Chasing Dragons

Why UK Open Access Threatens Academic Freedom (#OA)

In light of the formalisation of core aspects of the open access regime by the Higher Education Funding Council  (HEFC) on 1 April 2013, there was an interesting piece by Curt Rice on the LSE Impact blog last week. He argues that open access will enhance academic freedom. While I would agree that his argument is plausible in theory--and I have presented similar arguments in favour of open access--his position completely ignores the institutional context that is shaping how open access is being implemented in the UK.

In fairness, Rice is based in Norway at the University of Tromsø. Therefore, it is uncharitable to expect him to understand and account for the pathologies of the British higher education system. 

Nevertheless, my argument is that open access requirements will become a means of supplementing the quotidian forms of monitoring and managerialism that plague UK universities. As discussions thus far have concentrated on 'greedy publishers', the value of peer review, and the future viability of disciplinary societies, I fear that the negative impacts on academic freedom catalysed by open access are going to blindside many colleagues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Academic Freedom

I take the definition of academic freedom offered by the UCU as my starting reference point. But it is not wholly sufficient. Beyond the standard 'freedoms to conduct research, teach, speak, and publish without interference or penalty', academic freedom should also encompass the freedoms to:

• conduct research that adheres to your methodological and topic-area preferences based on your own evaluations of your expertise;
• and pursue opportunities to place your research where you believe it will have the biggest impact on the audience that you are trying to reach.

I would also argue that academic freedom includes the freedom from being professionally evaluated by managers on the basis of crude metrics that do not engage qualitatively with the substance of one's academic work. 

Open Access and Three Threats to Academic Freedom

Unfortunately, there are three ways that open access in the UK will threaten academic freedom in the arts, humanities, and social sciences:

• First, although HEFC mercifully backed down from demanding that all post-REF 2014 eligible research be gold open access--i.e., authors pay journal publishers to have the accepted copy-set version of an article immediately available to the general public on a CC-BY license-- gold access will catalyse more intensive forms of managerialism. Senior research managers--who invariably look for quick measures of research quality that do not require reading articles--will use gold open access publications as a proxy for quality. Their assumption will be that gold pieces must have received UK Research Council funding as there are not sufficient funds to pay for gold open access from internal sources. Given that strike rates on awards in the arts, humanities, and social sciences range between 5-20% depending on the scheme, the use of this short-hand does not bode well for most colleagues.

• Second, it is often American-based journals that are considered to be the 'best' in individual fields based on reputation and ranking metrics. As the United States has the largest national research sector in the Anglo-European world, these measures of quality are often reflections of the size of the epistemic communities advocating for the merits of specific outlets and citation patterns within communities that reproduce ranking hierarchies. However, UK research managers have a tendency to go with ranking metrics because these make monitoring 'academic performance' easier for them. The position of a journal in a ranking system--generally the Thomson-Reuters ISI--is said to capture the quality of any individual research article published in the journal itself. Thus, research managers routinely pressurise academics to publish in these journals even when their areas of expertise and methodological commitments mean that the chances of acceptance are next to nil on the basis of fit--regardless of the quality of the work itself.  

• But the threat to academic freedom will be more pernicious with open access. I have already heard rumors from well-placed sources that US-based disciplinary journals are not going to offer open access options that meet HEFC guidelines and/or will operate an unofficial policy of rejecting all articles from the UK that come with open access requirements. In particular, many American editors and disciplinary associations are worried that colleagues based outside of the UK will perceive gold open access as 'paying to publish'. They are not prepared to wage the information campaign that will be required to convince people otherwise. When it comes to green open access, editors and publishers will be loathe to have to navigate the production of different licensing agreements in order to cater to UK academics. The easiest solution will be to eliminate the problem through desk rejections. 

• And here is where a perfect-catch 22 will arise. For those in the arts, humanities, and social sciences who have funding that will allow them to pursue gold open access, placing their work in 'top outlets' based in North America may well become impossible. And when they seek access to their research funds to obtain open access licenses for other outlets, they are going to have to convince sceptical research managers--who control how research monies are spent--that they should be given access to these resources. And one can only imagine the bureaucratic regime--and accompanying paperwork-- that will be instituted to evaluate these requests across UK universities. UK academics--whether funded or unfunded--will lose.  

