In declaring the rise of open scholarship then, one must be careful not to overstate the case. As with many other aspects of open education, the story of open scholarship has been one of steady adaptation and growth rather than sudden revolution. Selwyn (2010) cautions that there is a strong tendency of solipsism from educational technologists relating to social media and openness. Discussions about the potential of social media in education are ‘self-contained, self-referencing and self-defining … These are generally conversations that only ever take place between groups of social media–using educators – usually using social media to talk about the educational benefits of social media.’
This does however create a dilemma for educators, since the direction of social media and openness will be influenced by their actions. As we saw with OERs, it is necessary to go through a belief-driven stage in order to construct the context wherein impact can be measured. Empirical observation of what has happened forms a fundamental approach for the objective researcher when examining the effects on society at large, but in terms of shaping their own domain, it is an excessively passive approach that would be self-fulfilling or defeating, depending on one’s perspective. It also presents the current context as neutral, which may not be the case. The presence of many institutional practices may actively discourage open scholarship. For example, the relationship to tenure and the advice that Cheverie et al. (2009) found was that ‘word of mouth to younger colleagues discourages digital scholarship in the hiring, tenure and promotion process.’ Open scholarship is unique amongst interests for academics because it is an as yet undefined area that is both about scholarship and defined by them. This indicates that there is a tension between the context in which academics operate and the potential of open scholarship, which relates to academic identity.
