On April 27 2012, Concordia University Libraries hosted its 10th annual Librarian’s Forum. I like to think of this venue as an opportunity for colleagues to expose their ongoing research projects to get feedback or pointers before the completion of their research cycle. At least, that is how I approach this event with regards to my participation.

The keynote address this year was given by Gwendolyn Ebbett, the Dean of the Library, University of Windsor. Amongst other topics, she presented the forthcoming Librarians’ Research Institute, hosted by her institution and sponsored by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL). Broadly speaking, this three day event (June 11-14 2012) aims to build research capacity amongst academic librarians.

In light of these two very related events, as well as conversations with colleagues now entering the field of academic librarianship, I’ve given the issue of research some thought – incomplete and off the cuff – which I would still like to share with you.

In general, here is a simplification of the research process :
1. (Questions) Think about a problem in our field. To do this, you will have to read, think and exchange.

AKA – the literature review, participating in conferences, engaging with colleagues to identify partners. Try to work on a big issue that is bugging everyone. Think big, start small, scale fast. Don’t be afraid to change the world – you are asked to look for tension or something that is amiss

2. (Hypothesis) Make a bet about why the problem exists or try to fix it. To do this, you will have to structure, express, plan.

This is the most critical step – you have to get it right. You will also have to figure out the methodology of your project.

3. (Experiment) Measure some things. To do this, you will have to execute, document, review.

This is where the bulk of the activity occurs in your project

4. (Conclude) Rethink the problem. To do this, you will have to write, share and repeat step 1.

Project documentation is essential – without it, you cannot publish and have an impact in your field. You will also have to publish your results

Now, these generic steps provide some guidance about what needs to be done, but it makes a lot of sense to try to build a project plan articulating these points. It should fit on two pages maximum.

In the first page, you should be describe the project in a few paragraphs. This refers to point (1) above. Then, the main objectives or hypothesis should be spelled out in a few bullet points or paragraphs (see (2) above). Then, any partners or networks should be identified. All this should fit on a single page, understandable by a smart person that is not an expert in your domain.

For the second page, your project plan should address the main steps. For each step, you should determine a deadline or milestone (when the step will be completed – a date), the step’s objectives, the parameters or constraints (things to keep in mind) and the resources. Here are some generic phases to a project:

1. “Grain of sand” phase: this is the pre-conceptualization phase. You’re not sure what you want to do, still exploring without much of a goal. This phase should not last more than 2% of the overall project timeline
2. Hourglass: you are zoning in on the topic you want, you are preparing a draft project plan. This lasts about 3% of the total project resources (time/money).
3. Sandbox: You are building your research questions, working on your hypothesis and selecting your methodology. 10% of the total project resources (time/money).
4. Sand quarry: You are executing the project. 65% of the total project resources (time/money).
5. Beach: Document and write results. 20% of the total project resources (time/money).

This could happen over many years, and involve many collaborators and funding sources. Or, it could involve only you. It doesn’t matter – only the fact that you plan out your activities so you can keep an eye on the overall goal: the satisfactory completion of your research project.

You can also plan for research outputs throughout the project, for example, highlighting gaps in the literature during your lit review to feed into the hypothesis formulation or providing insight on how you have operationalized a particular methodological approach on a problem. This keeps feeding the publish-or-perish monster.

Now, I have explained this process – in French – on my other blog a few years ago. See: Étapes de la recherche, cadre conceptuel, hypothèse, cadre opératoire on CultureLibre.ca. I’ve fixed up a quick Google translate but it really does not do justice to my original French text – sorry if it sounds convoluted. I was trying to summarize the doctoral thesis writing process to a friend, but it applies to a general research protocol:

The research project (or thesis) begins with a theme and grows through the initial phases of the project, as specified Mace and Petry. The development phase consists of two steps: conceptualization (thinking about a problem to solve arising from a discrepancy between observed reality and an objective) and operationalization (the “realization” of research ). In fact, the problem is articulated through a theory or a “theoretical framework” that relates to a possible hypothesis and objectives that seek the solution (or the outcome of the research).

In the initial phases, it is essential to make (and respect!) choices in order to reach the end of our project. Indeed, we must (1) select a problem and articulate it with precision, (2) formulate the problem and most importantly, general and specific research questions, (3) define research objectives, (4) position the project in the current state of knowledge, (5) clarify the conceptual language (conceptual framework) and (6) clarify the ambitions and the limits of the project.

Moreover, “a thesis, it is not an essay.” An essay is an amalgam of theories, thoughts and opinions, proposed by an author to explore a topic in a manner of his own. An essay can be original (as a thesis for that matter), but the academic rigor is not necessarily at par (not be excluded that the rigor of the test, but there is more latitude). Often, an essay is tinged with a political choice or a moral stance on an issue. You should avoid this perspective in the thesis. Consistency and discipline are the foundation of the thesis. This is why there are many references or footnotes in a page thesis.

