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| Backblog—Online Education and MBAs |
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Academic Research Online Is a Walled Garden
February 12, 2008 By Glen Farrelly
Categories: Online Education and MBAs Web 2.0
I've been consumed for the past three weeks researching and writing papers for my Master’s program. I managed to write one paper an Internet topic (a semiotic analysis of folksonomies) and added as many Net references in the others as I could.
In the process of researching online on online topics, I noted two critiques of academia:
1) vehicles for searching online resources are inadequate
2) academic research remains too cloistered
The last few weeks were the first time ever for me that I was exposed to the wealth of electronic academic research. I thought there was lots of information on the Web before, but I was stunned by the quantity and quality of academic information available to students (the databases require log-in and an individual subscription is prohibitively expensive).
Royal Roads University has one of the largest electronic libraries in Canada, which is fitting as it is primarily an online university. Electronic information there takes the forms of:
- e-books
- online journal databases
- electronic theses
I haven’t made the most of e-books, due to my dislike of reading for a long time onscreen and that e-books can’t accompany me to many of my regular reading places. The theses seem promising, although due to Royal Roads being a comparatively young university they don't have a lot of theses available.
Online academic resources a treasure, albeit hidden & sans map
I did extensively use online academic journals and this is where I was overjoyed and overwhelmed. I had no idea how many journals there were, some of which, believe it or not, aren’t completely esoteric.
There are essentially two problems that I discovered with online searching of these journal databases. Problem one is that there is a bewildering array of journal databases. Second, the search engines for pretty much all these services are, well, crappy. Granted, graduate students do require more advanced search skills than a normal online surfer would need, but still the search tools are unnecessarily complicated, buggy at times, and just plain miss things. I found a lot of instances where I was searching the entire body of articles and certain results would not appear, but later, having found these articles via other means, I would find the terms appearing prominently.
The journal database search engines were so generally poor that I had to use other means, serendipity being the most painful method for time-pressed procrastinators such as myself.
Google Scholar helps save my day
Fortunately, someone turned me onto Google Scholar. I found it retrieved items from academic databases better than the databases own search, plus Google Scholar pulls up other applicable information as well. Truly a very handy tool - thank you Google!
Ivory towers cloister useful research
My final complaint is that while I was also surprised by the quantity and quality of academic research on Internet topics, I was miffed that I never saw any of it before. I’ve worked in the Internet for years, have read books and articles, and been to conferences and was never exposed to this research before.
Granted, it is possible that this research could have come to me via other authors and speakers who digested and regurgitated it. Also, it's not like the research is fit for wider application as can be exceedingly and, I might add, unnecessarily obtuse and elitist (another complaint, sorry). But some research is fine for everyone working in the field as is, and in other cases the findings could be repurposed for wider distribution.
Frankly, I think that too much of academia is infatuated with itself and doesn’t make enough effort to share their research to the outside world. With this attitude one ends up with research for research’s sake. And those, like me, who can benefit from the information don’t get it.
Glen Farrelly
Webslinger
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Way to go, B.C.
June 19, 2007 By Peter Wolchak
Categories: IT Staffing Solutions Online Education and MBAs
The cover story in the upcoming July issue of Backbone is about Canada's competitiveness in relation to the rest of the world. Not to steal the issue's thunder, but our competitive numbers could be better and many people say a lack of tech investment is part of the problem.
So it's very good news that the B.C. government is tripling the size of the funding for its internship program to $10 million. The money is targeted specifically at boosting competitiveness.
“These new funds will allow MITACS (a national research network) to provide more than 650 internships over the next four years, more than tripling the size of the program,” said Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell in a press release. “The internship program will build the province's base of highly-skilled graduates while encouraging innovation and commercialization in B.C.'s knowledge-based economy. It is also leveraging another $5 million from industry partners for the program."
If we want Canada to be competitive on a world stage – and as globalization takes firmer hold and as wealth generation is increasingly tied to tech prowess, we do want that – then we need a workforce that is not only able to create innovation but also interested in doing so. When our best and brightest minds scan the career landscape, we need technology options to stand out from the landscape.
Internship programs are an excellent way to do that.
Peter Wolchak
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