Dr Katy Jordan

It was great to see this paper published recently in Globalisation, Societies and Education! Me and Mark have been interested in social media policies at UK higher education institutions for a number of years now, and went through a couple of iterations of data collection and analysis over this period. It was also my first real application of corpus linguistics as a research approach. The paper is open access, so do take a look

Jordan, K., & Carrigan, M. (Accepted/In press). ‘Views expressed here are my own and not those of the University’: Social media policies in UK Higher Education institutions. Globalisation, Societies and Education. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2025.2552792

Abstract: While academics are now expected to engage with the use of social media as part of their professional roles – to support teaching and learning, research activities and scholarly communication beyond the academy, for example – it is typically done through the use of personal accounts. As an increasing number of studies show, this places individual academics in a position of personal risk, being potentially exposed to threats of online abuse, trolling and harassment. This raises a question of institutional responsibility and duty of care. In this paper, we present a systematic survey of the availability of social media policy documents in the context of the UK higher education sector. Furthermore, we examine the content and features of policies to explore how personal and professional identities are navigated, and the extent to which policies address risks to staff. The analysis shows that institutional social media policies are heavily skewed towards protecting the institution, rather than staff. As social media use is increasingly considered to be part of academic roles, this highlights a real need for a reframing of such policies to extend the duty of care of institutions.

Last week I was fortunate to attend the OER25 conference. Although I’ve been on the conference committee a few times, it was my first time actually attending the conference. It was a great opportunity to catch up with lots of connections who I hadn’t seen in person for a very long time There was also so much food for thought, around the intersection of openness and AI. When the keynotes are available on YouTube, I’ll do a proper post about it.

For now, going to the conference has made me think about eBooks. It was nice to see a Pressbooks stand at the conference – I was the lead editor on a Pressbooks eBook a few years ago, and I really enjoyed using the platform. As it is WordPress-based, it’s a really easy and user-friendly way to manage and structure the content for an eBook. The eBook itself then lives online, and can be exported in a number of different formats too.

The eBook I edited was part of my work on the EdTech Hub a few years ago. It was an edited collection of a series of ‘rapid evidence reviews’ which the Hub had undertaken in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and published under Creative Commons licenses. The aim of the book was to bring together these documents, and to say more about the rationale and approach for the initiative.

The eBook itself can be downloaded as a pdf from Zenodo:

Jordan, K. & Mitchell, J. (Eds.) (2021) EdTech evidence for Covid-19 response: Rapid evidence reviews of EdTech use in low-income and crisis contexts. EdTech Hub. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5512134

Also available as:

• Online at Pressbooks: https://pressbooks.pub/edtechhub/
• EPUB: https://pressbooks.pub/app/uploads/sites/4225/2021/03/EdTech-evidence-for-Covid-19-response-final_20210916.epub

However, I continue to wonder whether it is ‘findable’. From Zenodo, I can see that there have been some downloads, but it has not attracted a single citation. It may be that readers who have found the eBook have then cited the original version of the rapid evidence reviews that form the specific chapter they are interested in. Sadly, not long after publishing, Pressbooks changed their model from a one-off fee to a subscription, so I lost access to my account. But it is something I was prompted to wonder about, and whether there is anything I could have done to make it more visible – I’d be interested to hear any tips in case I opt to do an eBook again in the future.

The second paper from the ‘Sort by Relevance’ project on algorithmic ranking in academic literature searches was published in Postdigital Science and Education:

Jordan, K., & Tsai, S. P. (2024). Ranking ‘by Relevance’ in Academic Literature Searches: Prevalence, Definitions, and Implications. Postdigital Science and Education, Article e66212. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-024-00530-z

Open access as always – click the DOI link above to get the full text

This paper is one of the publications from working in collaboration with Phoebe, Albina and Lydia and the team at M-Shule. It is a short case study paper, looking at the approach and usage analytics from how M-Shule supported the Keep Kenya Learning initiative during the pandemic. Drawing on this, we make suggestions for the design of future similar initiatives.

Jordan, K., Khagame, P., Mumbi, A., & Njuguna, L. (2024). Low-connectivity Educational Technology: A Case Study of Supporting Learning during Covid-19 via SMS with ‘Keep Kenya Learning’. Journal of Learning for Development, 11(3), 553-562. https://doi.org/10.56059/jl4d.v11i3.1066

Abstract: The use of Short Messaging Service (SMS) for education has grown in recent years, drawing particular attention to supporting school-level learners, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This renewed interest has prompted questions about how this form of educational technology could be used in the longer term. However, despite being used in many Covid-19 responses, there are few documented examples of innovative applications in this field during the pandemic, which represents a gap in the literature. As a medium for education, SMS offers potential benefits such as being cost-effective and having positive impacts on learning. In this paper, we present a case study of an educational programme rapidly implemented during the pandemic as part of the ‘Keep Kenya Learning’ program, to support learners remotely in terms of literacy, numeracy, and social and emotional learning topics. Through the case study, we describe the innovative process used to rapidly develop content for SMS, and draw upon usage statistics, quiz scores and user feedback to gain insights into its implementation with learners and caregivers in Kenya. The case study demonstrated that educational television content can be effectively adapted to mobile delivery. Furthermore, we present practical reflections on the development and implementation of SMS educational technology which will help inform future initiatives. These include considering timing in relation to school terms when planning a supporting intervention, and designing content in a modular way to allow flexibility for learners in navigating through courses.

This is the first journal article to be published from the SRHE ‘Sort By Relevance’ project. In this paper, Sally and I draw upon survey data and co-interpretive interviews where participants conducted and interpreted live searches to report the findings about the beliefs and assumptions that academics hold about how opaque ‘relevance’ ranking algorithms work, and the strategies they use as a result.