• Third, open access will also lead to a significant impact on the amount of research funding available as the size of grants--particularly smaller grants like ESRC and AHRC doctoral studentships--are adjusted to provide resources for securing gold open access licenses. Given the current allocations of funding and the broader austerity drive, these adjustments will reduce the total number of awards that can be given. They will also narrow the scope of research that is funded away from non-responsive and inquiry-based initiatives towards specific topics and themes that are determined by funders--and influenced by government ideology. 

For these reasons--and others that will likely become manifest in the coming months--open access is going to directly--and indirectly--erode academic freedom in the arts, humanities, and social sciences in the UK. It is on the principles of academic freedom that colleagues and disciplinary associations should be demanding that open access requirements be reformulated to avoid these negative externalities.

[full disclosure: I am an editor-in-chief of the UK Political Association's journal Politics, associate editor of the journal Critical Studies on Security, and co-editor of the Popular Culture and World Politics book series].

Image credit for '9(the birth of control)': Derrick Tyson

Journal Turnaround Times in Political Science and International Relations: Some Issues to Consider

Recently the peer review process in academic publishing has been under increased scrutiny. While many issues have been raised, one of the ongoing sources of complaint for colleagues is the amount of time that the process can take and the lack of publicly accessible information about journal turnaround times. As a first step in beginning to address the lack of information in the disciplines of political science and international relations, Justin Greenwood has established reviewmyreview.eu , a blog that compiles journal turnaround times for a first decision and their acceptance rates.

As someone who is the co-editor of Politics, an associate editor of Critical Studies on Security, and a member of an editorial team for the Popular Culture and World Politics Book Series, I am in favour of greater transparency regarding turnaround times and acceptance rates. Access to better information is particularly important for early career researchers who are under considerable time pressure to have publications in hand when entering the job market. I also hope that being aware of this data might improve the performance of editorial teams and peer reviewers. So, for me, the principle is generally sound.

At the same time, I do have some reservations about how this information is being interpreted by colleagues and how it is shaping perceptions of the peer review process.

First, means are not particularly good at capturing the full spectrum of experience across a process. Beyond the distorting influence of outliers at either end, a focus on the mean, as compared to say a disaggregation of the review process with turnaround targets at each stage, does not tell people much about how the review process is operating. Are there desk rejections and what percentage of submissions are rejected in this way? How many reviewers are selected to review each submission? What percentage of submissions are accepted, rejected, or given a revise and resubmit through the peer review process? Who makes a final decision on the basis of reports? 

Second, I fear that increasingly colleagues--as reviewees--are viewing the peer review process as a burden to be endured rather than as a process that can potentially make their work better. Yes, it doesn't always work out that way. I have had papers get rejected where the feedback was completely unhelpful, and in some cases brutally so. I have also had papers get accepted where the feedback was equally banal. But, in the vast majority of my experiences, regardless of the final outcome, peer review made my work better. Reducing the peer review process to mean turnaround times potentially jeopardizes the recognition that it can provide benefits, beyond the speed of decision.

Third, editing a journal, like any other process, takes place inside of a context. Most journal editors are volunteers who are taking on the responsibility to shepherd a significant volume of submissions through the peer review process. For major disciplinary journals in political science and IR that have high ISI rankings, the numbers can range from around 250-1000 submissions a year. Some institutions may grant a reduction in workload for editing a journal but many do not. Very few editors--if any--receive any direct compensation for undertaking this role. In some cases, a publisher and/or disciplinary association may provide resources to hire an editorial assistant to help with the day to day operations of the journal. Even then, this is most often a part-time position. While the under-resourced and volunteer nature of editing a journal doesn't excuse waiting nine months to acknowledge receipt of a submission--or other forms of unprofessional behaviour--it does help to explain why things may not necessarily go as planned in terms of turnaround times. Other aspects of one's working life sometimes do interfere.

Finally, there is an assumption that editors have far more control over the review process than we often do. The primary consumer of time in any review process is finding appropriate reviewers and receiving their reviews. This is not exactly a secret. There are good reasons why it can take time to find suitable reviewers (e.g., difficulties in securing the services of specialists who are able to review within the proposed deadline). There are also good reasons why it may take a few weeks for reviewers to review; as unpaid volunteers, they also have other commitments and responsibilities. And, despite what some colleagues seem to think, journal editors are not passive when it comes to enlisting reviewers. If a reviewer does not respond to a request to review quickly, we won't sit around for two months waiting for a response. What slows down the process more than anything else are the following two scenarios. The first is when a reviewer provides a review--often one or two lines--that is completely unusable because the judgement offered is not grounded in the text itself. The second is when a reviewer agrees to review a submission, a deadline is agreed, the reviewer never delivers, and then does not respond to any further attempts at communication. In all of these instances, editors can find themselves, through no fault of their own, back at square one in the review process after a considerable amount of time has passed.

