New Online Publications

Here are some new publications that I became aware of from people who maintain a variety of blogs that I monitor.

• Teaching and Learning Collaboration Journal from Most Recent Materials In MERLOT Teaching And Technology
• The SoTL Commons & Journal from Rick's Café Canadien

And one that came from an e-mail that I received:

Announcing the release of the International Journal of Internet Research
Ethics

Call for Papers for the Premier Issue of IJIRE

Description and Scope:
The IJIRE is the first peer-reviewed online journal, dedicated specifically to cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural research on Internet Research Ethics. All disciplinary perspectives, from those in the arts and humanities, to the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences, are reflected in the journal.

With the emergence of Internet use as a research locale and tool throughout the 1990s, researchers from disparate disciplines, ranging from the social sciences to humanities to the sciences, have found a new fertile ground for research opportunities that differ greatly from their traditional biomedical counterparts. As such, "populations," locales, and spaces that had no corresponding physical environment became a focal point, or site of research activity. Human subjects protections questions then began to arise, across disciplines and over time: What about privacy? How is informed consent obtained? What about research on minors? What are "harms" in an online environment? Is this really human subjects work? More broadly, are the ethical obligations of researchers conducting research online somehow different from other forms of research ethics practices?

As Internet Research Ethics has developed as its own field and discipline, additional questions have emerged: How do diverse methodological approaches result in distinctive ethical conflicts – and, possibly, distinctive ethical resolutions? How do diverse cultural and legal traditions shape what are perceived as ethical conflicts and permissible resolutions? How do researchers collaborating across diverse ethical and legal domains recognize and resolve ethical issues in ways that recognize and incorporate often markedly different ethical understandings?

Finally, as "the Internet" continues to transform and diffuse, new research ethics questions arise – e.g., in the areas of blogging, social network spaces, etc. Such questions are at the heart of IRE scholarship, and such general areas as anonymity, privacy, ownership, authorial ethics, legal issues, research ethics principles (justice, beneficence, respect for persons), and consent are
appropriate areas for consideration.

The IJIRE will publish articles of both theoretical and practical nature to scholars from all disciplines who are pursuing—or reviewing—IRE work. Case studies of online research, theoretical analyses, and practitioner-oriented scholarship that promote understanding of IRE at ethics and institutional review boards, for instance, are encouraged. Methodological differences are embraced.

Publication Schedule:
The IJIRE is published twice annually, March 1, and October 15. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, and are subject to Editorial and Peer Review.

Subscription:
Free

Editors- in- Chief:
Elizabeth A. Buchanan, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Information Policy Research
School of Information Studies
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
elizabeth.buchanan@gmail.com

Charles M. Ess, Ph.D.
Distinguished Research Professor
Drury University
cmess@drury.edu

Editorial Board:
Andrea Baker, Ohio University, USA
Heidi Campbell, Texas A&M University, USA
Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green State University, USA
Jeremy Hunsinger, Virginia Tech, USA
Mark Johns, Luther College, USA
Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, University of Tsukuba, Japan
Tomas Lipinski, JD, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
Ulf-Dietrich Reips, Universität Zürich, Switzerland
Susannah Stern, University of San Diego, USA
Malin Sveningsson, Ph.D., Karlstad University, Sweden

Style Guidelines:
Manuscripts should be submitted to ijire@sois.uwm.edu; articles should be double-spaced, and in the range of 5000-15,000 words, though announcements of IRE scholarship, case studies, and book reviews of any length can be submitted for review. Please ensure that your manuscript is received in good format (proper English language usage, grammatical structure, spelling, punctuation, and compliance with APA reference style). The IJIRE follows the American Psychological Association's 5th edition. Articles should include an abstract no longer than 100 words, full names and contact information of all authors, and an author's biography of 100 words or less.

Copyright:
In the spirit of open access, IJIRE authors maintain copyright controlof their work. Any subsequent publications related to the IJIRE workmust reference the IJIRE and the original publication date and url.Web site: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/SOIS/cipr/ijire.html

As I find others, I'll post them here...

Tags: open source, online journals, e-journals, academy, blog, blogging, blogs, graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education

More On AECT And Graduate Students

Well, as a follow-up to the message I posted about two or three weeks ago about AECT no longer allowing graduate students to be full reviewers for conference proposals (see Graduate Students Snubbed by AECT).

As a follow-up, to that original post a recent graduate forwarded me a copy of this from the AECT Newsletter which he had received via e-mail (not sure why all members didn't get this newsletter, but that's another story):

Dear AECT Member,

It is my pleasure to report that the elections for AECT national officers are completed. pproximately one-fifth of the AECT membership voted in the election this year. This number is consistent with recent AECT elections.

The two candidates for President of AECT were Dr. Mary Herring of Northern Iowa and Dr. Nick Eastmond of Utah State. Mary received the greater number of votes.

The two candidates for Board of Directors at Large were Dr. Angela Benson of the University of Alabama and Dr. Kay Persichitte of the University of Wyoming. More people voted for Kay.

We appreciate the willingness of all four outstanding candidates to serve as leaders in AECT and congratulate the winners. When one runs for national office, one does not run against the other candidate. Rather, one runs for the good of AECT. We feel confident that both Nick and Angela will continue to lead in AECT and we look forward to seeing their names on the ballot again in
future.

Ward Cates, President
=======================================
Convention Proposal
Reviews in Progress

By now all divisions are in the process of reviewing their collection of proposals for the 2007 Anaheim convention. At the close of the Call for Proposals more than 700 proposals had been submitted.

While division planners do meet monthly in a conference call, the leadership of each division are free to set up their own review process. The common factor among all divisions is that decisions are based on a “peer” review process. Recently our definition of “peer” has been in question: whether graduate students qualify as “peer” reviewers. On the one hand, we might ask whether students have the background and depth of experience to evaluate proposals, but on the other, there is valid reason to include students because reviewing can contribute to their professional growth.