Jordan, K., & Tsai, S. P. (2024). Keywords, citations and ‘algorithm magic’: exploring assumptions about ranking in academic literature searches online. Learning, Media and Technology . Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2024.2392108

Abstract: The accessibility of academic literature has improved considerably because of the internet, with a range of platforms providing access online. It is now common for academic literature databases to use ranking algorithms to sort search results by ‘relevance’. However, it is often unclear how relevance is defined, and it varies across different platforms. This lack of transparency can potentially introduce bias, and impact the rigour of literature reviews. While there is a lack of clarity on the technical features of algorithms, online academic literature databases are now used extensively. There is a critical question of how those using the platforms perceive ranking to function in this context, and how they adapt their information-seeking behaviour. In this paper we present findings from a mixed-methods study, involving an online survey and in-depth interviews with academics, to understand their beliefs and assumptions about relevance ranking algorithms and their implications for academic practice.

Earlier today I took part in a panel discussion as part of this months’ #TELResearchers webinar. Many thanks to Puiyin for inviting me – we had a very interesting and wide-ranging discussion about PhD study in TEL.

One of the things which I mentioned was that I would encourage PhD students to get involved as reviewers for journals in the field. This is a very useful thing to do all round – it benefits journals as PhD students are experts in their topic, with up-to-date knowledge of the field, and it’s very good experience for students as reviewers too. Supervisors and other connections can play a role in getting you opportunities to get on the books of journals as reviewers, but it is also possible with some journals to be able to sign yourself up when you register for an account. This is certainly the case with the journal which I co-edit, the Journal of Interactive Media in Education – there is an orange button in the top right to ‘Become a reviewer’. There’s a very short form, and then I believe that when you log in, you can specify your research interests somewhere under your ‘Account’.

We would be keen to add you to our reviewer pool – please feel free to comment here to suggest any other journals in Technology-Enhanced Learning, or related topics, which are open to registering as reviewers – thanks!

Me and Mark (Carrigan) recently co-edited a special collection of JIME, prompted by the changes at Twitter(/X) and the changing social media landscape. Many thanks to all of the authors who submitted papers – while we conclude that it’s still a bit early to tell the impact of the changes at ‘X’, the papers present a range of different topics and takes on the current landscape and higher education, as educators and researchers. And the papers are all published fully open access, so do take a look

Jordan, K. & Carrigan, M. (2024) Editorial: JIME special collection – Social media in Higher Education: What’s happening? Journal of Interactive Media in Education. https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.911

Abstract: The Twitter interface famously prompts users to submit content by asking the question, ‘What’s happening?’. As Twitter has seen rapid change of leadership and the implications of this, emerging re-branded as X, it is a timely question to reflect back on itself, and upon the social media landscape more broadly. While the relationship between social media and higher education is far from new, the uncertainty and migration to other platforms highlight the precarity of relying on corporate infrastructure to support public scholarship. It is against this background that we launched a call for submissions to this special collection on the topic of social media in higher education. In this editorial, we will further discuss the recent changes to the social media landscape. We will focus on the JIME Twitter account as a case study attempting to make sense of the impact of this. Finally, we will introduce the papers included in the special collection, and concluding remarks.

A couple of months ago, I blogged about a new project I’m working on this year, funded by the SRHE research grants. Through the project, I am looking at ranking by ‘relevance’ in academic literature databases; so for example, when you do a Google Scholar search, the results are shown to you listed with the ‘most relevant’ first. But, what does ‘relevance’ mean here? How is it being defined, and what does this mean for how we engage with the research literature?

Following the literature review and a review of some online databases, I’m keen to find out more about what you – anyone working in Higher Education whose role involves at least some searching for literature, including PhD students – think, and how you use online databases for literature searches. The survey is now open here: https://cambridge.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6J3lj2go9ut3Plc

It will be active until July 8th. Please do feel free to share the link with any of your own networks, online and offline Many thanks for your participation and I’m looking forward to sharing the results soon!

I’m excited to be taking on a new role at the Journal of Interactive Media in Education; I have served as an associate editor for the past few years, and I’m now very excited to be taking up the baton of co-editor from Ann Jones, who is retiring from the Institute of Educational Technology. As an IET alum, it is a great honour to be following in Ann’s footsteps, and co-editing the journal with Martin (Weller). I have learned a lot from working with Ann at JIME over the years – particularly for our Covid-19 special collection last year, which it was brilliant to work together on – and will be greatly missed.

JIME is supported by IET, and the first issue launched back in September 1996. The journal was a trailblazer in open academic publishing, and innovation – and while routes to open access are now available at most journals, JIME remains a venue which does not charge authors an article processing fee. JIME is hosted by Ubiquity Press, who provide an excellent publishing service – at no expense to authors.

JIME operates a model which combines open calls for submissions, and special collections around particular focal topics or communities. JIME has just reopened for general submissions – so we would love to receive your papers. JIME considers a broad range of topic relating to the use of technology in Higher Education (not schools). If you have a paper which you are looking to submit, but not sure if it would be in scope, feel free to get in touch with the abstract. Further information about the scope and how to submit can be found here – looking forward to your submissions!

It is a decade since Pappano famously described 2012 to as ‘the year of the MOOC’. To mark this milestone, Fereshte Goshtasbpour and I are putting together a special virtual collection at the Journal of Interactive Media in Education, bringing together and charting trends across the MOOC-focused articles which have been published in JIME over the past ten years.

As part of the introduction to the collection, we have been working on a timeline to try to map some of the major milestones and trends in the field. It’s quite a challenge to try to map out the major developments over a decade; the current version of the timeline is shown below – but what are we missing?

Clicking on the figure will open a larger version in Google Docs. Any comments would be greatly appreciated – thanks in advance!