So, in sum, the temporal dynamics of peer review involves several variables that are not always under the direct control of journal editors. There are things that editors can do to mitigate some of the risks when given the proper resources to do so, but there are also problems that arise to which one can only react. When things do go wrong, it is important to keep in communication with authors.

Hopefully, increased transparency about all aspects of peer review will help to improve the process. For colleagues who would like to see improved turnaround times for journals, taking heed of the best practices for peer review is a good place to start.

Photo credit: Alan Cleaver

I Am Now An Editor of POLITICS

Along with my colleague Martin Coward, I have recently been named by the UK Political Studies Association as one of the editors of POLITICS. Our editorial team includes Michael Barr, Emily Clough, and Valentina Feklyunina all of whom are serving as Associate Editors. Additional support is being provided by Pete Eckersley who is our Editorial Assistant. We were very pleased to have been awarded editorial stewardship of POLITICS and are keen to building upon the momentum established by the previous editorial team at the University of Glasgow.

The ethos of POLITICS is the dissemination of timely, research-led reflections on the state of the art, the state of the world and the state of disciplinary pedagogy.

We welcome 3 types of articles:

1. Concise discussions of state of the art research in progress. These articles might represent early formulations of hypotheses, preliminary arguments, initial presentations of research findings or critical discussions of the state of the art in a given field.
2. Research-led reflections on contemporary events in politics or international studies. Such articles draw upon – and refer back to – state of the art research in order to reflect on contemporary events.
3. Theoretically informed reflections on the pedagogical challenges of learning and teaching in politics and international studies.

Articles may be either up to 4,000 or up to 6,000 words in length.

Special Issues and/or Sections: We also welcome proposals for special issues and/or sections. Such proposals should include a rationale for publication, abstracts of papers to be included and an indication of an expected delivery date.

 Why publish in POLITICS?

• Publishes timely, research-led reflections on the state of the art and/or contemporary events.
• ISI ranked from 2012.
• Two formats: concise statements of up to 4,000 words; and longer, sustained reflections of up to 6,000 words.
• Encourages submission of articles responding to the pedagogical challenges of learning and teaching in the field of politics and international studies.
• Timely treatment of articles: on average publishing within 6-12 months of submission.
• A large audience: print copies distributed to the entire membership of the PSA, accessible electronically through Wiley Blackwell Online, and available via over 3,500 library subscriptions.
• Online presence to improve impact and engagement.

We are currently offering a considerable amount of free content for a limited time including PSA journal virtual issues and editor's picks.

The journal website is: www.politicsjournal.org

Our twitter feed can be found at: @JournalPolitics

We can be reached via email at: politicsjournal@newcastle.ac.uk

Photo credit: The U.S. Army

Doctoral Studentships in Politics at Newcastle University

North East Doctoral Training Centre ESRC Funded Studentships in Politics

Politics at Newcastle University is pleased to announce the availability of ESRC funded PhD studentships as part of the North East Doctoral Training Centre. We are seeking high calibre candidates interested in doctoral study who have clearly defined research projects and wish to be considered for these awards.

The studentships will be allocated on a competitive basis and include 1+3, +3, 3.75 and 2+3 awards. The deadline for approaching prospective supervisors is 27 January 2012. The deadline for submitting completed applications is 24 February 2012.

Preliminary inquiries can be directed to Dr. Kyle Grayson until 30 January, 2012 and to Dr. Martin Coward after that time.

Further details:

The following studentships are available to UK citizens and EU nationals:

• 1+3 awards: targeted at students with or nearing completion of first class undergraduate degrees to undertake an MA in research methods followed by PhD study.
• +3 awards: targeted at students with or nearing completing of MA degrees with ESRC recognised research methods training and who wish to commence PhD study
• +3.75: targeted at students wishing to undertake a PhD with an MA that does not include research methods training. The .75 will allow the applicant to complete research methods training.
• 2+3 awards: targeted at students considering a two year language based MA degree followed by PhD study

Politics at Newcastle University enjoys a strong international reputation. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) Newcastle Politics consolidated its position with a very strong research output profile and excellence in terms of research environment and esteem. The RAE Panel noted that: "Research outputs were predominantly of internationally recognised quality" and the "Research environment was predominantly of internationally recognised quality ... (including) a large school of PhD students, with good completion rates". Politics has enjoyed strong growth in staff numbers in recent years indicating excellence in its research and teaching and the overall strength of the programme. Incoming students will be able to fully participate in our program of research related activities and active graduate community.

