Networked publics: investigating the bounds of personal and professional selves presented by academics through social media platforms

Dr Katy Jordan recently completed her doctoral studies within the Institute of Educational Technology, the Open University. Her research interests focus on the intersection of Internet Studies and Higher Education research. She has published research on topics including social media use by academics, massive open online courses, and semantic web technologies for education.

As an undergraduate, Katy studied Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford. After graduating, she worked as a research assistant in the Department of Plant Sciences at Cambridge, to conduct research into teaching and learning in the department and develop e-learning resources. Following the Plant Sciences project, she worked on further Higher Education research and technology-enhanced learning projects in the Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technology. To formalise her move from Plant Sciences to Educational Research, she undertook a Postgraduate Certificate in Technology-Enabled Academic Practice at City University London, and a MPhil in Educational Research at the University of Cambridge.

The SRHE-funded project will build upon the findings from Katy's doctoral research. The project, entitled 'Networked publics: investigating the bounds of personal and professional selves presented by academics through social media platforms', will provide the opportunity to explore a model of personal and professional identities expressed across different social media platforms proposed in the thesis. The study will also extend the work to explore the contrasting imagined audiences associated with different sites, and what academics perceive to be indicative of significant research impacts in different online contexts.

Exploring undergraduate students' conceptions of 'teaching excellence': a phenomenographic study

Dr Mike Mimirinis is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Studies in the Department of Education and Social Care at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. Mike gained his MSc in Computer Based Learning from the Research and Graduate School of Education at the University of Southampton, and his PhD from Middlesex University. His doctoral work looked into student approaches to learning and studying in higher education blended learning environments.

While his early studies centred on evaluations of technology-enhanced learning, he later moved on to design and implement mid and large scale academic development initiatives within and between universities in the UK and overseas. Drawing on these initiatives, his most recent study with colleagues at Uppsala University, Sweden investigates qualitative differences in doctoral students’ conceptions of university teaching.

This SRHE-funded project will allow Mike to explore variation in the way undergraduate students experience excellent teaching. The study will involve phenomenographic analysis of student interviews from a range of disciplinary backgrounds. It seeks to identify whether/how students’ ways of understanding of excellent teaching relate to current discourses derived from, and emerging in response to, the UK government’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF).

The spaces and places of deaf academia

Dr Dai O’Brien is a Lecturer in BSL and Deaf Studies in the School of Languages and Linguistics, York St John University. Dai’s current research interests are focused on deaf people’s spatial experiences on different scales, and exploring creative research methods.

Dai, who is deaf and uses BSL as his preferred language, completed his PhD in 2012 in which he explored the transitional experiences of young deaf people in the UK using photo-elicitation interviews. Dai also holds an MSc in Deaf Studies, an MRes in Sociology and BSc in Biological Sciences, all from the University of Bristol.

This SRHE funded project will allow Dai to explore the experiences of deaf academics working in higher education in the UK. The project aims to discover the pathways deaf people take into academia, and the networks which support them once they are involved in academic work. The project will utilise a combination of walk-through interviews and participant mapping to tap into deaf people’s visual experiences of the world.

Dr Sally Hancock was awarded a 2016 Newer Researcher Award for the following project:

Who gets what? Understanding UK doctoral degree outcomes in terms of graduates’ background characteristics and prior higher education experience

Sally is a Lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of York. Sally specialises in higher education research, and is particularly interested in access and equity issues, higher education policy, and doctoral education.

Sally completed her PhD at Imperial College London (2013), researching the motivations and aspirations of young scientists. She has previously held research appointments at the universities of York, Edinburgh, and Imperial College London.

Dr Lou Harvey was awarded a 2016 Newer Researcher Award for the following project:

Developing Dramatic Enquiry for intercultural learning among UK HE students

Lou joined the School of Education at the University of Leeds in January 2014 as a Lecturer in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), where she is Deputy Director of the Centre for Language Education Research. Prior to this, she taught English as a Foreign Language in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Bratislava, and English for Academic Purposes at the University of Manchester.

Lou holds a MA (Hons) in English Language and Literature from the University of Edinburgh and a MA TESOL from the University of Manchester, where she also took her MSc in Educational Research and PhD. Her thesis, Language Learning Motivation as Ideological Becoming: Dialogues with six English-language learners, explored the language learning histories and motivations of international students through the lens of Bakhtin’s dialogical theory. This research and her subsequent academic role have stimulated further interest in UK HE, in particular its linguistic and intercultural practices, its relations with non-academic communities, and creative methodologies for researching these practices and relations.

