OK, I'm going to do a classic "Friday afternoon" posting here:
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But if not for information on repositories and similar services, what would people on social networks talk about ?

Thanks for saying what I always think at this point in the conversation Les.

And something additional occurs to me.  For many, many students and researchers, online "social networks" may not be a time-efficient way of finding what they need.  I think the concept of "social networks" online may become a new version of "old boys' network", or perhaps a new version of the "social capital" (bleachh, sorry for that painful term) enjoyed by the middle classes, enabling them to navigate the waters of education with ease.  Or maybe it already is.

For those accessing higher education whose existing social networks consist of (a) non-academics, (b) families with no interest in the internet, (c) their own children and the support network around child-rearing, and for those who have to spend a good bit of their time simply earning money to live while they research or learn, or paying off the debts they've accrued so far, or supporting families, there may not be much time for tutuing about online.  I'm thinking of one person I know who is doing a PhD as a 40-something poor working class non-digital-native.  She wants to get onto a research system, search in as few clicks as possible, delving into whatever resource she has access to via the open web or the university library's services, and get what she needs for the work she's doing.  She doesn't have broadband at home and maybe never will.  She wants to get an accurate return, representing the best possible match to what she's searching for.

I'm sure she will eventually become part of more and more social networks related to her subject area and its related professional area.  Some of these may be online.  But it seems to me that the social networking stuff is still a huge luxury to most of the world, with regard to the accessibility (in its broadest sense) of knowledge and learning.  Systems which at their basic level allow accurate retrieval of appropriate resources (e.g. repository and metadata management) grow out of a library tradition of making knowledge available.  There is still work to be done on this.  (Don't worry, I'm very aware of how social mediation also takes place within information management- how systems such as cataloguing and classification can embed human biases).

I always have this suspicion that when esteemed, accomplished and highly intelligent colleagues such as Andy say things like "[...] we are focusing our attention in the wrong place", they are bored with dealing with metadata and information management, and they perceive that issues of "social networking" are either more interesting to them professionally now, or that it is a more lucrative and high-status area of research and development to move into.  (Andy, I'm not implying this mercenary last option is what you're thinking at all!).

And that's fine: it may well be that folk like my friend may reap hitherto un-dreamt of benefits from all this online social networking stuff in a few years' time- but don't conflate it with needing to take attention and funding away from the basic information infrastructure, without which, as Les says, we wouldn't have much to talk about in our networks.

Having just read Jewel's response as well, which I am in agreement with: where is the funding going?  Why isn't it going into making sure there are robust systems for open access to research data and learning resources, well-catalogued with good-quality metadata?  It's just such a basic need in education.

Please insert disclaimer about none of this being remotely related to Intrallect's position on these matters: purely some personal thoughts...
S.

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Sarah Currier
Product Manager, Intrallect Ltd.
http://www.intrallect.com

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