We offer research supervision expertise in:

International Politics

• Security, human security, critical security studies, biosecurity, European security and defence policy
•  Area specialisation in the Americas, East and Southeast Asia, Russia, European Union
• International political thought and philosophy
• Globalisation and global governance
• Urbicide, cities and war
• Terrorism and Counter-terrorism
• Geopolitics and critical geopolitics
• Ethnic nationalism
• Genocide
• International political economy with specialist focus on work and labour and development
• Popular culture and world politics including music, film, electronic games
• Global justice and ethics
• The arms trade and disarmament
• Post-colonialism

Political Philosophy and Political Theory

• The ethics and politics of climate change
• Environmental citizenship
• Ecological space and global justice
• Legal philosophy with specialist focus on punishment
• Moral philosophy
• Multiculturalism, toleration, recognition
• Rights and freedoms
• Liberalism
• Democracy in divided societies
• Justice and ethics

Governance and Political Organisations:

• Party Politics
• Elections and electoral politics
• Area specialisation in the Americas, Italy, Japan, France, Germany
• Transitional justice and reconciliation in divided societies
• Interest groups
• Social capital
• Participation and non-participation
• Civil Society
• European security
• Political ideologies
• EU integration policies
• European environmental policy and policy making
• European public policy and policy making
• International environmental organisations

Further details on how to apply can be found here.

Further information about postgraduate research in Politics at Newcastle can be found here.

Key Deadlines:

Formation of a supervisory team for the 2012-13 competition: 27 January, 2012

Submission of a completed application for the 2012-13 competition: 24 February, 2012

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 136

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'The Social Utility of Art and Scholarship' by Clare O'Farrell at refractedinput

• 'Top 50 Multimedia Packages of 2011' by Tracy Boyer Clark at innovativeinteractivity.com

• 'What It Takes to Open a Bar in Baghdad' by Joshuah Bearman at atlantic.com (apparantly being a mercenary is a good start...)

• 'Stealth Tech, Facebook Revolutions, Shadow Wars: The Most Dangerous Year Ever' by Spencer Ackerman and Noah Shachtman at dangerroom

• 'Photographs of the Year 2011' by Homa Khaleeli, Rob Fearn, Amy Fleming, Sarah Phillips, and Paula Cocozza at guardian.co.uk

• 'The Struggle for the Open Web: Putting "Piracy" In Perspective' by David Campbell at david-campbell.org

• 'I'll Tell You Why Movie Revenue is Dropping' by Roger Ebert at rogerebert.com (hint, it's not piracy...)

Happy New Year!

Photo credit: feileacan

Popular Culture and World Politics IV Conference Roundup

In a word, the PCWP IV conference at the University of Lapland was amazing. Kudos to Laura Junka-Aikio, Julian Reid, and the rest of the conference team for organizing and managing a tremendous event. If you ever have the chance to go to Rovaniemi, go!  Nowhere--including other far north outposts-- is quite like it. If you are a carnivore, the food is outstanding--indulge yourself and go to Restaurant Nili and order the Rovaniemi Market Platter. If not, the cloud berries, crow berries, and fresh local ceps will do the trick. But, I digress.

The conference was exactly what a conference should be: I walked out at the end and felt intellectually stimulated and enriched. It was great to meet a lot of new people doing work in the area, particularly the large contingent of postgrads from North America, the UK, and Scandinavia whose research is at the frontiers of the sub-field.

Laura and Julian went above and beyond in terms of bringing an incredibly accomplished group of plenary speakers who provoked and pushed their audiences to think about the myriad ways that popular culture contributes to the construction of the political. I tweeted from each of the plenaries. I'm not sure how much sense the notes now make, but if you want a flavour of what transpired, you can look here (scroll down).

The panels were equally great. There is some really important work being done at the moment that I look forward to seeing published in the not-so-distant future. I particularly enjoyed the discussions of the political function of discourses of empathy, Survivor and the sociability of game theory, collage and anti-proliferation images, Star Trek and depictions of torture, the political function of satire, and the aesthetics of biopolitics. You know a conference is truly excellent when you want to go to every single concurrent session.