To present some examples of conceptual frameworks, Professor Rolland [referring to the prof in charge of a doctoral seminar I took in the Winter of 2010 at Université de Montréal Law Faculty] presents some entries the Encyclopedic Dictionary of theory and sociology of law, especially the concepts of “interpretation” by Arnaud and that of “Validity” by Ost / de Kerchove (p. 243 and following of the first volume of the collection). About validity, the authors offer the hypothesis that the validity has three aspects, the formal validity (which offers the concept of legality), the empirical validity (for effectiveness) and axiological validity (ie, legitimacy). It is often very relevant to represent the conceptual framework presented in our readings in graphic form (“topic / concept map”).

Then, it is essential to state an hypothesis and / or research goals. The hypothesis, which is a classical approach, is a “small” (hypo) thesis, that is established upfront. This is a tentative explanation, an anticipated response or predicting phenomena of reality resulting from our analytical framework, which is still plausible. It is proposed as an affirmative expression that employs the concepts of your conceptual framework. In the hypothetical-deductive context, the thesis is the sum of the hypothesis and evidence.

The research objectives are the formulation of our research intention, to describe or compare.

Moreover, the hypothesis can establish a relationship between two facts, between two concepts or between a fact and a concept that should be validated. The relationship between the two could be a causal one, an associative one (correlation, involvement, cause-effect), dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). We must delve into our hypothesis (based on the conceptual framework) to establish the operational framework on which we will base our proof.

The concepts are abstractions of reality based on a precise language. They must include all essential attributes for object classes with common properties. It is by drawing up the conceptual framework that can articulate our hypothesis into variables. These variables are then analyzed and used by our operational framework (which contains, among other things, the analytical framework).

The operational framework becomes a deepening of the conceptual framework, in line with the variables to be studied.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MACE Gordon and Francois Petry, A Guide to Developing a research project, 3rd ed., Quebec, PUL, 2000

Visually, what I describe in the long quote would look something like this:

Research Project = conceptualization + operationalization
Conceptualization (Theoretical framework):
– Problem statement (general & specific research questions)
– Conceptual Framework
– Hypothesis (or objectives)
Operationalization (Operational Framework)
– Variables (derived from hypothesis)
– Methodology
Experiment

Hope this helps 😉

This post from The Guardian Higher Ed presents a recent study:

This week saw the first publication of a new ranking of national HE systems, based on research at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (University of Melbourne) into data from 48 countries with a developed HE offering. The ranking is organised by Universitas 21, a global network of research universities

The study ranks Canada 3rd, below the US and Sweden.

This post from Diane Goldenberg-Hart on the Coalition for Networked Information’s (CNI) mailing list (CNI-ANNOUNCE: cni-announce-subscribe@cni.org) caught my eye It features James J. Duderstadt, who is (from the email):

is President Emeritus at the University of Michigan, he chaired the National Academies committee that published the key 2002 report Preparing for the Revolution: Information Technology and the Future of the Research University, and he is a member of the Academies committee studying the future of the research university. In this talk, Duderstandt discusses the social and technological trends driving the restructuring of higher education, the future role of the research university, and the changing understandings of teaching and learning, scholarship, and engagement.

The theme of the talk is “Reinventing the Research University to Serve a Changing World” and was delivered at the opening plenary from CNI’s spring 2012 membership meeting:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OwrYZmaXBY&w=480&h=360]
The video is over an hour long, so here are some slides that caught my eye :

The full video is also available on CNI’s two video channels: YouTube: http://goo.gl/sfycM or Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/41324942
Or via their channels: YouTube http://www.youtube.com/cnivideo or Vimeo http://vimeo.com/channels/cni

MIT and Harvard announce the launch of a new online education platform called EdX :

[From the press release] Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) today announced edX, a transformational new partnership in online education. Through edX, the two institutions will collaborate to enhance campus-based teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners.

EdX will build on both universities’ experience in offering online instructional content. The technological platform recently established by MITx, which will serve as the foundation for the new learning system, was designed to offer online versions of MIT courses featuring video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate feedback, student-ranked questions and answers, online laboratories, and student paced learning. Certificates of mastery will be available for those motivated and able to demonstrate their knowledge of the course material.

