Research Management Product

Lorraine Sherry - 1997

To me, the purpose of a research management product is to be able to access, share, and disseminate information of a scholarly nature. This information can be gleaned from classes, collaborative projects with others, internships, LISTSERVS, online journals, etc. It can be stored as hard copy, on my hard drive, on any of my university accounts, or on backup storage devices. I use them all.

My research management product, along with all my other portfolio items, is stored on my Home Page.

Search Methods
Synthesis
Organization and Management
Dissemination
Hard copies, books, magazines, etc.

1. Search Methods

Library resources

If I need to find something in the library, I'll usually search CARL from home or work, check out interesting titles that show up, maybe print out the abstract. Else I'll do this in the library. I also find ERIC/AskERIC extremely helpful. If I can't find what I want, then I use the option where the AskERIC folks will do the search for me, and that works very well. I've also gotten fast turnaround from the ZAP system, requesting articles that appeared in the bibliographies of other journal articles and book chapters that I was interested in.

Peers and other professionals

This is my most important source. I am on a lot of LISTSERVS, and I seek out people who share the same interests as I do. This is how I've found some really good "manuscript in preparation" titles, or internal documentation such as David Porter's evaluation of the NDDL distance learning program in Vancouver or Andy Topper's cohorts in CSCL at the University of Michigan. I've also gotten most of my K-12, online publishing, and distance learning resources that way. I also keep close e-mail contact with current and former students, and we share a lot of information about good articles that way - we also send manuscripts to one another via Carbon or Ouray. By using the links: command in Alta Vista, I can see exactly who is citing me; usually we share similar interests and can correspond.

Database searches

I link to Martin Ryder's collection of search engines rather than duplicating his list on my home. I feel most comfortable with Yahoo for straightforward searches, though Alta Vista generally produces many more hits. I also have the latest education search engine, though it hasnÕt proven all that useful yet.

Accessing online manuscripts and journal articles

I've been collecting online manuscripts, journal articles, pre-press articles from students at other universities, UCD manuscripts pertaining to CSCL, outstanding postings from LISTSERVS and newsgroups, and so on. I've grouped these into headings and put lists of links under each heading: miscellaneous research articles, educational technology sites, CSCL resources, and technology adoption/diffusion articles. Since the educational technology sites are of general interest to ILT folks, IÕve linked it to the SOE home page.

2. Synthesis

Notetaking from classes and readings

I take notes in class where appropriate. I don't take notes if I'm actively participating in a discussion, or if it's in a highly structured class like Message Design where everything is in the textbook or in handouts. It varies a lot, depending on the type of class. If it's a lecture, lab, or seminar, then I take a lot of notes. I do summaries of books and papers I've read, and then I post these summaries on my "Research Management Project" Page, by class or seminar. I resurrected my old vocabulary list from my USF Learning Principles class and had another member of the cognition class post it on the class home page. I found it useful to summarize and post the key points of the videotape we had to watch for the EDLI class. For the Burns book, I didn't post the synthesis paper because it contained my personal viewpoints. For the same reason, neither did I post my professional leadership, in which I synthesized all the class readings, reflected on them, and applied them to my personal development. For statistics, Laura Goodwin throught that my posted "crib sheets" on the key points for each statistical concept covered in the class was a very good way to synthesize and access information that I needed for the midterm and final exams.

Participation in online discussion groups and cohorts

I find this essential. However, I'm one of those early adopters, and I'm often frustrated that others don't share my enthusiasm for this extremely useful mode of information gathering and knowledge building. I'm usually the most frequent poster on class discussions. Sometimes I even get responses! In the EDLI class, there were a few of us who wanted to learn about innovation, because it simply wasn't being covered in class. I convinced the professors to give at least ONE lecture on innovation; they engaged me and two other doc students in guiding a discussion based on Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations, which all of us were reading on our own. After two years, I am seeing more interest in class discussions, especially for the new users who only know how to use CEO.

