November 07, 2024

Discussing Reviewer Suitability & Citation Justice with Early Stage Scholars

The first training session of the new academic session brought discussions around reviewer quality.

This week I had the pleasure of contributing to Harriet Richmond’s early-stage researcher session focussing on publication. As blog readers will be aware, I’ve been feeding into these sessions for almost three years now, around once a term generally. As always it was a pleasure to collaborate with Harriet, who is a great teacher and all round good-egg. Certainly I always come away with some thoughts on improving my own teaching, or new piece of information to ruminate upon, so being involved is always a win-win for me.

I also enjoy participating because these workshop sessions are also a wonderful opportunity to share some of my personal experiences as an editor and reviewer with researchers who are a little earlier in their career track than I. The hope is – like this week’s cohort – that it sparks some conversation and perhaps demystifies the area a little. I do often feel it’s a shame that in the post-pandemic period we’ve kept the workshops online only, which perhaps slightly curtails a more free-flowing exchange of thoughts and ideas. That might be a personal preference for ‘live’ performance in my teaching, and I can see why the delegates enjoy not having to schlep into campus for the sessions: less time away from the lab and office probably pays them dividends in a busy schedule. No matter, as always, this week’s exchange online was still good enough to pick up on a few new threads of conversation.

This time around I introduced ideas of citation justice, as discussed in our recent podcast, into the debate. This arose out of a delegate discussion about questionable citation habits and bias within them. It was handy to be able to talk a little about these concepts and highlight some of the ideas around introducing a ‘beneficial bias’: although, I should note that for now Exchanges has no hard and fast policy in this area. All the same, I’ll be looking forward to reading the Reinvention report, and perhaps kicking off some policy discussions with my Board as a result. Getting better and broader representation within article citations can only benefit readers, researchers and authors alike in my opinion.

We also got into an interesting debate over journals/editors and their ability to pick ‘quality’ reviewers. Now, if you’re an editor you probably don’t need me to tell you how challenging it can be, with the hundreds of thousands [1] of manuscripts annually in need of multiple reviewers, especially with academics’ time increasingly stretched across so many research, teaching and administration priorities. With this initial hill to climb just to get >any< reviewers on board, conceptualisations of also judging their quality beyond a simple visit to their personal/professional website [2] sounds like an even bigger slope to ascend. As journal editors we offer lots of guidance to reviewers on how to do a quality job, as well as advising reviewers about those times when they feel they might be out-of-scope for a particular paper [3]. Truth be told though, much of the responsibility for invalidating a reviewer does seem to fall on the prospective reviewers’ shoulders themselves. It’s a bit of a sector norm, and perhaps one which deserves some greater consideration – I’ve certainly been inspired to look around and see what other journals are doing. Perhaps a small debate among my editorial team is also worthwhile following up on these conversations too – we do have a Board meeting scheduled for next month after all!

This week’s session also saw the second running of my ‘you are the reviewer!’ case study challenge, wherein the delegates had to make a judgement on several not-so-hypothetical reviewing problems. Once again the delegates rose to the challenge well, and it was good to see that the approach we had adopted in each case – the examples being anonymised but real ones – seemed to chime with the views of the scholars present. I might tweak the examples for the next running of the course in the new year though, just to avoid things becoming too staid or stale.

So, a good session from my perspective, and I hope from the delegates too. I think my next task is to take that annual look at my teaching notes and think about how my contribution could be tweaked or improved. I certainly got the feeling this time, that another refresh of the slides and accompanying interactions could do with another polish!

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Endnotes

[1] Almost certainly more when you consider how many articles are rejected annually. With a ~50% decline rate for Exchanges the 68 articles we published this years therefore equates to ~140 submissions as a back of the envelope calculation. And we’re a relatively small journal with a small ingest of article submissions!

[2] Or of course knowing them in person.

[3] Doubly tricky for interdisciplinary papers where few, if anyone other than the author, will be entirely conversant with the paper’s themes, methodologies and methods.


November 05, 2024

New Episode: Celebrating the MRC at 50

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

Two guests in one episode reflect back on the ground breaking Modern Records Centre’s first fifty years

Delighted to report another in our series of recent podcast episodes, which this time takes a look at both the special issue and events which celebrated the Modern Records Centre (MRC) at 50 years old. Talking with Pierre Bothcherby and Rachel MacGregor we use the framing of their lead article in the issue as a stepping stone to consider what the issue and symposium has to tell us about the famous archive. Along the way we touch on what are our favourite talks and papers in the issue – although acknowledging that we secretly have a soft spot for them all. We also take the chance to look forward to what’s next for the MRC, and while we can’t look at what’s going to happen in 2073 for the centennial, at least we look to the next big date for the university!

