*Can college professors publish document analyses or book reviews similar to how university professors do?
Absolutely! There is no degree requirement for any publications (scholarly articles or book reviews). It’s all about the content! So if you’ve read the book and would like to write up a review, you can absolutely send it to a journal.
*What does student-generated research look like? How might faculty encourage student-generated research? Are faculty allowed to cowrite articles with students and publish them? What does a faculty/student collaboration look like where both parties receive credit for the work? It can take many forms- one of the challenges is we only have our students for 1 semester (GAS/PHS), but if you have a keen student interested in research in the first year of a 3-yar program, it’s totally possible. How do you encourage it? You could offer bonus points for students who write a really good research question or include course-based research as part of your course. You can absolutely co-author a paper with a student to mentor them through the entire research process (from idea-generation to dissemination). What that looks like might differ based on the context and parameters of the research project. I have been working with a former GAS student who started in GASC (1 semester) then decided to switch to GASF and is almost done his program at OnTech. We did a research project together, presented it at a conference, and after 3 years the article is finally published! Send me an email if you’d like to discuss what this looked like in practice.
*What’s the benefit from a student perspective on collaborating with faculty on a publication/presentation?
For students who are excited about investigating a particular research question, the intrinsic motivation is the benefit/reward of conducting research. Aside from that, having that experience sets them apart from their peers because they have a unique experience that nobody else has. Especially true if they are going to pursue a degree after DC (e.g., a GASA/T/F student) but even in terms of work “experience”, having research experience on a resumé is beneficial (whether the research was funded and the student paid for their work or not). Practicing their writing skills and addressing reviewers’ feedback (in the case of a journal article publication) or preparing and delivering a professional presentation are other good skills to develop, so additional experience in these areas also benefits the students.
*What are some examples of under-researched SoTL topics (in your professional opinion)? I’m specifically interested in topics that could make a SoTL contribution that would be manageable yet meaningful.
Honestly, anything looking at college students as the population of interest; it is such an under-represented group in research. The most manageable project for anyone to undertake is something that interests you! Using secondary data (i.e., data which you have already collected as part of your normal teaching duties) would be a relatively “easy” way to step into research (see my previous blog posts “Quick and easy research projects” and “What is secondary use of research?” (2 parts) for further discussion). An additional way to undertake a more manageable project might be to replicate something that others have done, but with college students (you may find some ideas in my previously-published “Developing a research question” (2 parts)
*I wonder what you see as viable areas for IS faculty to contribute to the college’s research agenda in the next year, two years, five years?
I have partly addressed this question in a previous blog “IS in the DC Strategic Research Plan” (the current Strategic Research Plan will guide us until 2023). The short answer is that I see IS’s biggest contribution potential to be in the area of SoTL research and involves increasing the number of faculty conducting research and sharing those results at conferences and in publications. Some of the topics that we are well positioned to be able to shed some light on include the benefits to students of certain course delivery modes experienced during the pandemic (synchronous/asynchronous, hyflex, etc), and other topics related to how to best support students in their learning. Additional (non-SoTL) areas might include how to help students deal with mental health, internationalization/globalization, indigenous applications, and others would also definitely fit.
