Tama’s eLearning Blog

In today’s Age, an fairly decent article, ‘Adventures in blog land‘, looks at the emerging importance of blogging in academia both in building research profiles and allowing academic voices to be heard outside of the ivory towers of the university. Some points worth highlighting:

While ordinary folk drive the blogging phenomenon through citizen journalism and mass vanity publishing, educators are latching on to its research potential: efficient tracking of thought processes, instant publishing and distribution of ideas worldwide. Online, it seems, reputations can rocket among peers. Academics wondering whether they should venture into cyberspace should consider its reach, says Adrian Miles, a senior lecturer in new media in the school of applied communication at RMIT University. “I have about 1000 readers a week, and that’s a very small blog. I know other people who have major academic blogs and I would expect their readership to be between 5000 and 10,000 a week,” Mr Miles says. “Even if I get published in a major international journal, realistically, maybe 100 people would read my article.” Mr Miles’ blog – VLOG 3.0 – is about video blogging. [...]

“If you want a successful academic career, you have to impress a large number of readers and have a great deal of credibility, and that only comes from peer-to-peer review, which is people reading and recommending and subscribing back to you,” he [James Farmer] says. [...] “Generally, the articles that have been published online have about 10 times more references from other papers (or blogs) than the articles that have been published in just paper,” contends Mr Farmer. Academic blogs offer a more informal, first-draft-style of writing and do not threaten traditional scholarly writing that represents months of carefully grown ideas and sifted thoughts, threshed from countless sources, all scrupulously cited before being reviewed by peers. Some academics believe they allow them to make even greater contributions, however. “It’s a different type of publication … I think the really in-depth papers will be referred to a lot less, at least in the area of humanities,” Mr Farmer says. “It (blogging) certainly ensures you can play a direct role in public debate,” says Kimberlee Weatherall, a lecturer in law at the University of Melbourne and author of Weatherall’s Law and Law Font blogs. [...]

“People who are blogging as junior academics as part of their PhDs have a profile way beyond anyone similar could have expected to have at that age,” says Dr Restall. “It’s really changing the face of research.”

Blogs mentioned: Adrian Miles’ Vlog 3.0; James Farmer’s IncSub; Kimberlee Weatherall’s Weatherall’s Law and Law Font.