Academia.Edu & Self-Branding: The Metricisation of Scholars and Scholarly Networks

Academia.Edu & Self-Branding: The Metricisation of Scholars and Scholarly Networks

Janneke Adema (Centre for Disruptive Media, Coventry University)
Monday, May 1, 2017/ 4:00 PM
Library Room 1312, Mountain Side

*This event has been postponed until further notice.

The growing membership of for-profit academic networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate has gone hand in hand with an increasing use of metrics in scholarly communication and the development of audit cultures in academia. As scholars we are more and more required to use these websites to promote our work and to establish ourselves as brands. However, these platforms are increasingly supported by business models that sell access to the data we produce there in order to provide profits for the venture capitalist backing these platforms. This talk will provide an overview of the problems these platforms and the trend towards metricisation and self-branding pose to the future of academia. Most importantly, this talk will explore how the measurements that support a quantified academia create issues around privacy and surveillance. The talk will end with a call to action and a discussion of various projects and grassroots initiatives, keen to promote a more ethical publishing system based on promoting connections, control and governance in a not-for-profit environment.

Janneke Adema is the co-editor of two books, Really, We’re Helping To Build This . . . Business: The Academia.edu Files, and Symbiosis. She has co-edited special issues of The Journal of Electronic Publishing and The Journal of Media Practice, and has published in numerous journals. Her research focuses on experimental publishing, the material-discursive practices of scholarly research and communication, book history, media studies, critical theory and radical open access.

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