The postdigital challenge of redefining academic publishing from the margins

ABSTRACT

This paper explores relationships between knowledge production and academic publication and shows that the current political economy of mainstream academic publishing has resulted from a complex interplay between large academic publishers, academics, and hacker-activists. The process of publishing is a form of ‘social production’ that takes place across the economy, politics and culture, all of which are in turn accommodating both old and new technology in our postdigital age. Technologies such as software cannot be separated from human labour, academic centres cannot be looked at in isolation from their margins, and the necessity of transdisciplinary approaches does not imply the disappearance of traditional disciplines. In the postdigital age, the concept of the margins has not disappeared, but it has become somewhat marginal in its own right. We need to develop a new language of describing what we mean by ‘marginal voices’ in the social relations between knowledge production and academic publication. Universities require new strategies for cohabitation of, and collaboration between, various socio-technological actors, and new postdigital politics and practice of knowledge production and academic publishing.     

Diversity and equality in academic publishing: the case of educational leadership

There have been ongoing criticisms of the field of educational leadership and management with respect to over-reliance on research from ‘Western’ contexts. However, evidence on the extent to which voices alternative to the dominant ‘Western’ discourse are represented in the international English-medium discourse of educational leadership and management is thin. Using a three-phase sequential mixed-methods approach, this paper explores knowledge production in the field by analysing the prevalence and impact of empirical articles published in four English-medium international journals. Additionally, the membership of editorial boards and editors is analysed to geographically locate key decision makers. Findings demonstrate that an exceptionally small set of core inner-circle Anglophone and non-inner-circle Anglophone settings enjoys disproportionate influence in the field. There is need for a knowledge base enriched with leadership and management practices from different sociocultural contexts and system structures with a multiplicity of voices to portray a more nuanced and balanced picture of leadership and management practices.     

Academic nightmares: Predatory publishing

Academic researchers who seek to publish their work are confronted daily with a barrage of e‐mails from aggressive marketing campaigns that solicit them to publish their research with a specialized, often newly launched, journal. Known as predatory journals, they often promise high editorial and publishing standards, yet their exploitive business models, poor quality control, and minimal overall transparency victimize those researchers with limited academic experience and pave the way for low‐quality articles that threaten the foundation of evidence‐based research. Understanding how to identify these predatory journals requires thorough due diligence on the part of the submitting authors, and a commitment by reputable publishers, institutions, and researchers to publicly identify these predators and eliminate them as a threat to the careers of young scientists seeking to disseminate their work in scholarly journals. Anat Sci Educ 10: 392–394. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.     

Higher education publication and institutional and national diversity

ABSTRACT

Educational scholarship is used by practitioners, policy makers, and scholars to shape educational practices. Since education takes place across the globe and incorporates students from a wide variety of backgrounds, educational scholarship should incorporate diverse perspectives. This study examines how institutionally and internationally diverse five leading journals of higher education are. Twelve years of publications are examined to determine the level of diversity among top higher education journals and compare diversity among these publications over time. Maps displaying the distribution of authors across the world are provided to illustrate the findings that higher education publication in the leading journals tends to come mostly from the US and to show the differences in distribution between leading journals.     

高校学报数字化出版存在的问题及对策

随着全球数字化浪潮的风起云涌,数字化技术以不可阻挡之势应用到社会生产生活的各领域。数字技术在带来便利的同时,也给高校学报带来了挑战。本文分析了高校学报数字化出版过程中出现的问题,探究了推动高校学报数字化健康发展的对策。     

Student connections with academic texts: a phenomenographic study of reading

Concerns about the ability of post-secondary students to read scholarly materials are well documented in the literature. A key aspect of reading at the deeper level expected of these students is connecting new information to prior knowledge. This study is based on an activity where students were explicitly required to make such connections as part of an in-class workshop on reading. Phenomenographic analysis of these connections showed that students could establish links between the scholarly article and their personal and academic knowledge. It also showed that students read at both surface and deep levels, making connections to the words in the text or on a deeper level, to the meaning of the text. These insights suggest ways of encouraging students to deepen their engagement with academic texts.     

Towards a methodology to determine standard time allocations for academic work

An online survey of workload activities was circulated to academics across Australia seeking estimates for the time to undertake a range of academic-related tasks associated with teaching, research and service. This article summarises the most important findings from the teaching data of the 2059 respondents. This detail of workload data has not been reported before across the Australian university sector. The findings showing that most academics work more than 50 h per week are consistent with previous studies. Although the estimates of the individuals varied greatly, statistical inquiry indicated the median time required does not vary by experience and online teaching generally requires more preparation time than on-campus teaching. The paper proposes this methodology as a credible means to derive realistic time-based standards for other aspects of academic work and will assist university managers by providing an external benchmark upon which to develop local academic workload models.     

