact information that they would like to make available to the network. This could include physical address and the e-mail address so that they can be reached by their organization. The member can also provide a personal email and a physical address so that they could be contacted from their residence. Additional information that could be included in this space could be a link to a website created by or about the member.

Curriculum Vitae- Also known as a CV. The CV is used more internationally and is longer and more detailed that a standard resume. This includes information such as: date of birth, place of birth, citizenship, visa status, nationality, gender, a summary of your educational background, a summary of you academic background, teaching experience, research experience, publications, awards, honors, affiliations, certification, accreditations, fellowships, licenses, books, additional skills, interests, marital status, spouse’s name, and children/dependents.

RSS feeds- RSS stands for Rich Site Summary. The member would be allowed to post RSS feeds of important information that they may read to stay informed, but also be able to display these feeds to other people on the site.

Photos- The space for the photos can be used for an image of yourself or images relating to conferences or speaking engagements as well as other images of interest for other people on the network.

Professional Work- The professional work area would be used to post, link, or upload finished professional documents such as papers or book chapters.

Ongoing Studies- The on going studies area would be a place to store search information and articles of interest pertaining to the topic of study. It could also be used to store notes and drafts of documents that have not become professional work. This area would be the “work” area of the member page with the most content change as the member continues work on various projects.

Groups- Not only will there be the ability to have links to individual members of the network, the user will be able to create and join groups. For example, there could be a Drexel University alumni group. You can also create more specific groups to address specific projects.

Network Mail- Unlike existing e-mail accounts, the network mail would allow users to send messages and invitations to other members within the network. This would create a recognizable network address for members to trust messages.

Contact information- Contact information would store information for other users found on the professional networking site. The information could be elements of the CV or the name of their member page.

Imagine being able to create groups for CSCL research based on the interests and education of members located on an international professional network. This will add the multiple perspectives required for successful CSCL research. Additionally members could continue to communicate and share work long after an initial project was over, which would increase collaborative efforts without having them as an assigned task. Members could also continue to update and post their work to link to new members that would be added to the network everyday. The professional network would create one large collaborative group. The professional network will also bring familiarity to group members because a great deal of knowledge about each individual group member will be posted for others to read. In an assigned group environment, it has taken many sessions of collaborative chat to discover details about members that would have already been posted on a professional network page. Group culture would be built more quickly as members will have background knowledge on each other can begin meaning making without distractions of personal asides.

The goal of the professional network is to create an ease of collaboration by providing a social infrastructure and a collaborative culture. There are several things that professional networks will not do. Professional networks are not to supplant existing CSCL support like chat rooms and whiteboards dedicated to specific projects and ideas. Professional networks will not supplant social networks. They will also not supplant existing e-mails or existing professional websites. The professional network is meant to be a living workspace or base for online collaboration, not an extended business card or an online resume as other professional network sites are currently providing.

V. Conclusion

As the international CSCL community grows, it will be necessary to support that community through professional networks. A successful professional network platform has yet to be created and heavily utilized, but the success of social networks proves that popular interactive networking sites are possible. An ideal social networking site has been proposed to assist the individuals in their ability to create research documents as well as link to other professionals to create collaborative groups. As Web 2.0 pushes towards a more creative and interactive environment, it will be necessary to pool the interests and efforts of creative thinkers to move academic research forward.

VI. Works Consulted

Bielaczyc, K. (2001) Designing Social Infrastructure: The Challenge of Building

Computer-Supported Learning Communities. In Dillenbourg, P., Eurelings, A. & Hakkarainen, K. (Eds.) European Perspectives on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. Proceedings of the First European Conference on CSCL, March 22-24, 2001, University of Maastricht, the Netherlands.

Scardamalia, M. & Bereiter, C. (1994) Computer support for knowledge-building

communities. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 265-283.

Snyder, J., Carpenter, D., & Slauson, G. J. (2006). MySpace.com: A social

networking site and social contract theory. Proceedings of ISECON 2006, Retrieved April 30, 2008 from:

Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., & Suthers, D. (2006). Computer-supported

collaborative learning: An historical perspective. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Learning Sciences (pp. 409-426). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Stutzman, Frederic (2006), “An Evaluation of IdentitySharing Behavior in Social

Network Communities,” Proceedings of the 2006 iDMAa and IMS Code Conference. Oxford, OH.

I would like to give credit to my fellow group member Javier Lanchan for reading the draft of this paper and proposing the additional mentions of listservs and forums as technologies currently in place and with the advice to link professional networks more towards collaborative work.