Connections to topic foci

When working on a class project, I usually brainstorm it well ahead of time, to see if I can get a journal article out of it. If I'm going to do a project, like the PSS lit review for the ID Doctoral Lab, or the Message Design project, then I'll try to tie it in with my topic foci and make a publishable product out of it. I don't want to waste my time just doing papers for the sake of doing papers. All my work should fit into a "grand plan. For example, all 1995-6 work is publishable, is oriented toward presentations (I need practice in giving presentations), and is in some way related to research, design, development, or support for collaborative knowledge-building. In 1996, I began to get interested in adoption/diffusion of technology, and my topic foci are beginning to shift in this new direction.

Reading, comprehension, and retention strategies

I am a very slow reader, and I have great difficulty retaining information. It generally takes me two nights to read a single article. I make notations in the margin, or put an "*" or a check mark next to important points. Then I reread the article after I've gone through it the first time. This is the only system that works for me. Then I summarize the article and put the summary online. I am also very selective in what I read. Considering that I belong to ACM, AACE, AECT, and AERA, and subscribe to Byte, MacWorld, Scientific American, and Mac Week, I really have to deal with information overload!

3. Organization and management

Bibliographic and content databases

These are my summaries; I keep them online, organized by both author and "buzzword" That helps me remember what the article was about. For class articles, I keep them within each class database; for textbook articles, I keep them within each textbook database (such as all the books we had to read for EDLI). For topics related to the Internet Task Force, or areas I'm currently interested in (such as adoption/diffusion, CSCL, etc.), I keep these on pages dedicated to a specific subject area. For example, I keep my tips and tricks on online pubishing (gathered from books, articles, postings, etc.), on my "online publishing" page.

Mapping, networking, outlining, etc.

I don't do this when I am reading, but I definitely do it when I am writing. I make notes in the margins and write summaries. When I'm about to gather a bunch of articles and write a paper, then I do outline the paper, and try to write from an outline, using the outline feature in MS Word. That works till about the second rewrite; then I have to move information around, and fill in with information from other related articles, at which point the outline generally falls apart. I always like to get my publications peer-reviewed by students or professors whose judgment and expertise I trust. I'll generally do several rewrites before an article is ready to submit to a journal.

A good example is the research proposal for the Phase II BVIP Evaluation. I had to run the first draft through Dianna, Shelley, and Alan Davis, and do several rewrites till it was approved by all 3 of them. Then, when I did the actual research, I had to completely reorganize the model in the proposal so that the data would fall into naturally occurring categories. Then, for the final report, Dianna and I came up with a new outline based on the four categories (technological, individual, organizational, and teaching/learning factors related to Internet adoption/diffusion), and wrote the report based on that. However, when I started to use the same model for the Texas technology adoption prect, I found I again had to change the outline, since the starf development piece involved not only individual factors but also some systemic/organizational and pedagogical factors as well. I went through the same process with the Performance Support paper, and finally had Brent become a co-author because of the numerous re-outlines and rewrites of the various drafts.

Hard drive management of data files

I start with "Lorraine's Stuff" on my Mac - right at the top level. Then I build subdirectories within it. In the paper version, you'll see the hierarchical structure: "Lorraine's Stuff", with folders for "Doctoral Program Requirements", "Message Design", "Publications", and so forth. I keep a folder for each class or major type of work on my hard drive; it usually contains drafts, because once it goes onine, that's where it gets maintained, updated, and revised constantly. I am scrupulous about keeping the date-of-last-update accurate; else I tend to get confused about whether the existing version is current or not.

Backing up my hard drive

At the end of each semester, I used to back up "Lorraine's Stuff" onto Syquest cartridges. Now that we have a Zip drive, I have my own 100 MB disk named "Spock", which I use for all my backup files. As of December 1996, I was already on my second Zip disk.

4. Dissemination

Publications

I keep copies of publications on a folder called "publications" on my hard drive. I discovered in the fall of 1994 that a home page would make an ideal vehicle for information management, especially for publications. At that time, I created another file called "pubs.html", linked to my home page, to store, share, and disseminate any publications that lent themselves to online versions. This excludes big items such as A Model Computer and Telecommunications Ideas, Activities, and Resources, which I've listed under "other published works". Since then I've renamed the file "Public Information Writing" and linked it to the list of portfolio items on my home page. I've also linked all my online publications to the SOE Home Page, on the Scholarly Publications page, alphabetically by author.

