Blogging for Academics
Slate has an article on the perils and tribulations of academics blogging. Much of the discussion focuses on two key concepts: 1.) what role does blogging play in academic work (can a blog be creative and scholarly if it is not peer reviewed or is blogging just a service function?) and, 2.) what is the impact on untenured faculty and their chances for tenure.
The discussion heated up recently when Daniel Drezner, a popular blogger and assistant professor at the University of Chicago, was denied tenure. Drezner has since accepted a tenured associate professor position at Tufts ( the article indicates that they learned about him via his blog). So what role does a blog play in the academy? My answer would be that blogs serve several roles, among them:
- Blogs serve as a way to connect people - both internally and externally. For those in outreach it connects us to current and potential clientele and encourages engagement by interaction.
- Blogs allow one to flesh out ideas or concepts. Key thoughts can be written in draft form on a blog and feedback provided.
- Blogs are both organizational and educational tools. Organizational information can be shared (see Iowa State University Extension’s Tech blog) and the blogs themselves can be interactive or descriptive methods of education.
The Slate article does a good job of introducing some rough ideas about how to create a peer review or judging system for blogs. I think the blogs are here to stay. It might take some time for the academy to fully accept or figure out how to measure their merits, but it will eventually happen.
Good post. I wonder a tad about your comment, “can a blog be creative and scholarly if it is not peer reviewed or is blogging just a service function?” Service function? This to me says that Extension/Service work is something less than academic. When we perpetuate this notion do we not contribute to the thinking that Extension faculty are not the equal of teaching and research?
I’ve been giving this a lot of thought lately as I’ve been in numerous discussion on intellectual property and Extension. Our own people advance the idea that Extension faculty are doing “work for hire.” To me, this is just codifying the non-academic nature of Extension work. Then we wonder why Extension faculty get no respect.
So, to answer your question directly: of course blogs are creative and academic. Am I not peer-reviewing your posting right now?
Comment by Kevin — November 26, 2005 @ 10:24 am
Kevin~ thanks for the comments. I agree that the blogs can be academic. Let me be more specific about my statement as a service function. I was referring to where the academy might want to place blogging activities in a vita for review for promotion and tenure. This was in reference to the Slate posting. I do agree that we (Extension) can be our own worst enemy in how we define our functions. See this recent JOE article for more examples of how we can better frame the debate: http://www.joe.org/joe/2005august/comm2.shtml
And thanks for the peer review!
Comment by Jerry Thomas — November 28, 2005 @ 8:07 am