Listen in here:


October 31, 2024

New Issue Published: Welcoming our Thirtieth Issue of Exchanges

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/101

Another month and another new issue of Exchanges arrives, although this time it’s not a special issue

Delighted and slightly relieved to announce the latest issue of Exchanges: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal has just been published (Vol 12.1). This marks the third issue in as many months and caps off what has been a frantically busy half year for myself (and the editors working on the issue). This is – should you be counting - our thirtieth issue, and unlike the two previous ones, this time it’s one of our regular issues containing a collection of articles from across the disciplinary spectrum, from scholars at Warwick and around the world.

Access the issue via the links below:

https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/101

or

https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v12i1

As this is a regular, autumn issue, there’s no central theme this time – although I should note many of the articles continue and develop conversations from prior issues. This is partly by chance, rather than design although at least a couple of articles were invited under a specific theme tied to a workshop at the IAS earlier this year. You can read more about the topics in the issue in the editorial, or indeed in the issue description. Naturally, the editorial briefly introduces the issue as well as updating readers on other forthcoming issues, and opportunities to contribute to future volumes of the journal.

While I mention this in the issue, I would naturally like to thank all our contributors, reviewers and editors for their hard work on this issue. The considerable effort behind the scenes to review, revise and format each article – not to mention the effort we expend on those which don’t quite make it too – is not inconsiderable. So much of what we do on the journal feels like an iceberg – the issue you see being only the tip floating above the ocean’s surface with so much of that scholarly labour is hidden below.

With the publication of this issue, our last for 2024, I am personally delighted to note that for the first time since the early summer I don’t have the prospect of a new issue to produce in just a few short weeks. Not that I’ll be idling my time away, as we have four special issues currently brewing, and work towards the April 2025 issue continues apace too. Nevertheless, it will be nice to have a little more time on my hands to catch up with all those regular tasks I normally work on over the summer!

Hope you enjoy the issue, or are even inspired to contribute an article for a future issue – I’ll very much look forward to reading it.


October 23, 2024

New Episode: Talking Citational Justice with Osamu Miyamae

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

A new podcast episode takes a look at a project being run by our sister journal, Reinvention.

In a slight change of pace we have a new podcast episode talking with someone who isn’t one of our authors, but rather is a recent graduate who’s been working on a project with our sister journal Reinvention. Osamu and colleagues have been exploring the world of ‘citational justice’ and asking questions about best practices and the ways in which journals can be seen to be enabling otherwise marginalised voices and underrepresented regional scholars – though citation policy.

While the project report is a few weeks away as of yet, Osamu was able to share with us the highlights of the project and more than a few interesting points of consideration for anyone working in the journal publication field. Certainly, after our chat I’ll be fascinated to see what Reinvention does in the light of the report, and if there’s a similar policy approach Exchanges might explore.

Listen to the episode here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/ARYh9b2pVNb [21:34]

Or catch up with all our past episodes here:

https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

Plenty more new episodes to follow over the next couple of weeks – so keep your ears open!



October 09, 2024

New Episode: Teacher Practitioners as Researchers

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

A second episode promoted by the research culture special issue of the podcast is released.

After many months of it being rather quiet on the podcasting front, I’m genuinely pleased we seem to have moved into a fruitful period of production. With the third episode in as many weeks now live, listeners have a chance to take a deeper diver into the paper by Elizabeth Hidson (Faculty of Education and Society, University of Sunderland) which featured in our research culture special issue just over a month ago. Elizabeth, or Liz as she prefers, works in the area of educational research and teacher training, with a particular interest in international teaching experiences.

Listen in here: International Teacher Practitioners as Researchers: In Conversation with Elizabeth Hidson [24:21]

Her paper (Developing a Research Culture with Trainee Teachers on International Initial Teacher Training Programmes) talks about ideas of installing research culture ideas into a community of practitioners who might not normally consider themselves as ‘researchers’. As such, our conversation looks at the challenges she and her students face, not least of which come from the changing environments, perceptions and insights which arise when we step outside our western educational cultural norms.

We move on then to talk about some of Liz’s other work and forthcoming publications, touching on I’m pleased to say ideas around the benefits of open access publishing – to authors and readers around the world. Naturally, we also explore some of Liz’s experiences in publishing, and the advice she has to offer others approaching their earliest formal publications: not least of which being her suggestion to ‘find your tribe’ in creating an effective research discourse.

I hope you enjoy the episode, because I’m recording three more episodes next week – so there’s plenty more to come this year in terms of episodes. And naturally, if you’re a past author of Exchanges and keen to appear as a guest to talk about your work and publications, then get in touch, as we’d love to have you on the podcast show!


