Academics on the Web

Over a number of years psychology has developed some understanding of how we engage with new technologies and how they impact on our understanding of ourselves and our interactions with others (Gergen 2001). In our research we have been considering and discussing how (particularly women) academics deal with the electronic world as part of their on-going struggle for finding and developing acceptability for themselves and their work and some degree of connectedness with others in these times of change in Higher Education (see the collection of papers at Cyberpsychology at Nottingham Trent 2001).We found that the politics of power over the potential and actual use of new cyber technologies are still firmly grounded in traditional institutional frameworks and attitudes.
Nevertheless, whether we are within or outside the academy, novice or well-established world authority, the advent of the Web and the Internet offers great possibilities for academics to share themselves and their work beyond and in ways that were only previously possible at conferences or within local institutional or collegiate communities. Some might still only see the Web and Internet as a means of connecting to an information /ideas 'superstore' (an addition -though rather less proper - to the library or bookshop), but of course the academic Web Homepage offers a way of being ‘out there’ presenting who we are and what we are, as well as our work. Limited though hypertext is, links to, for example, personal pages or other areas of interest can reveal enough for us to know something of the person and how passions and objections and ideas owned or disavowed, might be better understood. Even with restrictions from an imposed institutional ‘style’, the academic Web homepage brings the presence of the person as well as their ideas for inspection, inspiration, the sharing of knowledge and critical review.
In this pattern we would like to generate greater awareness that the importance of the Web and Internet to academia lies not just in exchanges of ideas but that when presentation of self (eg as a certain sort of thinker, researcher, person and in a particular context) and the work coincide, we can make connections between ideas to the doing of things. We are reminded that our work is part of life and our lives are not abstractions and separate from it – and also there is real possibility it might become part of someone else’s mission to create a better world.
When we discover the possibility of common academic interest with people from different backgrounds, or with different political or philosophical objectives then we might find common ground for cultural or interdisciplinary work.
We think one of the most important aspects to study further is how both men and women, the young (and not so young but hopeful) are developing the use of Web and Internet to create academic lives that resist / bypass institutional cultures that only encourages the pursuit of research that fulfils our institutions’ needs to enhance scholastic credibility in order to compete for financial resources. The web also offers many opportunities for us to share and spread ideas and develop solutions to problems without the patronage, limitations and control of mainstream print media. So we would want to address the many uncomfortable tensions found in some traditional academic hierarchies where control is threatened by the openness and possibilities of the Web (Hess 2001). Participation in presentation on Web offers the possibility for academics to ‘build’ a career or a reputation based on commitment to positive accountable democratic and life affirming inclusive research and to contribute directly into the wider/global academy.