In sum, Laura and Julian  put together a truly memorable event and were exemplary hosts. Paljon kiitoksia!

Next year, Kevin Dunn has graciously agreed to host PCWP V which will be taking place at William and Hobart Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. Stay tuned for more details...

Photo credit: yourbartender

Upcoming Talks at the International Studies Association Convention v. 1

Next week in Montreal, I will be giving two short presentations at the International Studies Association Annual Convention. Today I want to give a brief overview of one of the papers I will be presenting on Wednesday. I will give a brief blurb of my presentation for the roundtable on approaching the study of culture in international relations on Monday --yes, I do need the weekend to sketch out my thoughts on that one!

The first presentationforms a part of the 'Beyond Biopolitics? Political Authority and Critical Human Security Studies' panel that includes Suvi Alt, Giorgio Shani, Martin Weber,  Gul Ceylan Tok, and Jens Sorensen Stilhoff with Anna Agathangelou serving as discussant.

My paper examines  what has been recently dubbed by Edward Newman as 'Critical Human Security Studies' and how it functions as an analytic. Although one can see the potential attractiveness of combining the supposed emancipatory impulse of critical security studies with the policy currency of human security, I argue that Critical Human Security Studies merges the most problematic aspects of both.

After providing an overview of the ways in which human security moved from being a potential challenger to national security to one of its most important supporting structures, I then outline six reservations about Critical Human Security Studies.

First, I question the wisdom of trying to rehabilitate a concept (i.e., human security) that underpins some of the most problematic areas of contemporary security thinking such as counter-insurgency doctrine.

Second, I raise concerns about the appropriateness of security discourses as a site for critical reconsideration of political order.

Third, I question if the policy networks and strategic complexes enabled by human security are even spaces with political potential given their overwhelming concern with technocratic efficiency and delivery mechanisms as opposed to any deliberation over the aims and objectives that they serve.

Fourth, building upon the work of Claudia Aradau and Columba Peoples, I raise some objections to the unreflexive use of emancipation by critical security studies, particularly with respect to the role of violence in the process of emancipation and the management of difference.

Fifth, I identify a dangerous formulation within Critical Human Security Studies.  (Human) security and emancipation are assumed to be different sides of the same coin. Does this then mean that the project for Critical Human Security Studies is de-securitization for the purposes of re-securitizing new phenomena? Moreover, neither human security nor the emancipatory impulse of critical security studies seem to present a fundamentally different vision of the political that moves beyond the Schmittian 'friend/enemy' distinction.

Finally, I argue that Critical Human Security Studies suffers from an improverished understanding of the sites where politics takes place. By privileging formal policy venues, it too eagerly seeks to adopt a discourse that actualy constrains the potential for transformation while discounting alternate means of engaging in political activity.

Image credit: versionz

How to Set Up a Research Radar

What is a research radar?

A research radar is a system that allows one to keep in the loop of the latest developments in one's areas of research interest. It involves a personalised system of electronic and more old-fashioned means of data collection, organisation, and management.

While it can take a bit of time to set up, the ultimate value of a research radar is in its capacity to provide an efficient, organised and manageable flow of information about your research interests.  It should help to keep you informed of the latest developments in your field while dramatically reducing the amount of time that your spend searching for new materials or retrieving documents you have already found.

The personal element is important here. You need to establish a research radar that works best for you. Thus, it may be the case that some of the elements listed below are not particularly appropriate for your needs.  That’s absolutely fine; do what works best for you!

Similarly, to gain access to some of these systems may require that you provide personal information to private concerns (mainly for the purposes of marketing).  And if you harbour fears about becoming embedded into the Google matrix, some of suggestions below are not going to be for you. However, with a bit of digging, you should be able to find other programmes or systems—many of which are also freeware-- that offer similar features.

Improve your browser capability

Tech-heads generally agree that Internet Explorer is one of the weaker internet browsers on the market.  A research radar can often benefit from the enhanced functionality and features of other means of trolling the world wide web for research materials. These include a dazzling display of add-ons and free programmes that provide your browser with extra capabilities.

