New resources on “Communicating SoTL”
Thank you to Margy MacMillan, librarian extraordinaire, for curating many resources on writing/publishing/communicating research and putting them on our new page, Communicating SoTL. Let us know if you find them useful!
Update on predatory journals
This an update to information in an earlier post.
Beall’s list of predatory publishers has recently been criticized by Walt Crawford, long-time advocate of Open Access for some biases in what gets listed. Bottom line is journals listed there may or may not be predatory, and journals not listed there also may or may not be predatory – but it’s a good place to do a first check if you’re suspicious.
One of the resources Crawford links to is a good guide to checking the ‘scamminess‘ of publishers posted on Gavia Libraria. The post has very useful tips and considerations and I highly recommend going through the steps provided to check the credibility of a journal before you decide to publish there.
Special Issue: Doing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Measuring Systematic Changes to Teaching and Improvements in Learning
There is a new resource for SoTL that has just been published by New Directions for Teaching and Learning:
The book is written primarily by psychologists and, as you might expect from the title, they define SoTL as “an instructor asking questions about the impact of his/her teaching on students’ learning in an individual course”. This is a narrow definition, however they clearly and thoroughly address research design considerations for these types of studies (there is, however, an absence of theory). The chapters on designing SoTL studies take an empirical and quantitative perspective, addressing issues such as construct and internal validity, different types of comparisons (between participants, within participants, pre-test/post-test) and different experimental and quasi-experimental research designs . For any faculty member planning to do such a comparison study to assess a teaching intervention (or “treatment”, to use their language), Chapters 2, 3 & 4 are excellent resources to help you design your study.
Bartsch, R. A. (2013), Designing SoTL Studies—Part I: Validity. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2013: 17–33. doi: 10.1002/tl.20073
*If you’re new to SoTL and are considering an experimental design for your project, you may also want to read Fallacies of SoTL: Rethinking How We Conduct Our Research, Chapter 8 in The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning In and Across the Disciplines (I have a copy in my office if you’d like to borrow it.)
Back to NDTL: There are also two very useful chapters on writing which are quite applicable to a range of disciplines:
The Chapter on “Navigating the IRB” (Institutional Review Board) is quite American and there are better resources available for our Canadian context (see my summary here).
There is also a Chapter on Faculty Development Centres and the Role of SoTL, and I was happy to note a shout-out to MRU’s Nexen Scholar’s Program!!
do you know about predatory journals?
Karen and I have both recently received invitations to submit/review for what we think are likely “predatory journals” (actually, I’m sure mine was!)
When you are looking for a journal to publish in, please be careful and be aware that there are many bogus journals out there. Be sure to check out a journal that you are not familiar with, as to the quality of papers they have published. Other clues include promises of extremely fast reviews, no vetting of reviewer qualifications, and the same editorial board for all journals the publisher publishes. Fortunately, someone has already done much of this work for you. Beall’s list is a comprehensive and evolving (and long!!) list of suspicious publishers, which will be useful for a first step in checking out a journal:
http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/
As an example, I received an invitation from Higher Education Studies, published by the Canadian Center of Science and Education which is on Beall’s list. I was suspicous before I even checked the list though, because the invitation from the editorial assistant said that after reading one paper of mine, she could “tell from [your] work that [you] are an expert in the field of education”.
Definitely suspicious!
** Update: Beall’s list has been criticized by some for being biased against Open Access. Perhaps the main message should be – be aware!! For more info see Margy’s more recent post here: http://blogs.mtroyal.ca/isotl/2014/03/13/update-on-predatory-journals/
academic writing resources
The SoTL writing group, facilitated by Karen Manarin, had an intense residency in August and are continuing to work together this semester until everyone’s paper is submitted. What a supportive group! Here are some online resources Karen has passed along (courtesy of Margy):
Writing for an academic journal: 10 tips