How Italian PhD students reap the benefits of institutional resources and digital services in the open Web

摘要

The topic of the impact of Web 2.0 ecologies on the learning contexts of PhD candidates is ofudparticular interest for innovation in higher education teaching and learning. However, this themeudresults so far underesearched in literature, in particular in the Italian higher education setting.udThe present paper reports selected findings from an exploratory study investigating how individualuddoctoral researchers cope with competing institution-led and self-organized, analogue and digitaludopportunities for learning. This article is based on preliminary results of an online questionnaire whichudwas delivered between September and October 2012 across three Italian universities. Theudquestionnaire aimed to describe the components (people, resources, tools, people and relatedudinteractions) of the emerging learner-centered “ecology of resources” [1], characterizing individualuddoctoral students variously dealing with their needs of support and striving to achieve their beingud‘independent researcher’. The surveyed Italian doctoral students seem to be usual adopters of socialudmedia in their everyday life, but there are also signs that they are currently adopting tools and servicesudavailable in the open Web to undertake activities usually required in their doctoral programs. Theudresearch participants show a pragmatic attitude towards the Web 2.0 services and state to beudprompted to use such tools mainly by ‘occasional, practical needs’ related to their research activity.udAlthough very few respondents actually curate an ‘academic’ presence in social media, they generallyudcredit the social Web with a wider, still unexploited potential to improve some research tasks. Finally, itudis worth noting that the provision or lack of specific research training on these emergent tools plays audkey role in the indicated motivations. This early portrait of the emerging learning ecologies of currentuddoctoral researchers sparks cues for reflecting on the extent to which the design of formation of futureudscholars should take into account changes occurring in learning spaces, also in the light of new formsudof networked scholarship being pioneered in the social Web.