The following are some of the more popular browser options available free of charge:

Firefox
Google Chrome
Opera

These literally have thousands of additional programmes available that integrate into the browser. One of the most useful is AddThis , a feature which allows one to quickly post content found on the web to various social networking sites (e.g., twitter, facebook) as well as to archive it on on-line book-marking sites. Various task bars for services like StumbleUpon or Digg can also be very useful for the purposes of archiving material.

Setting up a Bespoke iGoogle Home Page

For a research radar to be effective, it is important that it is fairly centralised, allowing you to quickly survey multiple flows of information. This saves the time and effort of having to toggle through various programmes on a regular basis to see if anything new or interesting has arrived.

Setting up a bespoke iGoogle home page is one way of achieving this goal. The advantages are that it is fairly simple to do and there is a lot of on-line help and advice if you run into any problems. Most importantly, by using iGoogle as a platform, you have a research radar in place that you can access from any computer in the world. If you find yourself regularly shifting from labs, to laptops, to home computers, to internet cafes, universal accessibility and synchronisation can save both time and energy in procuring materials and the management of your research archive.

To set up an iGoogle homepage, you will need to have a google account. Information on how to set up a google account can be found here.

For an extremely comprehension discussion of all of the features and neat tricks available via iGoogle, please see this 17 part video series at wonderhowto.com. Many  how-to-books (like Rule the Web) also contain information on iGoogle and other on-line archiving resources.

The main use I have found for iGoogle is as a central hub for compiling my RSS feeds from various on-line sources including academic journals, newspapers, blogs, other websites, google searches, and database searches.

RSS Feeds

An RSS feed (short for Really Simple Syndication) is a means of delivering (almost) real time updates to changes in content on a web page.  By staying informed of changes to site content, you need only visit a particular website when something actually interests you. This saves time by not having periodically to visit yourself to look for material or updates. By arranging your RSS feeds, one has the capability to scan several websites worth of new content (or updates) without having to visit each site individually. An example might help here.

Say you are following newspaper coverage of a by-election campaign. Rather than visiting multiple sites several times a day to see if the campaign is being covered, what is being reported, and if information posted is new or updated, looking at the RSS feeds allow you to quickly scan this information all at once without leaving your iGoogle--or other RSS reader--platform.  You can also set this up for google search terms so that you receive an update every time new web posts on a particular topic appear from around the world.

I know this probably doesn’t sound like much and I was quite dubious myself when I first started with RSS feeds.  What I have found is that they have helped me to save time in finding/collecting relevant information for research, allowed me to stay more informed of recent updates in my areas of interest, and exposed me to new sources of information that I might not have found otherwise.

Most websites now have a RSS tab that allows you to subscribe to their feed by clicking it. Moreover, most browsers have a RSS subscription feed box—for websites that have RSS--just to the right of the address box.

RSS feeds can be customised to show as much—or as little—of the content as you prefer. Thus, you can customize the number of updates that will be shown, the amount of content (e.g., a few opening lines) that is shown, and the type of content that this shown and updated (e.g., this allows you to ignore updates in comment sections).

There are many different RSS readers, many of which are freeware. For a list of some of your options, please see here and here.

For an excellent tutorial on how to use RSS feeds and get the most from them, please see here.

On-line bookmarking tools

On-line bookmarking tools allow you to create on-line accounts to store web materials that you have found. In some respects this duplicates the traditional bookmarking feature of web browsers. The value added is that these accounts are accessible from whatever machine you may be working from, allowing you access to materials wherever you may be. They also have tagging features that allow you to organise, manage, search, and--in theory--quickly find particular documents and/or keywords.

Moreover, some involve elements of social media so that you can share links with colleagues, join groups, and receive recommendations based on pages you have bookmarked. Rest assured, these features can be turned off if you’d rather not be in the public spotlight.

Some of the more popular on-line bookmarking sites include Digg, Stumble Upon, CiteULike and Delicious. Many websites now have widgets (little icons) that if you click on them will directly upload the web-page address to your on-line bookmarking account. 

Most of these bookmarking sites also have browser applications that allow you to quickly bookmark web-pages. For example, I use Stumble Upon to bookmark and can save links and access them with a tool bar available in Firefox.

Again, what will works for me may not work for you. Thus, for a general scholarly review of bookmarking tools see Hammond et al (2005).

Social networking sites

Social networking sites can be a fantastic resource for coming across material that might have otherwise escaped your attention. What is important to keep in mind is that the value of these sites for your research radar is going to be dependent on how you use the sites themselves and who you choose to follow/friend.