October 02, 2024

New Episode: Being an Effective Academic Citizen

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/podcast

Our second new episode takes a lengthy look at the changing field of academic publishing and how it relates to post-graduate researcher training.

I sat down to talk with Dr Jonathan Vickery (School of Arts, Warwick) a couple of weeks ago in the School’s custom podcast recording studio for a chat. Jonathan is more than one of our recent Exchanges authors, in that he is also editor of the Journal of Law, Social Justice and Global Development – one our fellow Warwick based titles. As a result we were able to have quite a lengthy chat around the themes of his paper - Critical Reflections on Universities, Publishing, and the Early Career Experience. The paper itself was born from a pair of IAS panel workshops I chaired earlier in 2024, at which Jonathan was one of my gracious panel members.

Without wanting to spoil anything ahead of listeners experiencing this episode, I think it is fair to say that we touched on a variety of very interesting and highly relevant areas for post-graduate researchers and indeed anyone involved in their development. We considered the technologically-driven evolution of academic publishing, and Jonathan in particular feels we’re either on the cusp or in the middle of a genuine phase change not seen since the introduction of movable type. Touching on ideas of knowledge economy, academic enterprise and collaboration vs competition in the academy though, there’s plenty of food for thought throughout the episode. For my own part it was fantastic to use the recording equipment – and I’ll note my particular thanks here to the technical staff who got it set up for us. It was even more of a pleasure though to have unfettered access to a scholar like Jonathan to talk about a topic very close to my own heart.

Hopefully we’ll be brining you a few more episodes shortly – although I suspect they might not run quite so long as this discussion. But then again, you never know!


September 26, 2024

New Episode: Outreach, Reaching Across the Divide & Engaging the Public

Writing about web page https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/BDEDZbjNcNb

A new episode relating to the research culture special issue is now live.

I am pleased to announce we have a new episode of the Exchanges Discourse podcast, the first in a series of episodes that are coming your way over the next couple of months. This is the first in a mini-series featuring authors who contributed to our special research culture special issue, and I couldn’t be happier to have such a gracious guest as Phil Jemmett from Warwick’s own WMG. Listen to our conversation here:

As always we talk a lot about my guest’s life and work, but especially the article Phil and colleagues contributed to our recent journal issue – entitled: Engaging Academics with Outreach: How the ‘STEM Connections’ model empowers staff. Along the way we also talk about Phil’s publishing experiences, thoughts on being a public academic including matters of opinion on the best way to represent yourself and your research to a class of potentially disengaged school children. As such, our conversation touches on various techniques for engaging the public with topics of academic research and expertise. As a result, we get chatting about how to improve your academic presentational skills and especially the best routes to capturing an audience’s attention.

As always the episode concludes by offering some advice to less seasoned academic authors in publishing approaches and ways in which they can make their papers really sing.

You can read Phil and colleagues article here: https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v11i3.1544

As always, my thanks to my guest for their thoughts, and I hope you enjoy the episode.

Next up, as I recorded it last week, is a long and exciting chat with fellow editor and author Jonathan Vickery on the subject of publishing and the knowledge economy. Hopefully with you this time next week!



September 25, 2024

Special Issue Published: MRC @ 50

Writing about web page https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v11i4

After only a month, another special issue of Exchanges is launched to celebrate a unique, special and impactful archive

This half of the year has felt rather like a continual production of issues of Exchanges, which I guess is no bad thing! After last month’s highly anticipated and well-received Research Culture special issue, today I am so pleased to reveal we’ve just published our next one. This time the special issue [1] celebrates, commemorates and highlights work on and around the Modern Records Centre (MRC) archive here at the University of Warwick. In part the issue is a potted guide to the history of the MRC itself, but mostly it celebrates the fantastic role archives play in enabling groundbreaking and insightful social, cultural and historical research.

Read the issue:

https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/issue/view/100 or https://doi.org/10.31273/eirj.v11i4

Most of the articles in the issue are drawn from the 50th anniversary symposium hosted last year by the MRC, where speakers talked about their personal reflections of the archive, as much as they focused in on the research its collections have helped them to achieve. Hence this issue is very much a reflection of that day, wherein we invited all the speakers to contribute in some way. Not everyone decided or was able to contribute, but I would argue a strongly representative sample of the speakers have, making this volume a fitting capstone to the fantastic MRC’s ‘special’ birthday year.

