Thanks to Lisa M. Lane, I’ve been inspired to explore a reflection on the nature of research in the sector of emerging technology.
The university I work for is considered to be a research-intensive institution, with a high degree of importance and consideration given to the research output of its staff – such as journal articles, papers, book chapters, or presentations at prestigious conferences. Historically, as with most institutions, the primary source of the research output for the uni has been academic staff. However increasingly general staff, such as myself, are being asked/motivated to start publishing as well.
I’ve therefore begun to look into the nature of what formal publications are, and what the requirements entail. I’m also looking for open courses on research methods and methodology to help fill in gap areas in my abilities.
As part of this investigation I’ve turned to my personal learning network for assistance, saying “Really dumb question, but we’re being told we need to all start publishing papers and journal articles. How do you go about doing that?” Despite disseminating and discussing my research findings and experiences extensively on this blog, these activities are not considered to be recognised scholarly research. Indeed, the prospect of contributing to formal publishing channels is a foreign concept.
Lisa’s response is what lead me to this reflection: “I wonder what’s meant by “publish” — seems to me you’re publishing all over the place!”
This caused me to pause and consider the implications.
My Formal Publishing History
I’ve written only two formally published papers in the last 6 years – in both cases as a contributor rather than primary author. In the first instance (Koppi et al, 2005) my contribution originated from a document that was to be used elsewhere – and I didn’t even realise it was to be included in a paper. The second instance (Allen et al, 2008), just this year, I was inundated by other work and didn’t contribute to the editing nearly as much as I would have liked to. My appreciation goes to my colleagues for picking up the slack I caused (sorry about that).
In the case of the more recent publication I was struck by how incredibly slow and tedious the process was – from initial draft, through first pass edits and re-drafting, to second, third, fourth and ultimately 12th drafts, then on to the submission, feedback from the editor, and subsequent changes before publishing. It took literally weeks to complete; yet this blog post will take me less than two hours from start to finish.
Apples and Oranges, right?
In many regards the nature of publishing peer-reviewed papers in an accredited journal is an entirely different matter to a blog post. Yet there are areas of significant overlap as well. For example, both forms of media serve to document research findings and experiences, inspire rebuttal or responses from colleagues, and can serve to influence change. Importantly blogs are also increasingly referenced in formal publications.
For example, a post I wrote on my personal blog (Bogle, 2006) regarding the launch of a blog by Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was quoted by the Columbia Journalism Review (Colby, 2006). This lead to the same post being quoted in a document prepared by The IBM Center for the Business of Government regarding “The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0” (Wyld, 2007 – pg. 54).
Distribution and Impact
Furthermore, if one of the key aims of formally published material is to influence change and further best practice, blogs are able to do that as well. In fact as sites like TechCrunch show, with a subscription base of 1.6 million (as of 16 Dec. 2008), the distribution and dissemination channels for web-based materials is vast and can have an equal, if not greater, impact on the landscape that inclusion in a prestigious publication.
In blogs there is also the added benefit of virtually immediate discussion, which can lead to research – at least in certain subjects – advancing at break-neck speed. The web of edubloggers for example is a closely-knit one, and topics can run the gammut in a very short period of time.
That being said though, I’m not suggesting for a moment that a TechCrunch post is equivalent to a ground-breaking journal article by Physicist, Stephen Hawking. Rather, that we have perhaps reached a point where the nature of what is formally recognised as scholarly, academic publishing should be re-examined – because the lines have begun to blur. Scholarship is absolutely occuring outside of formal publishing channels; it’s just not gaining any recognition.
Assessing emerging forms of scholarly practice
The New Media Consortiums 2009 Horizon Report (2009) echoes these sentiments:
“Significant shifts are taking place in the ways scholarship & research are conducted, and a there is a need for innovation and leadership at all levels of the academy. Academic review and faculty rewards are increasingly out of sync. Clear practices for assessing emerging forms of scholarly practice are needed for tenure and promotion. Students who are living and learning with technologies that generate dynamic forms of content may find the current formalism and structure of scholarship and research to be static and “dead” as a way of collecting, analyzing and sharing results.”
Peer Review in Blogging
One of the significant differences between blog posts and formal publications is the lack of a recognised, formalised peer-review process. In formal publications you have strict guidelines and processes through which prospective articles must pass before being included in a journal, chapter or other document. This serves to guarantee a level of quality and reliability of information, and to distinguish prestigious journals from less-prestigious ones.
In blogs peer review does occur, but in a far more organic and distributed way. If it’s one thing that bloggers have in spades, it’s opinions; and they’re not afraid to voice them. The quality and validity of work is vetted through linkbacks and commentary on other posts, as well as comments left on the original blog itself; however in reality this is not with the same consistency and adherence to process as occurs in formal publications.
Admittedly the prospect of resolving the discord between emerging forms of scholarly practice and academic review and faculty rewards is no easy task. Nonetheless if the aim of these rewards is to assign recognition of achievement, give credit where credit is due, and indeed seek to inspire and promote more widespread adoption and implementation of best practices, it’s critical that new forms of practice be brought into the fold.
References:
- Allen, B., Kligyte, G., Bogle, M. & Pursey, R. (2008). Communities in practice: A community dimension for the UNSW Learning & Teaching Exchange. In Hello! Where are you in the landscape of educational technology? Proceedings ascilite Melbourne 2008. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/procs/allen.pdf
- Bogle, Mike. (2006) “Iran’s president has launched a blog“, The Peasants are Revolting, 14 August 2006
- Colby, Edwared B. (2006) “Abroad, Ahmadinejad Launches Blog; At Home, Calame Outs Keller“, Columbia Journalism Review, 14 Aug 2006
- Koppi, A. J., Bogle, L. and Bogle, M. (2005) Learning objects, repositories, sharing and reusability. Open Learning 20, 83–91.
- New Media Consortium (2009) “2009 Horizon Report Preview”, retrieved 16 December 2008 from http://net.educause.edu/elements/attachments/eli/2009_hr_preview.pdf
- Wyld, David C. (2007) “The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0“, The Center for The Business of Government, 2007.
I think we will be hearing a lot more about this in the next few years. And I think you have been very research active!