Although much maligned, Twitter has developed into a valuable element in my own research radar. Yes, some people use the service to provide inane updates about insignificant personal events. However, a growing number of users in the media, government, ngo and academic communities are using the service professionally to share links to articles, data-sets, reviews, reports, and other valuable sources of information. It takes time to develop a good list of people/groups to follow but it can pay significant dividends as well as help in building a professional network. Another increasingly popular social media outlet geared towards academics is Academia.edu which is part personal web-page, part social networking site.

Academic Journal Table of Contents Updating Services

Most journals now offer table of contents updating services, either via email or RSS feed. Again, this is a low cost/low impact was of keeping alert of the latest research developments in your field. Here are a few of them in particular order:

Cambridge University Press email alerts
Palgrave email alerts
Routledge email  alerts
Routledge RSS updates
Sage email alerts

New Book Updates

All of the major publishers (e.g.,  OUP, CUP, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, Blackwell, Lynne Rienner, Palgrave, Polity, IB Tauris, et cetera) have email update services and RSS feeds for new books.

Email Listserves

Most disciplinary associations run email list-serves that users can subscribe to (often as a perk of membership). For example, the British International Studies Association has a list serve for its membership. H-Net has an extensive series of list-serves in the social sciences and humanities. Sometimes particular sub-fields or areas of scholarship have their own dedicated email lists. Ask colleagues or your supervisors for tips on what is out there. These tend to be best for finding out about conferences/workshops, calls for papers, and job openings.

Library Databases

Some library databases like Scopus allow one to set up an email alert and/or RSS feed for search terms so that one receives an update every time that an additional article matches the search parameters.

Concluding Thoughts

How we go about doing research and keeping up-to-date with regards to new information in our fields has changed dramatically with the opportunities of the internet. Yet, the speed with which information circulates and the volume that confronts us is staggering.  All the while, sources of really good research materials are rapidly proliferating. Keeping on top of everything is simply impossible. At the same time, disconnecting is not necessarily a viable strategy either.

Setting up a research radar won’t stem the information tide or necessarily allow one to keep on top of everything; however, it does allow one to better manage the flow that reaches them and to target sources based on research interests.

Image credits: zipckr and Patrick Hoesly

My Latest Article in the Review of International Studies

Back in April of 2007, I organized a two day workshop at Newcastle University. The focus was on the contributions made by Prof. Richard K. Ashley to the discipline of international relations. We had a great set of presenters (including Rick himself) and a very engaged audience that made for a lively couple of days. Even three decades on from Rick's early forays into the (il)logics of realism, the presence of post structuralism, let alone the implications for the discipline of international relations, remains highly contentious territory.

I am pleased to announce that three of the papers that were presented during this workshop are now featured in the latest issue of the Review of International Studies:

• 'Interuption Ashley' by Cynthia Weber;

• 'Things Lost and Found: The Silences of Thinking Space' by Mark Laffey;

• 'Dissidence, Richard K. Ashley, and the Politics of Silence' by Kyle Grayson.

Under the terms of the copyright agreement, I am actually allowed to post a copy of the article which can be downloaded here.

The full citation is:

'Dissidence, Richard K. Ashley, and the politics of silence' by Kyle Grayson Review of International Studies (2010), 36(4): 1005-1019 Cambridge University Press doi: 10.1017/S0260210510001415 Published online by Cambridge University Press 01 Nov 2010. © British International Studies Association

Many thanks to everyone involved, especially Cindy and Mark, who were very patient throughout the process.

Photo credit: Shahram Sharif

My Latest Article Published in International Politics

Human security, neoliberalism and corporate social responsibility

By Kyle Grayson (Newcastle University)

Mainstream critiques of human security theory and practice have criticized how human security is being conceptualized, with a specific focus on how the absence of a precise and universally accepted definition hinders its practical application. Rejecting these critiques as an explanation for the policy failures of human security agendas, this article argues that the difficulties experienced in operationalizing human security lie in the myriad ways human security policies have revealed themselves to be subordinate to an existing, well-established and equally diffuse policy agenda: neoliberalism. The specific case study examines Canada, a prominent member of the human security vanguard, and its unwillingness to regulate transnational corporate conduct that contributes to human insecurity.                           International Politics (2010) 47, 497–522. doi:10.1057/ip.2010.20

Key words: human security; Canada; UN; neoliberalism

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