ABSTRACT
The overwhelming majority of the research on social media and online networks has focused on how students, faculty members, and scholars in general use these technologies in teaching, learning, research, and outreach. Online scholarly networks may enable community without subjecting participants to the never-ending array of performance metrics currently in use in higher education or pressure to be productive with no end in sight. The issues raises by anonymity and transparency in online social networks have been brought to broad cultural attention in recent years through the activities of Anonymous and Wikileaks. The relative anonymity that digital technologies can afford to speech acts enables members of both networks to operate without the same direct and personal consequences they might face if they were to say the same things openly. Scholars make both professional and personal disclosures in public in online social networks; some share news related to family or health issues, some share challenges related to work or professional status.
