I’ve written quite a bit about blogging, and my creation of open education resources over the past on this website. A lot has changed in my blogging habits, and general digital identity construction since those posts. Most of the response that I get from colleagues, students, and tenure committees is “why in the world would you share that stuff openly online?” As such, I’ve been meaning to write up a post documenting my thinking about why I do…what I do.
One of these days I’ll get around to writing up my larger thesis about using a personal website for an all-in academic samizdat experience to rid academia of the siloed mindset its been stuck in for ages… This post comes relatively close to laying the underlying groundwork for some motivation.
As an academic, I need to regularly have empirical research publications in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals. Nothing else matters. Many senior colleagues bemoan the fact that I need to play double duty…yet the system still exists.
And why can’t your own blog count as a top-tier, peer-reviewed journal?
and serve as pre-prints to work that may live later on, or always exist in their current format
Thinking of a personal site as a pre-print server is an interesting concept and somewhat similar to the idea of a commonplace book.
Thanks again for the feedback Chris.
I agree about the challenges of academia getting stuck in our/their ways. There is always discussion about how institutions want to be more progressive and utilize these different opportunities for publishing, research, teaching, and service. Yet when it comes down to a group of individuals on a tenure committee (I can only speak from my own experience) there is a reliance on…”this is nice, but where is your empirical research in a peer-reviewed journal?”
I have tried to include my blog count, and other metrics in tenure materials, yet there still remains that question that I detailed above. I also shared metrics and indications of value from my Hybrid Ped publication, these too were met with questions about research. I do have some research coming out soon in an open, peer-reviewed journal. It will be interesting to see what response this has.
Finally, the “pre-print” debate is a big one in publishing right now. I’m advising one of my organizations on this topic. I’m also interested in finding great ways to list these activities on this site as a personal library of sorts.