Presentations

I keep a separate section on my hard drive for PowerPoint presentations. On my home page, presentations that are linked to papers or proceedings are kept with the publications. Inservice presentations are kept with inservice. Sometimes it's very difficult to tell where to draw the line!

Contributions to classes

I keep important postings in a folder for each class. I also store important postings from other class members in that same folder, as well as messages from outside ixperts if I've contacted any. This is helpful when it comes to writing a summary, paper, or journal article.

Participation in electronic discussion groups

I belong to many including wwwedu, resodlaa, Novae, ANDREA, and DEOSNEWS. When I have a question, I don't hesitate to post it. When I see an interesting posting, I forward it to other faculty and students who may also be interested in seeing it. I've found some gems such as people's journal articles, grants, new K-12 sites, answers to HTML questions, etc. that way. Interestingly, I've gotten e-mail from people on those discussion groups who have seen my articles posted electronically, even before they're accepted for publication, and who want to cite them. I also post updates to important pages, especially when I move them around, so they don't get dead links.

My Home Page

This is divided into three major sections:
  1. Portfolio items
  2. Internet resources
  3. Other interesting sites

1. Portfolio items

My entire portfolio is online. There is a separate page for each portfolio item. Frankly, I wish I had started this part of the project earlier, because it takes a long time to do all these summaries and link them properly, whereas it's easy to keep up with this once it's started and well under control. Also, some of these files get absolutely huge and have to be broken up once they've been started. Message Design is a good example. I started summarizing the principles in a single file, which grew all out of proportion, so I had to subdivide it after I'd already started. The top level meta-index follows the chapters in the book. Within each chapter, there's another meta-index, that follows the sections in the chapter. Within each section, the principles are summarized in order. Hence, two clicks gets you to the proper set of principles; from that point it's easy to scan through them in order. I haven't broken up the IT6710 seminar file; thus it takes a long time to load, but I know everything is there and is very easy to access since it is all hypertext-based.

In addition to the required portfolio items, Brent suggested that I post two products from the cognition class. Since a portfolio assessment usually includes evaluating teacher-selected products as well as student-selected products, I've included the intellectual autobiography/cognitive map and the cognitive critique with the rest of the portfolio items.

2. Internet Resources

There are other large files linked to my home page (but not to my Research Management product), that I access quite frequently. There are five directories under the second section of my Home Page, titled "Internet Resources":

I haven't included the UCD Scholarly Publications on my Home Page because they rightfully belong on the tp level of the School of Education Home Page. However, that is a key dissemination site that I maintain and that I am "pushing" to enlarge.

3. Some Favorite WWW Sites

I think it is important to personalize a Home Page, just as we personalize our style of dress or hairdo, or just as I have matched the colors of my Home Page to my dress in the photo. I have this section divided into three groups: "Specifically Colorado", which are sites that I was involved with via RMC; "Educational", which include important databases, proceedings, and home pages dealing with instructional technology; and "Potpourri", which includes some good sites such as LL Bean's guide to National Parks (good hiking sites), road maps to anywhere (which I find vital, especially since I get lost in strange cities), a few other choice sites that deal with my outside interests, and of course "Dilbert" and "The History Exam".

5. Hard Copies

I have a small file cabinet under my computer at home, where I keep a folder for each current and recent class, plus all current projects. Folders which are more out of date go into a set of four file cabinets in the closet of my computer room. All folders are clearly labeled, and if they contain journal articles, those are arranged alphabetically by author.

Books currently in use are in a bookcase next to my Mac. Books less often utilized are in three cupboards in my hallway. Magazines are in that same cupboard, organized by journal and then by volume.

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Lorraine Sherry
lsherry@carbon.cudenver.edu
Updated January 5, 1997