MIT and Harvard expect that over time other universities will join them in offering courses on the edX platform. The gathering of many universities’ educational content together on one site will enable learners worldwide to access the course content of any participating university from a single website, and to use a set of online educational tools shared by all participating universities. […]

Here is the video of the press release:
http://www.ustream.tv/embed/11009424

Live Video app for Facebook by Ustream
Interesting questions spring to mind: exactly what technologies will run this initiative “under the hood” of the system? How will it work with Moodle or MOOCs? This notwithstanding, it remains a very interesting development to keep an eye on!

Here are a few Fair Use guides setup by institutions. Fair Use is a general exception to copyright applies in the USA – in Canada, we have fair dealings, which applies to private study, research, news reporting, criticism and review.

These guides may be useful in devising our own fair dealings guides.

“Best practices” from the Center for Social Media, includes the following:
– The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries from the Association of Research Libraries– Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare
– Copyright, Free Speech, and the Public’s Right to Know: How Journalists Think about Fair Use
(Thanks to this post from District Approach, an ALA blog)

For videos:
Fair Use and Video: Community Practices in the Fair Use of Video in Libraries

For music:
– The Music Library Association (USA) has a series of guides delaing with Digital reserves (a type of fair use in libraries, as this one from Indiana University) as well as a general Statement on the Copyright Law and Fair Use in Music.
–

For images:
– Visual Resources Association: Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study (see this blog post: New College Art Association Standards and Guidelines on the Fair Use of Images posted by Linda Downs)

An interesting attempt to rething journal rankings, with open access publishing in mind:

March 2012 College & Research Libraries vol. 73 no. 2 134-145
Positioning Open Access Journals in a LIS Journal RankingJingfeng Xia

See these guidelines about tenure for librarians in universities:

Standards for faculty status for academic librarians: Approved by the ACRL Board of Directors, June 2007, revised October
2011 March 2012
College & Research Libraries News vol. 73 no. 3 160-161

The Modern Languages Association just issued an updated “Guidelines for Evaluating Work in Digital Humanities and Digital Media” – see also a blog post from InsideHigherEd.

See also this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education: Scholars Seek Better Ways to Track Impact Online (Jan 12 2012).

A recent blog post from Inside Higher Ed pointed me in the direction of this open course or MOOC:

Instructional Ideas and Technology Tools for Online Success / http://events.blackboard.com/open

I could not resist the temptation to enroll despite the fact that I have a pretty full plate for the next few weeks. By the way, you can read more about Massively Open Online Course (or MOOCs) on this recent post on OutFind.ca.

We had a very interesting meeting today with Concordia’s Center for Teaching & Learning. The goal of the presentation was to explore partnership ideas, but we also discussed how the Library could contribute to a blended learning initiative at our institution.

Here are some thoughts about the blended learning environment (I purposefully use the environment paradigm, which I borrow from systems theory as posited by Luhmann)

Firstly, the main point brought was the idea of a “learning object” – a concept that we did not quite hammer out. I would offer this personal definition : a learning object is a type of document that presents information or knowledge to enable a learner to achieve a specific outcome. A learning object may (recursively) contain one or many other learning objects. Templates are useful tools to present this information or knowledge in a structured way. A learning object repository is a collection of curated learning objects, with associated metadata.

Secound, I would like to point out that there are many agents in this environment : the learners (obviously), the instructor or their assistant, the content owners and the system administrators. Each one of them has a role to play in the conception, organisation and provision of learning objects to learners.

Of course, the goal would be to identify all the learning objects and all the agents that are relevant in this environment. It may be easier to start with all the distinct templates of learning objects (as there may be too many learning objects).

Which now brings me to this conceptual model:

I devised this model during the course of my graduate degree in law (I’ve explained it on this blog post) and I’ve presented it at an IFLA Pre-Conference.

Now, this model tries to map out the Web 2.0 environment – I will make the claim that “blended learning” is functionally equivalent to Web 2.0 on a conceptual level (sorry for not prouving this point thoroughly – more on that later perhaps).

It is defined as 2 elements, documents and agents, interacting through 4 generic relationships: linking (document-document); conversations or intermediations (agent-agent); using (document-agent); and contributing (agent-document). This is meaningful in a discussion of a library’s role in a blended learning environment as is helps define exactly where it may be useful.

Specifically, I find that the priority is to identify areas where librarians may be contributing content – creating learning objects, followed closely to linking these learning objects to form paths through the knowledge base. Finally, librarians may play a role in the conversations that may happen in the environment between the various agents (focussing, as a priority, with the conversations that happen with the gatekeepers of knowledge: instructors and their assistants).

Of course, this is an off the cuff exploration of a complex topic, where I pin some broad concepts on a simplification of the real world. But it makes sense ! Please feel free to share comments or questions below…

Special thanks to Pamela Carson and Vince Graziano, two colleagues from Concordia University Libraries, for our very interesting conversation that was instrumental in organizing this post.