I have been thinking about, and planning a post regarding, the idea of
research blogs. I read some posts before christmas on the subject and thought that they were a good idea. Simply stated, a research blog is merely the online equivalent of the lab book that many of us who have a background in sciences such as Chemistry used to keep if we were lab active. Such a book becomes a record of experiments that we have carried out and of ideas that we have had. The advantages of an online version are that the record, which was previously only available to ourselves and possibly our colleagues, now becomes a source of inspiration for others, or at least a source of alternative perspectives and insights for others working in similar arenas.
My position was that the research blog is an excellent idea. If the members of an entire research group are all blogging their experimental data then there is the possibility that other researchers working on related but different aspects of the subject might find the data useful. To be honest though, given my own albeit limited experience of research, such an approach might be akin to opening a particularly large can of worms in some research fields.
I also thought that the opportunity to use such blogs from a supervisory perspective was a good idea. I have suggested this to past and current students but only one has set up a research blog and he has yet to first post to it as of writing this. My plan was that by reading the daily research posts I can keep track of my students and also give continual feedback rather than sticking with the single weekly meeting which is the norm. The advantage to the student is manyfold, apart from the continuous feedback they are also writing down their ideas in a form which is east to manipulate when it comes time to righting up the final report. To be honest this is an adaptation of the approach that
Chris suggested to me when I first started my Ph.D research. In the vein of the salesman who should "always be closing", a researcher, and especially a Ph.D student should always be writing because firstly you can't forget ideas that you have written down, secondly, writing is a muscle insofar as the more you write the better you are at it, and thirdly, the vast majority of Ph.D researchers run out of time so the more that you have written down the easier the thesis writing is. The first two points I completely agree with, the third I am in less agreement with because I don't think that thesis writing is ever easy.
Today however I was spurred to revisit my earlier position and think that the same kind of approach, a written record of ongoing work, could equally well be applied to teaching and learning situations as well as pure research. The spur was
Morna Simpson's brief introduction to the personal & professional development techniques that she uses with her students in Interactive Media Design. Without going into too much detail she encourages her students, partly using the carrot of academic credit, to explore their learning, to take a step back from the subject matter and consider where they stand personally in respect to the current project, and how it fits into the ongoing project of their education. What I like about this is the opportunity for each student to do active reflection upon the current state of their educational experience. Quite often in
SoC there are not that many opportunities to sit back and see how all of the modules that make up an honours degree actually fit together. Additionally, a degree is not solely about the group learning experience of attending lectures and labs but is equally about using those experiences as a spur to finding out more and engaging in self-directed learning. It is this aspect, determining where a persons personal strengths and weaknesses are that is very important and which is addressed through Morna's approach.
The meeting at which Morna was speaking then moved on to discuss the wider issue of moving from the spoon-fed approach of delivering lectures to the more active approach of running seminars and tutorials to engage individually with students. This is something that I have managed over the last few years to incorporate into my teaching at both all levels of both undergraduate and advanced postgraduate teaching and which I often find to be a rewarding experience. Of course the outcome of this approach depends upon the calibre of the students and whilst I enjoy setting some reading then meeting to discuss it, and possbily free-forming a lecture around the issues that are raised, I also like to have a prepared lecture to fall back upon if it is just not working. For this reason I try to provide an ample suite of supporting materials which underpin the course and which the students can explore in their own time and allow me to use my time with them in a more valuable way, by interacting with them.
To return to the original point of this now overlong post. Research and learning blogs have a position not just in the record of the development of new knowledge but as a record of the personal discovery of existing knowledge. I am sure that there is a whole additional post about the benefits of accreting a kind of coral reef of interpretations over the bedrock of discovered knowledge. I personally benefit from not just reading the primary texts of a given discipline but by also reading other people's interpretations of those primary texts. I think that this approach gives me a better sense of perspective with respect to the subject matter and affords me additional valuable insights which can be hard to come by and develop on your own.
To avoid charges of hypocrisy I will admit to advocating the idea of research and personal developments blogs but not necessarily fully taking advantage of them myself. I don't yet post live, unedited ideas and data to my site. This is not to keep my ideas secret but mainly because I work with others who are more careful about the image that they present and would rather place their thinking into the public domain only once it has passed peer review. I therefore cannot make a unilateral decision to post everything publically. Additionally, the way I work means that I go through many many very similar iterations of my ideas, trying to finesse them into an elegant argument or design, a process which does not currently lend itself to a research blog but fits well with my lovely Moleskine notebook.
However if the research and learning culture was more open and more people engaged in this kind of public introspection then I think that the opportunities to identify new collaborators and basically learn new stuff would be greatly increased. Maybe I will try this personal development approach with some of my students...
