In a plain business language, a key performance indicator in research is academic publications; results of research are made public (especially those who are publicly-funded, cf. a blog entry here), available for further discussion and scrutiny. In this context, the research process is (ideally) explained within these publications (in most cases in a separate section in journal articles called research method).
The catch phrase of this era is: publish or perish (we have written few entries on this here and here).
Academics have taken this a step further by experimenting with open-source-peer review of journal articles; the idea of making things public is moving up-stream the “supply chain”, from research results to the actual peer-review.
But what about the process of brainstorming, thinking, synthesising and writing? Here, I am not referring to a description of this process, but the actual doing.
The Long Tail by Chris Anderson has roots in the world of blogging. In particular, Chris Anderson explains how the process of thinking and writing was facilitated by interactions through blogging:
“Given the unchartered waters, I solicited a lot of help from experts in all corners. As an experiment, I worked through many of the trickier conceptual and articulation issues in public, on my blog at thelongtail.com The usual process would go like this: I’d post a half baked effort at explaining how the 80/20 Rule is changing, for instance, and then dozens of smart readers would write comments, e-mails, or their own blogs posts to suggest way to improve it.”
By this, Chris Anderson extends the domain of open source development, object of which has been a particular product or technology (see further the work of Eric von Hippel, for example Democratizing Innovation,
and The Internet Galaxy by Manuel Castells, into the discussion of ideas and progress of research that is eventually published in a book. A very interesting book for the field of SCM, which may be too occupied with developing mass-business models to serve mass-markets. Not considering the long tail!
Now, when is the discussion of SCM about to move into the open-source environment?
Will there ever be a blog or perish? 
Árni
6 responses so far ↓
enkerli // August 4, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Árni,
Thanks for the trackback. One thing which does happen a lot is informal discussion between academics. Mailing-lists, private email messages, informal chats at conferences, dinners, etc. After all, the Internet itself was primarily a tool to connect academics.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that most ideas appearing in academic publications have been discussed informally beforehand. It should also be important to note that the overwhelming majority of the things academics think about will never appear in print. Academic publications are a tiny portion of the tip of the intellectual iceberg.
What you suggest is more formal and could be useful. Some people are currently experimenting with blogging their dissertation or adopting other collaborative methods in view of eventual publication. I personally hope that the effect will be less emphasis on publishing.
Chances are that “blog or perish” will never happen but something more collaborative than blogging might enhance academic discussions.
Arni // August 4, 2007 at 8:28 pm
I can only agree about the role of informal discussions, in particular your point on the fact that much of this is never printed.
(Which is to some extent fortunate, especially what regards discussion that takes place in the early morning hours at a bar close to a conference venue
).
The benefits of the blog are that you may reach out to scholars that work outside your subject area, but may provide some provocative thoughts.
After reading a number of entries by academics on their blogs I am convinced that this mode of discussion is fruitful; however, blogging is not necessarily the end, but may be an evidence of some maturity what regards use of new media and technology to facilitate discussions.
I am afraid that the emphasis on publishing is in the hands of institutions that want to have their name associated with well-known ranking lists.
At present time, the benefits of blogging are for the individual rather than their institutions, and that may be in our favor; we navigate by our ideas and interests rather than ‘performance indicators’.
Árni
rajwinder Singh // August 15, 2007 at 8:57 am
Dear
I have been doing work oo variety and supply chain but could not get your views on this .
thanks ,
Rajwinder Singh
MIMIT Malout
rajwinder Singh // August 15, 2007 at 8:58 am
good
clasumb // November 30, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Excellent forum with fantastic references and reading…. well done indeed…
http://srubibablo.com
Congratulations!
Idetrorce // December 15, 2007 at 11:05 pm
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
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