How do LSE blogs impact the academic sphere? Blogs as citable items in scholarly publications

In the third of a series of posts on the Impact of LSE Blogs project, Carlos Arrebola takes a closer look at the increasing frequency with which LSE blog posts are being cited in scholarly publications. The Impact Blog has been cited most often, perhaps reflecting its authors’ readiness to draw on non-traditional scholarly outputs. Unsurprisingly, a majority of citations come from English-speaking countries and in social sciences subjects. Meanwhile, some posts are even cited where there is a corresponding journal article available; either because supplementary detail may be provided, or because of wider access issues

The Ideal Collaborative Partner: A Tribute to Jana Singer

Collaboration has been defined as a “pervasive, long-term relationship in which participants recognize common goals and objectives, share more tasks, and participate in extensive planning and implementation.” I feel most fortunate to have had a collaborative partnership with Jana Singer for almost three decades. I am fortunate because such relationships are uncommon among legal scholars, given the “individualistic culture” of law schools and law professors. Even more unusual, I found in Jana a scholarly partner with all the qualities of the ideal collaborator: strong intellect, enthusiasm, curiosity, generosity, and humility. Since the early days of our academic careers, Jana and I have shared ideas about family law that have informed our teaching, scholarship, and service. This collaboration has led to co-authoring law review articles, blog posts and, most importantly, two books. In this Essay, I will focus on our scholarly collaboration and explore the connections between that scholarship and Jana’s significant public service that has improved family law practice on both a local and national level

Impact round up 12 October: Top research stories you might have missed this week.

As a new feature on the Impact blog, Managing Editor Sierra Williams presents a round up of popular stories from around the web on higher education, academic impact, and trends in scholarly communication

A tale of two scholarly blog platforms: comparing and conceptualizing online research communities.

Cornelius Puschmann and Marco Bastos expand on the computational methods employed to understand the contributions and online networks of two prominent scholarly blog platforms, HASTAC and Hypotheses. Their analysis suggests one community is driven more by an emphasis on the new media movement and cross-disciplinary aspiration, compared to the other’s more traditional disciplinary approach with a focus on the new publishing environment. The toolbox for analyzing blog platforms is still evolving and any results need to be treated with care. But it is clear that these computational methods can shed a new light on ongoing developments in science and scholarship

How and why physicists and chemists use blogs

This study examined how and why chemists and physicists blog. Two qualitative methods were used: content analysis of blog and “about” pages and in-depth responsive interviews with chemists and physicists who maintain blogs. Analysis of the data yielded several cross-cutting themes that provide a window into how physicists and chemists use their blogs and what value they receive from maintaining a blog and participating in a blogging community. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for supporting scientists’ work

Information - Access: Denied

I have been privileged during my lifetime to always have the opportunity to learn about something if I wanted to. When I became interested in music and psychology—or even when I was learning how to apply for college—I googled it. The resources to obtain information have always been there for me: access to computers, the internet, books, journals. It is hard to imagine my life without a computer or access to books to learn about the world, and even harder to imagine if I did not know how to read or write. For this, I can thank my education and the money that provided this education. [excerpt

Caveat Blogger: Blogging and the Flight from Scholarship

These comments were delivered to the “Symposium on Bloggership” held at Harvard Law School on April 28, 2006. Professor Randy Barnett discusses the pros and cons of blogging by legal scholars