I received my contributor’s copy of Uses of Blogs in the mail today, which made a very pleasant change from the usual diet of bills and junkmail. Edited by Axel Bruns and Jo Jacobs from QUT, it’s the first academic book on blogs and blogging. There’s lots of interesting stuff to read, and a bit of a Brisbane connection as well, with chapters from me (on the political uses of blogs), John Quiggin, Melissa Gregg and Jean Burgess, as well as the editors themselves. You can read the introductory chapter here [link to pdf] and all the details of the chapters and contributors are at Axel’s blog. You can also get a sense of the book’s scope from the blurb:
As the first edited collection of scholarly articles on blogging by experts and practitioners in a wide range of fields, Uses of Blogs offers a broad spectrum of perspectives on current and emerging uses of blogs. While blogging is rapidly developing into a mainstream activity for Internet users, the actual application of blogs in specific contexts has so far been under-explored. Because there are a variety of styles of blogging – from de facto news sites to marketing blogs, blogs as learning tools, writers’ drafting blogs, corporate dark blogs and fictional blogs, to name a few – it can be difficult to imagine how blogs might be used in particular environments. This book demonstrates the take-up of blogs and blogging for a number uses in industrial and social contexts.
The book can be ordered from Amazon.
Axel’s site says you plan to submit your PhD in 2005?
Looks pretty darn interesting…
Err, um, well best laid plans etc.
and life’s too short to rush things.
Congratulations on the book.
Thanks, Zoe! I’m looking forward to reading it – I’ve only seen the intro and my own chapter to date.
I reckon I may just buy a copy. Mark, congrats on your participation. Good to see a sensible perspective in there
Congrats on the pub, Mark.
‘Cutting edge’, as they say in RQF land!
RQF=Research Quality Framework, yes? Please tell me about it. I read on Kim Weatherall’s blog a while ago that we were introducing it just as the UK is discarding the exact same model. Some uni people with whom I have regular contact seem to say it will impose substantial costs (labour, time I guess, maybe lack of flexibility?) on them in meeting its requirements. I’d like to hear views from those who will have to deal with it. What impacts/consequences can be envisaged?
Thanks, Bruce and Lefty E.
Phil, the last meeting I went to on the RQF was a few months ago, and it’s still in a constant state of change as I understand it – Bishop wants to put her stamp on it.
The major implications appear to be that Universities will have to spend a lot of money to implement the reporting requirements (which as with anything that emanates from DEST are insanely complex), and that Universities are running around at the moment creating lots of new Professorial positions for researchers and poaching people off each other. It doesn’t appear to have occurred to too many people that it might be a good idea to groom new researchers at the entry level, because the first round (now pushed back to 2008) will assess the records of people going back 5 years. So as with most government interventions in higher education, it’s having the usual perverse and unintended consequences.
I’m not aware that Britain has junked the RAE.
Congratulations mate, I’ll see if the company can get a copy or two for myself and our department
Here’s a trackback for good measure, too.
Cheers, Rooster.
Ive heard the same as Phill, Mark. UK rumoured to be ditching it. Indeed, our new Minister Bishop has put it all on the backburner. Certain unis (Griffith, and Deakin, possibly others) are still running with the ball and doing warm-up ‘RQF ready’ exercises (aka excuse to ‘review’ workloads, and impose new burdens on overburdened staff), though everyone else has left the field, and the Group of 8 were non-starters anyway, having better advisors in the first place.
Whole thing = joke!