Social network perspectives reveal strength of academic developers as weak ties

Abstract

Social network perspectives acknowledge the influence of disciplinary cultures on academics’ teaching beliefs and practices with implications for academic developers. The contribution of academic developers in 18 scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects situated in the sciences are explored by drawing on data from a two-year national project in Australia within a case study research design. The application of a social network lens illuminated the contribution of eight academic developers as weak ties who infused SoTL knowledge within teams. Two heuristic cases of academic developers who also linked across networks are presented. Implications of social network perspective are discussed.

Keywords:

• social networks
• scholarship of teaching and learning
• weak ties
• university science education
• academic development

Acknowledgement

The anonymous reviewers and editor contributed substantially to the enhancement of this manuscript. Support for this publication has been provided by the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.