It is my delight to share that our article is now available:
Capaldi, D. M., Knoble, N. B., Shortt, J. W., & Kim, H. K. (2012). A systematic review of risk factors for intimate partner violence. Partner Abuse, 3(2), 231-280.
Following Journals
Female Science Professor recently [recently: in grad student time] had a post on keeping up with journal reading where she discussed the challenges of a cluttered email inbox and staying current with publications. I appreciated the comment section as much as the posts itself for the opportunity to learn how others stay afloat with new publications.
I follow academic journals and other publications via RSS feed in Google Reader. This system works for me as I have journals filed together by broad topics that are relevant to my current work (e.g., child maltreatment, culture and identity, child development, etc.). I also subscribe to research journals outside my discipline (e.g., criminology, public health, neuroscience) and this has been a helpful way to become familiar with work in related fields. My morning routine usually includes scanning Reader which helps me stay afloat with subscriptions [and stay somewhat current with life outside of grad school].
Many of the FSP commenters also have subscriptions to PubMed search terms which seems incredibly helpful and will be my next keeping-up-with-journals experiment.
Beyond academic journals I also follow Research Blogging, Futurity, and other projects that disseminate research through commentary or aggregation. My latest favorite site to follow is LSE’s Impact of Social Sciences project as they post on great ideas for disseminating findings.
How do you stay current with your research reading?
Open Social Science?
Recently the bloggers at smaller questions took on the topic of open science. If you are not already familiar with the idea of open science, I highly recommend their post.
I continue to be in awe of the momentum within the STEM fields toward disruption of the long-standing paradigm for conducting research as well as publishing research. It may be due to my frame of reference as a doctoral student, but it seems there is not as much momentum or dialogue around open science or open access within social sciences.
What are your thoughts on the topic? What do you think about the level of engagement among social scientists in the conversation about open science and open access?
Futurity.org
Futurity.org is a scholarly research aggregate that provides accessible summaries of research news from universities in the US, Canada, and UK. Current news is presented by topic, tags, and readers can browse by school. While scholarly articles are not always easily understood by most readers, Futurity’s editors provide clear explanations and links to the articles (which not necessarily open access). In the movement to connect interested readers with reliable science, Futurity is an essential piece of the open access movement.
Futurity www.futurity.org
Dissemination 2.0
The Research Information Network, a policy research group in the UK, has focused their attention on research dissemination in the digital age. Of interest:
- If you build it, will they come? How researchers perceive and use web 2.0 — the executive report of their findings is available at the bottom of the page in PDF.
- Social media: A guide for researchers — includes guides for using social media in research and case studies of researchers from diverse disciplines
Ciber (Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research) recently published a report on the use of social media in research, Social media and research workflow.
In a recent conversation with colleagues in psychology, we discussed the role of the web — blogs, researcher websites, web-based portfolios — in research dissemination. Some colleagues expressed concerns that websites for individual researchers, research groups, and online research dissemination communicates an undesired entrepreneurial message. The Research Information Network’s Social Media guide summarized criticisms of scholars using the web and social media as a concern for the decline of academic discussion and debate, that social media and the web are peripheral to scholarly work, and privacy concerns. Others expressed interest in leveraging the web for research dissemination, national and international professional networking, and outreach.
The intersection of research scholarship and the web, the role of the web in dissemination, and its impact on academic careers has been addressed in many forums. One example: the Chronicle of Higher Education has many entries on the pros and cons of scholarly blogging, including pieces such as Social Media Lures Academics, Scholars Who Blog, The Trouble With Blogs: Can Blogging Derail Your Career, and Academic Blogs [note: not entirely open access, subscription required for many articles]. Other examples can be found in science blogs such as Scientopia or blog aggregates such as Research Blogging or Science Blogging, which aggregates blogs from multiple languages.
My questions to researchers and non-researchers: What do you think of the intersection of research scholarship and the web? What do you think of the dissemination of research via social media? I’m curious to hear your thoughts!