Supporting Early Career Researchers and Building Research Communities in Education

Dr. Patrick Carmichael

Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies, Cambridge

CARET and ‘Virtual Research’

• CARET’s role is to support teaching, learning and research across the University of Cambridge through the development, use and evaluation of appropriate technologies

• Part of the Sakai Consortium, CARET operates, support and develops ‘CamTools’ - the Cambridge Virtual Collaboration Environment: a single environment for teaching and learning, and research

• Provide Sakai-based VRE for the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme and British Educational Research Association

• So we’ve had an opportunity to compare ‘institutional’ and ‘disciplinary’ models of support for virtual collaboration and research

• Also have several major ESRC projects: users as well as providers!

The Many Meanings of (Virtual) Research

• Big science’ (which has tended to dominate ideas about online research collaboration) is not the only model we have to support

• Also (for example):

• Specialised and very widely distributed user communities

• Secondary analysis of historical texts

• Longitudinal multi-method studies

• Participatory research and engagement, including student research

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme

• An ESRC research programme running 1999-2009: over 70 projects ranging from fellowships to £1million+ multi-institutional collaborations

• Most substantial infrastructure yet for a social science programme

• Sakai Virtual Research Environment

• DSpace Digital Repository (c.1500 items)

• with automatic ESRC submission :)

• Online publication of programme publications

• Programme website, website support for projects

• News service, events alerting, electronic conference support

menu bar showing subscribed worksites

project logo, mascot or inspirational message

tool menu showing tools in this worksite

users present and active in the worksite now

worksites are access-controlled by password

A Look at the TLRP Virtual Research Environment

Link

Distinctive Patterns of Research and E-Research

• Project A: a focus on management of research processes

Geographically distributed university teams

VRE supporting collaboration around data and analyses

Both qualitative and quantitative data collected and iteration between these an important aspect of project design

Data needed to be secure but available to all members of the (small) team. Need to alert members of the research team when new files have been added. And a need to carefully monitor access to the data for confidentiality of the participants

Highly organised

• Project B: a focus on engagement and management

Single university, wide range of stakeholders

Originally conceived as a central storage site and means of communication

Highly ‘hacked’ and task specific, the VRE becoming the ‘answer’ to a range of requirements and problems: quick online meetings; collaborative writing/thinking tasks; literature review; short term storage ‘put it in the VRE!’; analysis of research data

Very untidy!

A more creative (and challenging) interpretation of what a VRE is, can do and might do

Early Career Researchers in Education

• Highly diverse group

• Small number move directly into research post-degree or post-ITE

• Many are expert teachers (M.Ed and Ed.D routes)

• Imports from other disciplines

• Parallel disciplines for whom education is an area of research

• Neuroscience

• TEL/CAL

• Critical Sociology, Post-Modernist studies of schools and schooling

Early Career Researchers and their ‘Needs’

Skills and Competencies

Formal Training and Accreditation

Expert seminars

Networks offering access to high quality resources

Social Practices Mentoring

Work-in-progress seminars

Support networks and peer learning

Identities and Intersections

Critical Friendship - the ‘significant other’

Reflective accounts

Networks as emergent and relational

Networks

• The ‘network metaphor’ vs network concepts vs network theories

• Network theory: a problem because networks are not theorised like this within disciplines like education

• Can networks be ‘built’?

• Castells: Networks as a new institutional form

• Is this what a research programme or multi-institutional project is?

• Negri and Hardt: Networks as trans-institutional or counter-institutional sets of relationships

• Is this what effective early career researchers have to do?

Current Research and Development

• An interesting point in time for educational research

• Large programmes (TLRP, AERS) have recently come to an end

• ESRC research methods provision being centralised

• ESRC undergoing a strategic review

• REF replacing RAE, with implications for some models of educational research

• Interest in Web 2.0 and ‘Social Semantic’ web applications to support new ‘post-programme’ networks (RSS, Delicious, Connotea, FOAF starting to appear as part of the educational research landscape)

From VRE to Research Networking?

Sakai 3: development areas• ‘iGoogle’ type widgets for customisation

• Academic profile for differentiated audiences

• Personal archiving and publication management

• Person to person networking

• Access to resources, alerts, events

• Group and ‘space’ formation

Implications and Future Directions

• For recruitment into educational research

• For provision of:

• M level courses, +1 courses, research methods training

• Support for ‘apprenticeship’ and peer learning

• Critical friendship and high value weak ties

• For cumulation of experience

• For information providers, libraries and digital archives

• For network technology developers and providers