In the process of writing that last post I realised that my monograph plan is no longer as fuzzy as it once was, which I take to be a sign in and of itself that continuous publishing works as a way of developing ideas i.e. a few months ago this amounted to little more than “I want to write about the academic uses of digital tools when I finish my PhD”.
This is my idea as it stands:
- An overview of the uptake of digital tools within the academy and surrounding issues
- Case studies of how they are being used by within different fields of inquiry and ensuing effects on academic norms
- Case studies of how they are being used by particular scholars and ensuing effects on their academic practices. The aim would be to conceptualise emerging practices (e.g. continuous publishing) in a way which makes their conscious uptake (rather than organic emergence) much easier.
- Analysis of how these current trends might, over time, impact on academic norms and practices e.g. what would/could academia 2.0 look like and what would be its significance?
- Appendix providing practical guidance about how things detailed in (2) and (3) are done i.e. how do you choose to start engaging in some of these newly emerging digital academic practices.
I see (2) and (3) as research questions. For the former, this would involve interviewing people who do research policy and/or comms work in humanities / natural sci / soc sci as well as reviewing the existing literature, which I know in the digital humanities is getting fairly extensive. For the latter, it would involve identifying people who are incorporating these tools into their everyday practice and using a variety of methods (e.g. time use diaries as well as interviews) to identify how the digital tools are reshaping their professional practices, understood as their attempts to reflexively actualise personal projects within professional circumstances not of their own choosing.