Dr Jennifer Leigh was awarded a 2016 Newer Researcher Award for the following project:

Exploring embodied academic identity

Jennifer’s route into Higher Education research has been somewhat eclectic. Her first degree was in Chemistry with Analytical Science at the University of Birmingham. She then trained as a yoga teacher and a somatic movement therapist and educator. She holds a PGCE in secondary science, a PGCHE, and an MA in Higher Education. Her doctoral studies, at the School of Education, University of Birmingham, were a phenomenological exploration of young children’s perceptions, expressions and reflections of embodiment through movement. She has worked as project manager on several large funded studies employing mixed methods of research, including the collaborative and interdisciplinary project, Imagining Autism.

Jennifer’s current role is as a lecturer in the University of Kent’s Centre for the Study of Higher Education. Her research interests include embodiment, reflective practice, reflexivity and phenomenological research methods and how these relate to academic practice and academic identity as well as aspects of teaching and learning in higher education. She is currently working on a piece of research following on from Imaging Autism, exploring the process of the research, its collaborative and interdisciplinary nature as well as the boundaries between research, performance, education and therapy.

Dr Marilena Antoniadou, Senior Lecturer in Management at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School was awarded the 2015 Prize for her proposal entitled:.

"On being an international academic: an exploration of the emotional experiences of international academics in the UK’s Higher Education"

Drawing on a phenomenological approach, her PhD thesis explored the emotionality of academics in the context of the Cypriot academia. Prior to her current post, she was a lecturer of public and human relations in Cyprus from 2006 to 2008.

Marilena holds a degree in communications and mass media from the University of Athens, a MA in Public Relations and a Masters of Research from the Manchester Metropolitan University. Whilst working, Marilena is now completing a third MA in Academic Practice. She is a Chartered member of the CIPD and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Her research interests cover the areas of discrete emotions, organisational phenomenology and narratives. Her management role as a Year tutor in her University has also generated a research interest in the role of social support to the undergraduate student experience in higher education.

The SRHE funded project has enabled Marilena to explore the phenomenon of being an international academic in the UK, through the lens of their emotions. The project specifically aims to uncover the meaning of working across cultural-educational settings and examine the lived emotional experiences of international academics during their transition, teaching and social interactions.

Dr Emma Medland, Lecturer in the Department of Higher Education at the University of Surrey was awarded the 2015 Prize for her proposal entitled:

"Examining the Examiner: Investigating the assessment literacy of external examiners"

Dr Emma Medland joined the Department of Higher Education at the University of Surrey in September 2013 as a Lecturer in Higher Education.  She has responsibility for the Continuing Professional Development provision offered by the Department and teaches on the Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning, as well as leading on various institution-wide and bespoke sessions.  Prior to her role at the University of Surrey, Emma was a lecturer with the King’s Learning Institute, King’s College London from 2007, where she was the Programme Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice.  During her time at KLI, Emma was also the academic lead on an institution wide initiative involving the review and enhancement of assessment and feedback practices (further details of this initiative may be located here: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/learningteaching/kli/assess).

Emma holds a first degree in Education Studies and Psychology from Lancaster University and a Masters in Research Methods in Psychology from the University of Surrey. She was awarded her PhD by the University of Surrey in 2009; her thesis title was Self-Theories of Emotional Intelligence in Higher Education: Assessment feedback and non-continuation. Her PhD research informed Emma’s interest in assessment and feedback in Higher Education, which has increasingly defined her role.

Dr Ye Liu from Bath Spa University was awarded the 2014 Prize for her proposal entitled:

"When Choices Become Chances: Extending Boudon’s Secondary Effects Theory to Analyze Social Reproduction Through University Choices in Contemporary China"

Ye joined Bath Spa University as a lecturer in International Education in 2013. Prior to her post at Bath Spa, she was a lecturer of Contemporary Chinese Studies and Director of the BA programme in Chinese Studies at the University College Cork, Ireland from 2012 to 2013.

Ye was awarded a PhD in Comparative Sociology in 2011 at the Institute of Education, University of London, supported by a Nicholas Hans Scholarship and the Overseas Research Student (ORS) scholarship. Her thesis investigated the socio-­?economic patterns of access to educational opportunities and the impact of education policy on the life chances of different social groups during China’s transition to a market economy.

