Networked Participatory Scholarship: Emergent techno-cultural pressures toward open and digital scholarship in online networks

We examine the relationship between scholarly practice and participatory technologies and explore how such technologies invite and reflect the emergence of a new form of scholarship that we call Networked Participatory Scholarship: scholars’ participation in online social networks to share, reflect upon, critique, improve, validate, and otherwise develop their scholarship. We discuss emergent techno-cultural pressures that may influence higher education scholars to reconsider some of the foundational principles upon which scholarship has been established due to the limitations of a pre-digital world, and delineate how scholarship itself is changing with the emergence of certain tools, social behaviors, and cultural expectations associated with participatory technologies.

► We examine the relationship between scholarly practice and participatory/social technologies. ► Researchers and educators participate in online social networks to develop their scholarship. ► The history of scholarship and technology is intertwined. ► Techno-cultural pressures encourage us to reconsider scholarly principles. ► Scholarship molds and is molded by technology and culture.