我国计算机科学技术类期刊OA现状调查与分析

对《2009年版中国科技期刊引证报告》（核心版）收录的25种计算机科学技术类期刊的开放存取（OpenAccess）出版数量、上网形式、全文格式、开放全文的回溯年代和论文的开放时段进行了调查。结果显示：25种期刊中实现全文OA的期刊10种,所占比例为40％,期刊全文OA回溯到创刊年的3种;全文OA回溯年代的高峰期在2002年之后;8种期刊的网络版与印刷版同步,即时开放;2种期刊的网络版比印刷版滞后1年,延时开放。结果表明,我国计算机科学技术类期刊的OA出版还存在着数量有限、论文开放时段较短、单刊OA的出版模式难以形成信息集成的优势等问题。     

哲学教学与学术风格的培养

哲学教学首先要注重培养教师的学术风格，然后潜移默化地影响学生，培育厚积薄发，自由思想的哲学精神，哲学学术风格的训练对其他一切人社会科学的学习具有方法论意义。     

‘The rules above the bed’: academic language and learning as hospitality

ABSTRACT

In times of widening participation, Australian universities trade on notions of diversity, framing themselves as hospitable places of access and inclusion. In this space, Academic Language and Learning (ALL) practitioners may be seen as extending the welcome of the university through practices aimed at addressing students’ diverse needs. These include identifying students ‘at-risk’ of failure and attrition, conducting one-to-one appointments, and embedding academic literacies by team-teaching within disciplines. In this paper, we reflect on these practices through the lens of Derrida’s notion of hospitality, drawing on key themes such as the constitutive power relationships of hospitality, the aporia between conditional and unconditional hospitality, and hospitality as an ethics of difference and openness to the ‘arrival of the new’. For each of the explored practices, we problematise the institutionalised framing of ALL practitioners as hosts in benevolent universities providing an unreserved welcome to the student ‘foreigner’. We examine the practice of identifying students-at-risk and question a conditional hospitality that risks closing the door on the unforeseeable that students may bring. Our reflection on the managerially devalued one-to-one appointments highlights hospitality as ethics, with each appointment presenting a crisis of choice in responsibly welcoming student difference. Team-teaching exposes the ambiguity of the ALL practitioner ‘being at-home’ in embedded contexts while presenting the possibility for disrupting established roles and practices. Engaging with Derrida’s hospitality thus allows us to uncover power dynamics shaping the role of ALL practitioners and offers the possibility of ethical responsiveness to student difference and a radical opening to the new.     

开放存取模式下高校学报之发展

通过分析国内外高校期刊的出版现状,阐释我国高校学报采取开放存取出版的方式,并指出我国高校学报采用开放存取模式应注意的几个方面。以期高校学报能最大限度地发挥学术期刊在公共利益方面的效能。     

数字时代传统出版业发展的新出路

出版业已经进入数字时代,数字时代的出版主体呈现多元化趋势,使得出版效率更高、阅读更方便,从而表现出强大的发展潜力,对传统出版业构成挑战。文章分析了数字时代的数字出版给传统出版业带来的挑战,并进一步提出传统出版业发展的新出路。     

Effects of academic training on metatextual knowledge and hypertext navigation

We investigated the effects of college training on students’ metatextual knowledge, hypertext navigation strategies and their acquisition of problem-relevant information. Ten psychology undergraduates and nine clinical psychology post-graduate students were asked to study a 3,400-word, 14-section hypertext with the purpose of drafting a short essay on a specific, complex issue in the area of teenage psychopathology. The specialists outperformed the novices on a metatextual knowledge test. They spent more time visiting relevant sections of the hypertext, and wrote essays containing more critical information. They also displayed a better incidental memory for the hypertext structure. We discuss the data in terms of the late acquisition of metatextual knowledge and study strategies.     

Knowledge recontextualisation in academic development: an empirical exploration of an emerging academic region

As an emerging field within higher education, academic development remains fragmented, both as a field of theory and practice. In the vibrant, on-going debate about the theoretical foundations and directions of academic development as a nascent field, some relatively wide-ranging claims which have been made seem to be lacking in supporting empirical evidence. With regards to this limitation, this paper contends that more systematic empirical explorations of the knowledge-base of academic development are vital to gain a better understanding of the field. Informed by Bernstein’s social realist frameworks on the structure of academic knowledge, the paper presents an analysis of knowledge recontextualisation processes in two English and two Flemish academic development units, based on semi-structured interviews with 30 academic developers. From the analysis, contrasting patterns of knowledge recontextualisation emerged between the four sites and between the national contexts in particular, pointing towards an increasing epistemological fragmentation.     

