Friday 22nd October 2014 - Literature searching by students

We make a lot about research-led teaching.  I've often argued, including in this blog, that there is also teaching-led research.  I have several examples in my own biography of students asking me questions that have led me into investigations to find the answers - and which have sometimes led to publications.

Today I have been involved in one other aspect of teaching that influences research.  I have just been revising the reading lists for the various alternative project titles that I set my students as a crucial part of the delivery of my final year module.  I don't regard these simply as assessment tasks but also as key learning elements.  What I ask students to do is to produce an essay on a particular theme, comparing the way it works out in two different European countries.  For most this is the first time they have ever had experience of 'comparative method' and its benefits and pitfalls.  So it is a learning task as well as a party of the assessment for the module.

Of course, I give students suggested readings for each of the themes.  But I also encourage them to exercise their powers of literature search to identify further materials that are of relevance for the particular comparison they choose to make.  And many students display great skill in identifying materials of which I was unaware.

So what I have been doing today is to go through last year's essays to identify possible new references to give to this year's students - once I have checked them out to satisfy myself that they are indeed worthwhile additions to make.  And those references are now added to my own stock of understanding and ideas for future research use.  It's another example of how teaching can act to facilitate future research.

Thursday 14th August 2014 - Disposing of old journals; and media priorities on A level results day

I subscribe to four academic journals, each arriving regularly through the post.  I am also on the editorial boards of two more, one of which is published elsewhere in Europe and which similarly comes as hard copy, whilst the other went into on-line-only delivery about 4 years ago.  Those five physical journals bring me around 28 copies per year each.  That's quite a bit of shelving.

Some time ago I adopted what I learned from my librarian colleagues as a 'Zero Net Collections Growth' policy for my journals.  For every new copy that comes in I should throw one away.  The rule I have made for myself is to keep only 20 years' copies of journals.  Over the last couple of days I have been going through journals from 1993 and throwing them away - in principle putting on one side those copies where I want to cut out and keep one article for my offprints file.  In fact there are very few such articles - today I threw out about 16 copies but found only one article that I wanted to keep.

It's a reminder of one's past life, reading through the contents lists of journals published 20 years or so ago.  I'm surprised how many of the authors I either knew at the time or have got to know since.  In many cases I wonder what has happened to them since because what were household names in my field have often dropped away - I'm sure many are not yet of retirement age but I'm also sure they are no longer academics.  I've come across book reviews by me that I don't remember writing (nor remember reading the book - although I'm sure I did).  And in one or two cases (including a very distinguished colleague here in Sheffield) I'm surprised that the authors were publishing in these journals 20 years ago because I hadn't realised they were old enough to have been on the scene then.

But the major reflection is how few of the articles are really still of anything other than historical interest.  One or two in the copies I've thrown away were early analyses of the changes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989-92, but most of their speculations about the future have proved wrong.  I would guess that in the social sciences the half-life of the average journal article is probably longer than in many other fields, for example in science, but there are very few articles from 1993 that are worth reading again, let alone keeping for future reference.  

Perhaps I ought to cut the period of retention to 15 years, or even 10. Or perhaps I should just cancel my subscriptions entirely and depend on the on-line versions.

Oh - one other thing happened today.  Today was A level results day.  I spent the whole morning in the helpline room, and recorded two significant interviews for television channels - commenting on the significance of today for school leavers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.  But at least one of those interviews wasn't broadcast.  The television station decided that accusations about sex abuse in the 1980s relating to a now 73-year old pop singer were more important than the futures of around a million of today's young people.    I don't share those views on relative priorities.