Division planners have responded individually for their divisions to the concern about graduate student reviewers. In most cases, they have established a review process that ensures that any one proposal will be reviewed by a combination of professionals and graduate students. Some division planners have encouraged a mentoring process for graduate student reviewers.

There are currently 639 graduate student members of AECT – about 30% of the total membership. Many of them hold division offices and volunteer their help at convention and in other activities. They represent the future of the organization. I applaud the division leaders for creating a process that allows them to participate in the review process as we prepare for AECT 2007 in Anaheim.

Pat Miller,
President-elect

Okay, I'm still wondering what this process is exactly - at least with my own division (which is Distance Learning). I'm a four year Ph.D. candidate. I'm submitting my dissertation in less than a month. I'm starting a job as an Assistant Professor in less than six months. I've reviewed for AECT for two years now and have been reviewing for six others conferences for up to four years now. The process tha my division leader has created is that I can get one of my own faculty members to review proposals and I can shadow review their proposals.

This is not to be applauded but to my frowned upon. This is simply a way of making a third of AECT's membership second class members. What would happen next year if all graduate students decided not to attend the annual convention? AECT would incur a massive debt from the event, in addition the convention itself would be one of the worst on record because the graduate students that assist in the tech support, that man the registration desk, that collect the feedback forms, and generally serve as gophers at the convention wouldn't be there to keep things runnng smoothly on behalf of thefirst class members!

What would happen next year if all of the graduate students decided not to renew their membership? Well, I give AECT less than five years of life simply because they aren't able to attract new faculty members and people outside of the academy. The biggest problem now is that a third of the membership are two to three year members (i.e., while they are graduate students and that's it). AECT is a way to network to get a job for some many graduate students and unless you can find meaningful ways to involve them in the organization once they have that job there is no need for them to maintain their membership. Making them second class members is not the way to engage them in meaningful ways.

The reality of this situation is that if AECT really believes that graduate students are the future of the organization, the organization needs to do more than simply pay lip service to graduate students and stop the discrimination that it has within what some members are able to contribute and other members can't. Seems kind of hypocritical that AECT has no problems with grduate students serving on the executive and even running various divisions, but graduate students can't be trusted to review a 1500 word proposal!

Please note, The Opinions Expressed...

Tags: AECT 2007, AECT, blog, blogging, blogs, graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education

Graduate Students Snubbed by AECT

Okay, so I received this message from the Division of Distance Learning listserve - it was the third or fourth time that I've received this message.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gary R Morrison (GMorriso@odu.edu)
Date: Feb 14, 2007 1:17 PM
Subject: [DDL] Distance Learning and AECT Conference
Proposals

Just a quick reminder that proposals are due on 2/15.

Second, I still need additional reviewers for the proposals. The following is an email I sent earlier. If you are a faculty member or professional in the field, please volunteer so that I can spread the review responsibilities across a number of individuals rather than a few who graciously volunteered.

Faculty and professionals in the Distance Learning Division are invited toreview proposal submissions for AECT annual meeting. Reviews will begin about February 15th.

This year, we are encouraging faculty members to mentor a graduate student in the review process. Only the faculty member will submit a review, however, we encourage the faculty member to discuss the student's reviewand provide mentoring.

If you are interested in reviewing papers, please email Gary Morrison (gmorriso@odu.edu). Reviews will begin soon after February 15th. In the body of the email, please include the
following information:

Name
Email
Position
Affiliation
Address

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Thanks
Gary
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary R. Morrison, Ed.D.
Professor, Instructional Design & Technology
Educational Curriculum and Instruction
Education 249-3
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA 23529
(757) 683-6275

Given my interest in mentoring younger graduate students personally, I contacted Gary and told him that the way the call for reviewers was written, it really discouraged graduate students - who have traditionally made up a fair number of the reviewers. I got this response:

There has been a great deal of discussion about graduate students reviewing proposals this year. It appears this process is not being continued by a large majority of the divisions (I only know of one that is inviting graduate students to review). Currently, this issue is under review byAECT's executive committee.

If you would like to review papers, I strongly encourage you to have one of your mentors volunteer to review papers and mentor you.

Gary

First of all, I'd like to congratulation at least one division for not losing all sense. As I have lamented in the past, AECT has many challenges facing it (for recent rants, see Why AECT? Why? and AECT - You've Got to be Kidding Me!).

Graduate students make up a large portion of the membership and the convention attendees of AECT. In the past, many graduate students reviewed conference proposals - I know I did for my first two years of doctoral studies. And as you've probably read here in the past, AECT has made some changes that have made it more difficult for graduate students to get involved - increasing volunteer and student rates (in the case of volunteer rates from nothing to a hundred bucks over the past three or four years). Now they have taken away this opportunity for graduate students to get involved in something that it fundamental to life in the academy - service in professional organizations.

It is even more interesting that these same divisions have no problem with having graduate students serve on their executives, I know the Division of Distance Learning has two of us (out of seven or eight individuals). So, personally I am taking a principled stand on this issue. Not only am I not asking one of my mentors to sign up to review proposals so that I can help them out on an activity that I have been doing on my own for the past four years, I have also resigned from my position on the Division of Distance Learning. I encourage all graduate students to follow suit.

I'd also ask you to contact the President, President Elect, and Past President of your own divisions and ask them their policy on involving graduate students - not only in the review process, but what is their vision for how graduate students should be involved in their division.

Please note, The Opinions Expressed...

Tags: AECT 2007, AECT, blog, blogging, blogs, graduate student, graduate students, graduate school, higher education, education