Thank you for volunteering to participate in this survey.
Research Team Contact Cetails
Principal Investigator: Dr Ana Stevenson (University of Southern Queensland)
Email: ana.stevenson@usq.edu.a
Telephone: +61 7 4631 1862
Co-Investigator: Dr Kieran Balloo (University of Southern Queensland)
Email: kieran.balloo@usq.edu.au
Project Officer: Danaé Carlile (University of Southern Queensland)
Email: danae.carlile@usq.edu.au
Description
This project aims to investigate the influence of academic blogging on the twenty-first-century knowledge economy. Building on a developing literature about the position of academic blogging in the scholarly publishing landscape, this project is significant as the first mixed-methods study of its kind. Expected outcomes include greater understanding of the use and impact of academic blogs across the three core domains of a university’s mission: teaching, research, and public engagement.
This project is being undertaken as part of a UniSQ Research Capacity Building Grant. This project therefore has ethics approval from the University of Southern Queensland [ETH2023-0103].
The purpose of this project is to:
- Develop an evidence-based understanding of the status and value of academic blogging in the knowledge economy;
- Generate data through a survey, interviews, documentary analysis, and data analysis; and
- Strengthen national and international networks with key stakeholders: blog authors, readers, and supporters; and policymakers.
Participation
Participation in this project will involve the completion of an online survey which will take approximately 20-30 minutes.
Questions will include questions seeking both qualitative (open-ended) and quantitative (close-ended) responses, for example:
Open-ended question: What is your perception of what constitutes “academic blogging”? What kinds of publication outlets come to mind?
Open-ended question: What scholarly or academic blogs do you read? Please list their names below.
Close-ended question: Has the number of blogs you’ve read gone up or down over the last five years?
Choice of answers:
- The number of blogs I’ve read has increased significantly
- The number of blogs I’ve read has increased a bit
- The number of blogs I’ve read has remained stable
- The number of blogs I’ve read has decreased a bit
- The number of blogs I’ve read has decreased significantly
To participate in this survey, all participants must be over 18 years of age. Participants must be academics employed on a casual, fixed-term, or full-time basis at a university within the past ten years. This may include current Higher Degree by Research (HDR; PhD or Masters) students. Participants must include self-identified readers, authors, and/or editors of academic blogs.
Participation in this project is entirely voluntary. A participant’s decision about whether to take part in the survey or not will in no way impact their current or future relationship with the University of Southern Queensland and/or their current or future employer.
Expected benefit
It is expected that this project and its findings about academic blogging will not directly benefit the survey respondents professionally.
This project will advance knowledge about the influence of academic blogging upon the university’s mission of teaching, research, and public engagement. By developing a framework for how academic blogging can be most used effectively, this project will empirically investigate the role of academic blogs in communicating scholarly research and supporting student learning by sharing advanced academic theories for a wider readership. It will also assess the impact of academic blogs in the knowledge translation of academic research into media, policy, advocacy, and the community.
These findings will be of interest to academics seeking to make academic blogging part of the core public-facing outputs of research projects. Benefits include insight into the function of academic blogging at a juncture when the importance of public-facing research outputs is increasingly recognised. This project may also benefit the Australian Women’s History Network.
It is appropriate to acknowledge the time a research participant contributes to a research project (UniSQ, 2022). Survey participants will be given the opportunity to opt into a prize draw. All survey participants will be encouraged (but not required) to enter; contact details for the prize draw will be collected via a Microsoft Form embedded in the USQ Survey Tool. This will ensure that the anonymity of survey responses will be persevered when collecting contact details to administer the prize draw. As per UniSQ’s Guidelines for the Giving of Prizes as Incentives for Research Participation in a Research Activity, the prize draw will be conducted at a time specified in its terms and conditions; and the prize will be beneath $5,000.00, not perishable, not money, not prohibited, and given within Australia (UniSQ, 2022).
The successful prize draw recipient will receive a $50.00 book voucher from Monash University Publishing as a prize. This will be chosen at random from participants who wish to enter. The successful participant will be informed that they have won the raffle after the online survey closes. The successful participant will then be sent the $50.00 book voucher in the weeks after the online survey closes.
References
National Health and Medical Research Council [NHMRC] (2007, updated 2018). National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. Canberra: Australian Research Council and Universities Australia. https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/national-statement-ethical-conduct-human-research-2007-updated-2018
University of Southern Queensland [UniSQ] (2022). Guidelines for the Giving of Prizes as Incentives for Research Participation in a Research Activity. Toowoomba: University of Southern Queensland. https://www.unisq.edu.au/current-students/academic/higher-degree-by-research-students/conducting-research/human-ethics/resources
Risk
By participating in the questionnaire, there are no anticipated risks beyond normal day-to-day living.
In the unlikely event that this questionnaire causes distress or adverse outcomes, please consider reaching out to UniSQ’s Wellbeing services or Beyond Blue for support.
Privacy and confidentiality
All comments and responses are confidential unless required by law.
The names of individual persons are not required in any of the responses.
The data will only be accessible to the Research Team listed above. The data will be accessible and reusable to this Research Team for future research purposes (i.e., for similar research projects). The data will be stored and shared in the same format as per the survey, which is non-identifiable.
Following the conclusion of the research project, participants may contact the Principal Investigator for an executive summary of results and direction to any scholarly outputs from the research project.
This research is funded with the generous support of a 2023 UniSQ Research Capacity Building Grant.
Any data collected as a part of this project will be stored securely, as per University of Southern Queensland’s Research Data and Primary Materials Management Procedure.
Consent to participate
Clicking on the ‘Submit’ button at the conclusion of the online survey is accepted as an indication of your consent to participate in this project.
Participants can withdraw their participation at any point during the survey without any adverse or negative implications.
Questions
Please refer to the Research Team contact details at the top of the form to have any questions answered or to request further information about this project.
Concerns or complaints
If you have any concerns or complaints about the ethical conduct of the project, you may contact the University of Southern Queensland, Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics on +61 7 4631 1839 or email researchintegrity@usq.edu.au. The Manager of Research Integrity and Ethics is not connected with the research project and can address your concern in an unbiased manner.
Thank you for taking the time to help with this research project. Please keep this document for your information.