Naturally, as with all specials there’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to bring the issue to you, not least of that from a great team of associate editors. Along the way we’ve faced some unexpected organisational challenges which did slow down the production of the issue a little bit – but I have been so impressed as always by the dedication, focus and team spirit I’ve seen from all the editors. Much as I am happy to have the issue live, I’m certainly sad I won’t be working with these people closely for the foreseeable future – they really have been a fantastic group!

Anyway, with this issue out, I can return my focus to the forthcoming regular issue of Exchanges due out next month (!), and following up with all the authors of both recent special issues too.[2] Not to mention, talking with my editors on the other special issues we’ve got developing…

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[1] Officially our 8th special, since the first one in 2020. 4 more are active development right now too.

[2] I’m hoping I’ve not been too quiet in the past couple of weeks as my focus has been squarely on getting this issue out!


September 17, 2024

Attending the International Research Culture Conference 2024

Writing about web page https://warwick.ac.uk/research/ncrc/ircc/

Second research culture conference is a time to celebrate and look to the future.

Yesterday I went along as Exchanges Chief Editor to attend the second International Research Culture Conference(IRCC '24), hosted at Warwick once more. As readers will remember at the 2023 event we launched our collaboration with the National Centre for Research Culture and the work began towards producing our first research culture special issue. That came out last month, and if you haven’t read it yet – you really should.

Yesterday was a chance, alongside listening to a range of informative and engaging speakers, to celebrate this publication a little. More importantly thought it was a chance to announce the call for the next research culture special issue – arising from this year’s conference. That, and of course my call for more associate editors to get involved. Delegates to the event will soon have a mailshot with more information about that.

It was a long day, but another one where I spent most of the moments between sessions talking to various delegates about the journal, our plans and how they can get involved. My thanks to everyone who stopped by our stall for a little chat – and I hope you enjoyed our little bits of promotional merchandise too. And my thanks to the NCRC for working with us once again in launching this second exciting issue call.

Next up though, my focus will be swinging firmly back onto the MRC @ 50 special issue – coming very, very soon to your screens.

Our shared exhibit stand


September 11, 2024

Reflections on: Collaboration of the Faculties– Adventures in Interdisciplinarity

Writing about web page https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/


British Academy event for early career researchers explores some exciting and innovative thinking about interdisciplinary working and research.

Hyperbole is omnipresent in Linked.In posts, to a routinely and often nauseating superfluidity, but for once when I posted last week about being ‘delighted’, ‘honoured’ and ‘inspired’ by an event I attended: this was quite simply the honest truth. Last Friday (6th Feb) I had the genuine pleasure to head into London to the prestigious British Academy’s Westminster headquarters to attend their Early Career Researcher Network’s event entitled Collaboration of the Faculties - Adventures in Interdisciplinarity. This intriguingly titled event promised to explore the challenges of combining differing perspectives and methodologies, dissemination of interdisciplinary work and how to engage audiences across the disciplines. No small challenge!

I’d been approached way back in March this year by Paula Back, the BA’s ECR Network Officer, to get involved as a panellist. I realised from the outset, rather gratifyingly, I was one of the first people who’d been approached, which was a rare treat. Since then, there’s been a regular stream of conversation from the organisers which I’ve been privy too as they built up to the event. It felt very inclusive, and welcoming, to be included in this, rather the often-distant communications one has when speaking at other events! Certainly, I will say the planning organisation and delivering of this researcher development event was pretty much close to my personal ideal, and everyone involved should be commended for it!

On the day, the first thing that struck me was how welcoming and engaged everyone present was. I know most of the audience, beyond the speakers, are self-selected – those who have decided to attend. Yet, the resultant audience was so receptive you’d almost suspect they’d be carefully chosen to attend based on their willingness to engage! Certainly, at many conferences I’ve attended, many people head off into their cliques or friendship groups, to the exclusion of a wider conversation. Being somewhat of a wallflower [1] I sometimes find it challenging to network and have wider discussions as a result. This wasn’t a problem at the BA event, as I barely stopped talking for the entire event run time [2.] Frankly, by the end of the day, I was ready to go silent for some hours and simply let my brain start to reflect on the event.

Now, I’m not going to try and capture a blow-by-blow account of the day. There were so many excellent speakers, questions and side-discussions that it would take me far too long to recount. Not to mention, I’m sure there are better scribes than I out there who will have written a fuller accounting [3]. What I will share though are some of my key takeaways that have resonated with me over the weekend – in no order of priority!

Language barriers: A common theme was the difficulty of speaking to non-domain experts about your research or work, without using terms which are at worst opaque, or where you end up explaining them in other domain terms. Not ideal! When attempting to apply for funding or forming an effective interdisciplinary research teams, it is exactly these sorts of linguistic barriers which can create a genuine challenge to team cohesion and effectiveness. These sorts of barriers are perhaps even more apparent when scholars consider outlining their research or its outcomes to the public or to members of policy sphere and political classes.