Over the past ten years Ye has conducted survey studies, extensive interviews and in-­?depth observations in East China, covering education topics relating, for instance, to higher education selection and gender participation in education. Her research has also covered other social policy issues relating to population control (the ‘One-­?Child’ policy), residence and rural-­?urban mobility (the Hukou), the New Rural Healthcare reform and geographical inequality. .

Ye has published in highly ranked international journals such as British Journal of Sociology of Education. She is also contracted by Springer to publish a monograph entitled: “Education, Meritocracy and Social Harmony in Contemporary China”.

Philippa Sheail from the University of Edinbugh was awarded the 2014 Prize for her proposal entitled:

"Global gatherings and digital divides: internationalisation and the digital in higher education"

Phil is currently completing her PhD with the School of Education at the University of Edinburgh. She was awarded a Principal’s Career Development Scholarship by the University to undertake her PhD research, which takes a narrative ethnographic approach to considering organisational change in relation to the expansion of online distance education in the higher education sector. Her research interests are interdisciplinary, based in the area of digital and higher education, but drawing on organisational theory, cultural geography, social theories of time, and temporal design in education.

Phil has an MA in English and Scottish literature from the University of Edinburgh and a Diploma in Computing from the Open University. She worked in university administration for twelve years, latterly as manager of the Scottish Digital Library Consortium (SDLC). Whilst working, Phil completing an MSc in E-Learning, also with the University of Edinburgh, which led to her current PhD research. She is a member of the DiCE (digital cultures and education) research group at Edinburgh, and is also tutor on the MSc in Digital Education.

The SRHE funded project has enabled Phil to pursue a critical exploration of the relationship between internationalisation and the digital in higher education, considering how higher education institutions are made international (after Lin and Law 2013), both physically and digitally. The project aims to open up new ways of thinking about internationalisation and the digital for a range of academic and non-academic university practitioners.

www.dice.education.ed.ac.uk http://online.education.ed.ac.uk/

Dr Jude Fransman from the Institute of Education, University of London was awarded the 2013 Prize. The completed report from this project is available below:

"Becoming academic in the digital age: representations of academic identity in the online profiles of Early Career Researchers"

Jude joined the Department of Culture, Communication and Media as a postdoctoral researcher in 2011 after a decade’s experience as a consultant, research associate and policy analyst for international organisations (including UNESCO and the OECD) in France, Tanzania, South Africa, Vietnam, Thailand and Mexico and following a post as a research associate with the Open University’s Institute of Educational Technology.

Her PhD explored the politics of representation in academic and community-based research in/on/with the same migrant community in London. Since then, her postdoctoral research has focused on the performativity of method and the representational potential of different types of research texts. She is particularly interested in the influence of digital resources on the research process. At the Open University, she worked on a project on ‘digital scholarship’ while at the Institute of Education she has recently concluded a longitudinal study on the digital literacy practices of postgraduate students based on multimodal journaling. Jude also teaches research design, visual methods and social theory at postgraduate and doctoral level.

This project will apply Jude’s previous work to the area of academic identity, providing new insights into the academic practices of ECRs from a post-humanist perspective. As part of the study she will be keeping a reflexive blog available here.

Dr Anne-Sofie Nyström was awarded the 2013 Prize for her proposal entitled:

"Facing potential failure: Men, masculinities, and self-worth protecting strategies in highly competitive learning contexts"

Anne-Sofie joined Mälardalen University, Sweden, as a lecturer in Sociology in autumn 2013. Previously she has been a lecturer at Uppsala University, Department of Sociology, following the completion of her PhD on identity-negotiation among privileged young men, upper secondary schooling and underachievement. Her research interests are, primarily, educational inequality and feminist theory, with focus on boys/men, masculinities and identity processes in peer-groups. The SRHE funded project will draw on qualitative methods to explore how male students’ self-images and self-worth are negotiated in higher education and, in particular, in an elite program and in relation to potential failure.

Anne-Sofie’s thesis was well-received in Swedish news-media and policy debates when published in 2012; among other things she was invited keynote at Include 2012-conference, a national network for widening access to higher education. Her work has also been published elsewhere, e.g. in anthologies on educational inequalities, masculinities and schooling, respectively, ethical dilemmas in social science research. Anne-Sofie has, since 2005, been engaged as a lecturer – within the academia and for practitioners – with focus on teacher training, social psychology, and questions of gender, class and educational stratification. Prior to her academic career she worked at the Swedish National Agency for Education and Student Union.

