Joanne Doyle

Does ‘get visible or vanish’ herald the end of ‘publish or perish’?

In the contemporary higher education environment, the academic philosophy of ‘publish or perish’ is being challenged. ‘Publish or perish’ refers to the pressure in academia to develop and sustain a research career by disseminating research findings in peer-reviewed journals. The philosophy was first documented in 1942 (Garfield, 1996) yet its origins date back to 1665 when peer review was first used as a form of quality control to distinguish scientific journals from book publishing (Tobin, 2002). Peer review remains a principal procedure for judging the quality of research, and weeding out ‘the charlatans, the misguided, and the fools’ (Gad-el-Hak, 2004, p. 61). The academic publishing process is important for communicating research findings and demonstrating research quality, and has remained an academic imperative encouraged by research funders and institutional leaders (Colquhoun, 2011). Professional recognition is achieved by publishing in high reputation journals that are regarded as prestigious. Academia tends to reward those with the longest CVs and the most publications (Neill, 2008). Yet there are multiple issues with using academic metrics for determining research quality. For example, citation analysis is regarded as a poor substitute for qualitative review and peer assessment (Nightingale & Marshall, 2012) and focusing on impact factors may be a disincentive to pursue innovative research that has longer publication timeframes (Alberts, 2013). Quantity does not imply quality and as Gad-el-Hak warns, ‘counting the publications of individuals should not be used to evaluate them’ (Gadel-Hak, 2004, p. 61). The emphasis on publishing, that worked well for many decades, has now deteriorated into a bean counting exercise with academics racing to publish en masse (Gad-elHak, 2004). The scholarly communication system is ‘choked with the never ending deluge of publications’ (Satyanarayana, 2013, p. 4). In 2006, the total number of peer-reviewed papers was estimated to be 1.3 million (Bjork, Roos, & Lauri, 2009). By mid-2012, estimates increased to 1.8–1.9 million articles per year published across 28,100 active scholarly peer-reviewed journals (Ware & Mabe, 2012). Journal papers are typically 3000–10,000 words in length (Bjork et al., 2009) and take much time and energy to prepare, review, read and evaluate (Bauerlein, Gad-el-Hak, Grody, McKelvey, & Trimble, 2010). There are concerns that the pressure to publish may now be compromising quality. In recent decades, there has been a notable increase

The Development of Virtual World Tools to Enhance Learning and Real World Decision Making in the Australian Sugar Farming Industry

In farming, the outcome of critical decisions to enhance productivity and profitability and so ensure the viability of farming enterprises is often influenced by seasonal conditions and weather events over the growing season. This paper reports on a project that uses cutting-edge advances in digital technologies and their application in learning environments to develop and evaluate a web-based virtual ‘discussion-support’ system for improved climate risk management in Australian sugar farming systems. Customized scripted video clips (machinima) are created in the Second Life virtual world environment. The videos use contextualized settings and lifelike avatar actors to model conversations about climate risk and key farm operational decisions relevant to the real-world lives and practices of sugarcane farmers. The tools generate new cognitive schema for farmers to access and provide stimuli for discussions around how to incorporate an understanding of climate risk into operational decision-making. They also have potential to provide cost-effective agricultural extension which simulates real world face-to-face extension services but is accessible anytime anywhere.

Reconceptualising research impact: reflections on the real-world impact of research in an Australian context

ABSTRACT A focus on research impact is influencing the way research is undertaken in Australian higher education institutions. Research activities are planned, funded, conducted, assessed and reported in a way that highlights the real-world impact of research on society. The contemporary prioritisation of research impact, beyond scholarly contribution, reflects a logic model approach to understanding impact that may not adequately reflect the entwined nature of how research achieves impact within and outside academia. This article presents the results of a study conducted with researchers in a regional Australian university to explore the lived experience of research impact. The findings suggest a new definition of research impact as the process whereby research knowledge makes a difference to the knowledge beneficiary. Reconceptualising research impact as a process presents an alternative perspective for explaining how research achieves real-world impact, and helps to address the limitations of logic model approaches. A process-orientation to understanding how research achieves impact acknowledges the indirect, intangible, unexpected and endless influences of research that may be difficult to anticipate and demonstrate.

TRUSTING AND TRUSTED: DEVELOPING AND DEPLOYING MOBILE DEVICES TO SUPPORT IN-PRISON LEARNING

A post-secondary qualification earned in prison has been noted as a factor in reducing rates of recidivism and contributing to improved prisoner behaviour. However, delivering higher education into prisons is a challenging process. In Australia, many higher education institutions prioritise online modes of delivery, and most jurisdictions prohibit prisoner access to the Internet. The lack of Internet access means that incarcerated students do not have the opportunity to experience learning in the same way as students who are not in prison. Digital technologies, including mobile devices, offer affordances in terms of providing the incarcerated student with a digital learning experience. From 2012 to 2017, a university research team in Australia has been trialling digital learning initiatives in 28 prisons across the country. The Making the Connection project aims to enhance the student learning experience using an offline learning management system and personal devices. Even so, introducing digital technology into prisons is a challenging process. Prisons have low levels of trust and strict security requirements. Digital technology must comply with jurisdictional constraints and correctional centre policies. Personal devices must be ‘prison-suitable’ yet at the same time ‘user-friendly’ for incarcerated students who traditionally do not have high levels of literacy, including digital literacy. Providing prisoners with mobile devices requires trust in two dimensions: researchers trust the prisoners to use and maintain the devices for learning purposes, and prisoners trust the researchers to provide a pedagogically-appropriate learning tool. This paper reports on the complex process of preparing and deploying mobile technologies in Australian correctional centres.