Identity: A personal quandary for many researchers seeking to move to an interdisciplinary space or sphere of working. HEIs and senior executives continue to express their keenness for researchers to be more interdisciplinary in their working and practice. However, many of the esteem markers and career progression mechanisms are simply not configured to recognise or authenticate the ‘value’ of such work. Domain specific research remains more ‘significant’ in terms of these esteem markers, which means in terms of establishing an identity and even a career as an interdisciplinary researcher it can be a major uphill struggle with a slower progression to the senior grades. This was an area within which a number of speakers highlighted the importance of policy makers in changing perceptions and the lived reality.

Power Dysfunctions: A theme common to me from my own publishing research, but the existence of power dynamic imbalances are an issue even within interdisciplinary researcher groups. We’ve all encountered the ‘powerful’ and ‘dominant’ PI. Yet, broadly speaking, when groups of researchers come from across the disciplines to tackle a common problem scientists will typically view a problem from a certain vantage point or precept to those in the humanities, for example. Now, whomever is the driving or vocal force within the group – hierarchically speaking or simply by force of personality, can artificially close off exactly the kind of exciting, original or novel paths of exploration which interdisciplinary working is supposed to enable. As one speaker put it ‘to the [man] with the hammer, every problem looks like a nail’. [4] Overcoming this, can mean serious changes to underlying research culture too, another topic within which I’m heartily familiar.

Show Don’t Tell: When seeking to engage audiences around novel interdisciplinary-related concepts, methodologies or approaches – be they fellow researchers, the public, media or policy makers – ‘show don’t tell’ is a great approach [5]. It can help overcome some of those language barriers mentioned above, but can also help the interdisciplinary researcher by ‘forcing’ them to recontextualise their own work and potentially see it in a fresh light. Quite simply, by finding new ways to engage with audiences (and have audiences engage themselves) simply having objects, exhibits or interactive interventions can ensure a greater degree of success than simply seeking to ‘explain’ an interdisciplinary idea, research, method or methodology.

The Future is Interdisciplinary: ‘Complex real-world problems require interdisciplinary solutions’ as one speaker succinctly put it. When you look at global problems – climate change, space-exploration, healthcare etc., – there is no singular research domain that has the complete picture or solution. Working across boundaries, brining knowledge, expertise and ability from across the interdisciplinary spectrum is key to creating effective, practical leavers to affect successful change or outcomes. Getting this degree of buy in (and appreciating some of the challenges mentioned above) though, is still a journey: not everyone is ready, willing or able to step out of their disciplinary silo. Yet. Perhaps in a decade or so this might be a more natural expectation – look at the move towards open publishing for example – but for now, disciplinarity remains the realpolitik and de facto ruling principles of the academy.

Connectivity is Key: I would argue the event itself was this connectivity made manifest, but in achieving this effective interdisciplinary working future for researchers and society, finding people who are likeminded, who are willing to step beyond the disciplinary and helping to support and enable each other is key goal. Fresh and exciting perspectives await!

Alongside this exciting stuff, I was speaking myself about Exchanges and our role in facilitating interdisciplinary publishing – without any myopic application of ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ interdisciplinary research: we remain catholic, welcoming and all-encompassing in our approach. I was gratified to have such a positive feedback from the audience to my comments and answers to questions, as well as the delegates and organisers I spoke to throughout the day, about Exchanges’ rationale and approach. I hope in our own, modest, way we can help engender the kinds of exchanges (#sorrynotsorry) which the British Academy event was seeking to enable through this event. Certainly, from a more pragmatic standpoint, as more than one potential author spoke to me on the day and subsequently about future article ideas, I’m excited to see what fresh perspectives we can help bring to global attention in our forthcoming issues.

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My grateful thanks to everyone attending, who asked a question and of course the British Academy for the invite to get involved in the first place. I had a simply terrific day, and I suspect a version of this blog post will be appearing as a future editorial in Exchanges itself! So, I was certainly inspired too.

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Endnotes

[1] No, honestly, I am. Despite appearances to the contrary.

[2] Except, naturally, during the presentations.

[3] Of course if anyone would like to submit a critical reflection article on the events and speakers of the day, I’d be more than happy to consider it for publication!

[4] I work with a lot of scientists, and this feels very true to me – there’s always a positivist viewpoint that is privileged over others – frustrating!

[5] And one I’ve long loved from screenwriting theory and practice, I should note.

Myself & Prof Tia de Nora on our Dissemination panel, photo credit the British Academy


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