Dr Anna Mountford-Zimdars from King's College London was awarded the 2012 Prize. The completed report from this project is available below:

"Converging pathways? Revisiting Turner's mobility modes for the case of undergraduate admission in the UK and the U.S."

Anna joined King's Learning Institute at King's College London as a lecturer in Higher Education in 2011. Anna joined King's College after a post-doctoral position at Manchester University, a DPhil award from Oxford and her undergraduate studies at the University of Kent. Anna's research interest is in access to university and access to professions. Her work has previously been largely quantitative, meaning that she has used data sets to investigate various questions such as: how do individuals with different social background characteristics fare in the competition for scarce goods - such as highly selective education or highly selective professional entry? Anna then draws social theory to understand the empirical research findings. The SRHE funded project has enabled Anna to explore the use of qualitative methods in understanding at a deeper – and hopefully more philosophical level – questions of university access and admission.

Anna's work has been covered in the national media including Radio 4, The Sunday Times and the Guardian and referred to in Parliament. She has served as an invited expert to the Alan Milburn Commission on Social Mobility and organised a conference on access to selective universities. Further information is available here.

Dr. Michael Keenan from Nottingham Trent University was awarded the 2012 Prize. The completed report from this project is available below:

"Coming out and fitting in: A qualitative exploration of lesbian, gay, homosexual, bisexual, trans and queer students' university experiences."

Michael joined Nottingham Trent University as a lecturer in Sociology in 2007 following the completion of his PhD which explored the identity negotiations of gay men in the Church of England clergy. Since joining NTU Michael has taught on a variety of modules, and supervised students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research is broadly focussed on issues of religious and/or sexual identity.

From 2009 to 2011 Michael was co-investigator on the AHRC/ESRC funded large grant study 'Religion, Youth and Sexuality: A Multi-faith Exploration' which explored the lives and experiences of religious young adults from a variety of faith background, with a specific focus on issues of sexuality. The RYS study completed in February 2011.

Michael is also currently developing a research project exploring the experiences and identities of Muslim police officers. The 'Coming out and fitting in' project builds on Michael's experiences, while also allowing for the developing of these with a specific focus on higher education. The project allows for reflection on contemporary experiences of higher education, which it is hoped will be of interest to higher education institutions, current students and policy makers.

Dr. Camille Kandiko from King's College London was awarded the 2011 Prize. The completed report from this project is available below:

"Why work in academia? A comparative analysis of motivation and prestige factors of academics in different national contexts'"

Camille joined King's Learning Institute at King's College London as a Research Associate in 2008. She is working on KCL curriculum initiatives through The King's Experience, including developing College-wide interdisciplinary modules. Her research focuses on international and comparative higher education, with areas of interest in curriculum and the student experience, academic motivation, PhD supervision, and developing the use of concept mapping in higher education.

Camille holds a first degree in English and Classics from Cornell University (USA) and a Masters degree in Higher Education Administration from The University of Pennsylvania (USA). She was awarded her PhD by Indiana University (USA) in 2007; her thesis title was Student Engagement in Canada and the U.S. in an Era of Globalization. Before taking up her post at the Institute, she was project associate at IU working on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE).

Dr. Harriet Dismore now at the University of Southampton and previously at Brunel University was awarded the 2011 Prize.The completed report from this project is available below:

"Attitudes towards learning among former apprentices who progress to higher education"

Harriet is a Lecturer in Education at Brunel University. She began her career as a Research Fellow in Educational Research at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she completed her doctoral study investigating children's attitudes towards physical education during transition. She then moved to the University of Plymouth to work with a large higher education in further education partnership and develop her research into transitions.

At Brunel, Harriet teaches on the BA in Contemporary Education programme and leads modules dedicated to enhancing study skills and research methods. She also supervises Master's and Doctoral level students. She is keen to explore curriculum design for transition into higher education and lifelong learning, especially in relation to students who take alternative routes.

Harriet has worked on a range of projects investigating the transitions of people in education, including from primary to secondary school, accreditation of prior learning, apprenticeships, progression from further to higher education and transitions into higher education and employment. This project, focusing upon the attitudes towards learning of former apprentices who progress to higher education, will build on her earlier work and provide new insights into learning among students who progress between vocational and academic programmes.