Tuesday, October 11, 2005
The Future of Social Science and Humanities Journal Publishing
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Knowledge Mobilization
So I attended the knowledge mobilization symposium in Banff and came away with the following impressions.
Canada's research funding council, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) sees that it is facing an issue. SSHRC spends in the neighbourhood of $100 million each year funding research. It has the perception that the results of the research it funds do not circulate in society as a whole as much as they should. Given that there is increasing pressure on the scholarly community to show relevance to society, SSHRC wonders how the results of social science and humanities research might get better known and might therefore more greatly benefit society.
Problem 1: How to make research results more accessible.
A beginning answer here is to make all research results publicly available by funding a project to take all Canadian social science and humanities journals online. The project is called Synergies. It is a collaboration among five universities to set up the hardware, software and service infrastructure to operate the back end of the database. The Synergies group went forward to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for funding but was refused because it was not deemed an eligible project. Since that time, CFI has been scratching its head on what to do with Synergies and has given the project some funds to apply again. This is a good thing since its record on funding social science and humanities projects is abysmal.
Online availablility to all journal-accepted and -published peer reviewed articles would be a good thing. But it demands a second complementary initiative. Right now, current issues of journals can only be accessed by subscribers. Because university libraries subscribe, scholars and students of most universities can gain access to the literature. However, the general public cannot. Equally importantly, government departments in charge of developing policy seldom have access to even the most relevant literature for development of policy and programs. Stunning! (Such are the blessings of small government.) So online publishing needs to be accompanied by a second policy: Free Public Access. For $7 million, not $7 billion or even $700 or $70 million, but a mere $7 million all Canadian social science and humanities jhournals could be made public available to all scholars, students, governments, organizations, businesses and members of the public. Already SSHRC provides $2 million in support.
Problem 2
How much of all this research is actually of any value to anyone?
Is anyone really interested in the choices people make and hence the patterns that show up in vanity licence plates? I guess that might be good for a passing comment. Lots of scholarly journal articles are, well, esoteric, and while they do add something to the sum total of human knowledge, a fair percentage of what they add is a bit trivial. So there is a lurking problem, or at least issue, behind knowledge mobilization. If the aim is create knowledege that is relevant to social needs, then perhaps it would be a good idea to have social scientists and humanities scholars define the social context that led them to identify their problem, issue, or hypothesis. Researchers are great at doing literature reviews. Literature reviews provide context but the context is other research, not a social reality.
Problem formuation happens in relevant contexts in the health sciences and education because both have knowledge-using professions that seek out and apply knowledge. Psychology has various applied fields that work from a research base. Urban planning feeds off geography. And so on. But not much feeds of cultural studies, or a fair amount of other social research.
Not problem but Issue 3
So is the answer to create a middle level of people who dive into social scientific and humanities (SSH) research looking for nuggets of knowledge that can be used more broadly?
Is an answer to ask researchers to define the social benefit they think might derive from their research (the howls of indignation of being so constrained are already ringing in my ears)?
Is there a way of pairing up applied research funding coming from government departments with SSH research funding?
Does SSH research already filter into society at an appropriate rate through newspapers, interviews or radio and tv, magazine articles, trade books, graduates taking knowledge into the world, etc.?
All these questions (with the possible excpetion of the last) were asked. No really firm answers emerged except for the endorsement of Synergies and free public access.
Canada's research funding council, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) sees that it is facing an issue. SSHRC spends in the neighbourhood of $100 million each year funding research. It has the perception that the results of the research it funds do not circulate in society as a whole as much as they should. Given that there is increasing pressure on the scholarly community to show relevance to society, SSHRC wonders how the results of social science and humanities research might get better known and might therefore more greatly benefit society.
Problem 1: How to make research results more accessible.
A beginning answer here is to make all research results publicly available by funding a project to take all Canadian social science and humanities journals online. The project is called Synergies. It is a collaboration among five universities to set up the hardware, software and service infrastructure to operate the back end of the database. The Synergies group went forward to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for funding but was refused because it was not deemed an eligible project. Since that time, CFI has been scratching its head on what to do with Synergies and has given the project some funds to apply again. This is a good thing since its record on funding social science and humanities projects is abysmal.
Online availablility to all journal-accepted and -published peer reviewed articles would be a good thing. But it demands a second complementary initiative. Right now, current issues of journals can only be accessed by subscribers. Because university libraries subscribe, scholars and students of most universities can gain access to the literature. However, the general public cannot. Equally importantly, government departments in charge of developing policy seldom have access to even the most relevant literature for development of policy and programs. Stunning! (Such are the blessings of small government.) So online publishing needs to be accompanied by a second policy: Free Public Access. For $7 million, not $7 billion or even $700 or $70 million, but a mere $7 million all Canadian social science and humanities jhournals could be made public available to all scholars, students, governments, organizations, businesses and members of the public. Already SSHRC provides $2 million in support.
Problem 2
How much of all this research is actually of any value to anyone?
Is anyone really interested in the choices people make and hence the patterns that show up in vanity licence plates? I guess that might be good for a passing comment. Lots of scholarly journal articles are, well, esoteric, and while they do add something to the sum total of human knowledge, a fair percentage of what they add is a bit trivial. So there is a lurking problem, or at least issue, behind knowledge mobilization. If the aim is create knowledege that is relevant to social needs, then perhaps it would be a good idea to have social scientists and humanities scholars define the social context that led them to identify their problem, issue, or hypothesis. Researchers are great at doing literature reviews. Literature reviews provide context but the context is other research, not a social reality.
Problem formuation happens in relevant contexts in the health sciences and education because both have knowledge-using professions that seek out and apply knowledge. Psychology has various applied fields that work from a research base. Urban planning feeds off geography. And so on. But not much feeds of cultural studies, or a fair amount of other social research.
Not problem but Issue 3
So is the answer to create a middle level of people who dive into social scientific and humanities (SSH) research looking for nuggets of knowledge that can be used more broadly?
Is an answer to ask researchers to define the social benefit they think might derive from their research (the howls of indignation of being so constrained are already ringing in my ears)?
Is there a way of pairing up applied research funding coming from government departments with SSH research funding?
Does SSH research already filter into society at an appropriate rate through newspapers, interviews or radio and tv, magazine articles, trade books, graduates taking knowledge into the world, etc.?
All these questions (with the possible excpetion of the last) were asked. No really firm answers emerged except for the endorsement of Synergies and free public access.