泛在知识环境下以图书馆为核心的学术信息交流新模式

泛在知识环境下,传统的学术信息交流模式已无法满足开放存取的需求,而出版服务渐露端倪,在开放的国际环境下,国外图书馆不断尝试,承担了新的历史使命,扩展了学术信息交流的范围,提高了交流的效率。我国高校图书馆也应当以环境为依托,充分发挥自己文献中心的作用,构建新型的、开放的学术信息交流模型。     

科技期刊手机传播的发展设想

手机传播不仅是对科技期刊传统出版的简单延伸,更是在资源配置上的有效互动、取长补短。传统出版和手机传播的共赢模式可以增强期刊社的核心竞争力。科技期刊工作者应加大对科技期刊手机传播的研究,以提高我国科技期刊数字出版的技术水平和国际竞争力。中国科技期刊在实现手机传播的过程中,应做出相应的战略部署,并根据手机传播的技术需要调整和改进编辑出版规范,达到科技期刊纸质版、数字版与手机版(无线数字版)相互促进的良性互动。     

高校"两课"研究性教学模式探讨——谈"马克思主义哲学原理"课的教学

高校“两课”是德育教学的主要基地,在教学内容、教学方法和教学效果上必须不断推陈出新,跟上时代的发展,必须符合国家的政策和中央的精神。最近,根据中共中央宣传部和教育部的要求,制定了“两课”教学的新方案。为什么要开展研究性教学模式和如何开展这一模式,本文试图探讨其必要性和可行性以及在“马克思主义哲学原理”课中的运用。     

Developing academic literacy through a decentralised model of English language provision

ABSTRACT

Students entering English-medium universities frequently struggle to cope with the language demands of their degree programmes, despite having met the English language entry conditions stipulated by their receiving institutions. This can have significant repercussions for the teaching-learning process, for the student experience and for universities’ reputations. Most universities, therefore, have in place some form of in-sessional English language support to develop students’ language proficiency. Such provision tends to be centralised and to offer English for general academic purposes rather than language development that responds in a more nuanced way to the particular literacy needs of students’ disciplines. In this article we report on an alternative, decentralised model of language support, implemented in a School of Nursing and Midwifery, and which seeks to develop students’ competency in the language skills required for their Nursing studies and professional practice. Results to date have been encouraging and provide further evidence that such tailored provision offers a potentially fruitful language development strategy.     

A place called home. Women and philosophy of education

Abstract

This paper argues for the active participation of women in philosophy of education and the importance of their sexually differentiated positions in pluralising knowledge. Drawing on the philosophical work of Luce Irigaray it explains how the feminine as other, has been symbolised as a dark epistemological cave from which those seeking universal truths ought to escape. Within such phallogo-centric systems of knowledge, women’s thoughts have been excluded from philosophy, and the feminine became un-representable as philosophical. This scenario raises important political and ethical questions related to women’s place in philosophy of education and calls for deconstructive strategies aimed at using feminised locations to challenge phallogocentrism. The paper argues that a simple inclusion of women’s thoughts or the replacement a masculine-dominated philosophy with feminine ones do not suffice to disrupt the order that establishes what counts as philosophy. It therefore explores how sexual difference can rethink the traditional tenets of philosophy. The idea that women need a place that they can call home for such practices and whether this space can really differentiate knowledge is debatable and controversial. In considering this possibility, however, sexual difference is not considered a subject for thought in philosophy of education but a question that rethinks and engenders it.     

The connotations of botho philosophy and its potential contribution towards environmental conservation: the case of Tlokoeng community in Lesotho

This paper explores innovative environmental education strategies to conserve biodiversity in a rural-based context, in Lesotho. A case study approach was employed to investigate the community’s conception of botho philosophy and how it might promote nature conservation. Focus Group Interviews were conducted with 105 participants. The responses were analyzed to determine the community’s emerging definition and conception of botho. The findings indicate features of botho that parallel the ones that are found in the literature. In addition, botho was described metaphysically as a holistic spiritualised worldview that is concerned with a harmonious co-existence with others, nature and the Creator and empirically, in terms of moral attributes that foster co-existence within the socio-economic and natural systems. It is illustrated that botho can contribute towards environmental education discourse and nature conservation and thus diversify the pre-dominantly Euro-centric knowledge landscape in Lesotho.