2009 ALISE Academy

 

The ALISE Academy: Research

January 20, 2009
1:30 PM - 5:00 PM

 

Sponsors:
H.W. Wilson Company
Second Hand Knowledge

 

The ALISE Academy is a pre-conference professional development opportunity. ALISE's Inaugural Academy will focus on research at three different career levels.

 

Overall Goal:

Inspire and guide LIS faculty and doctoral candidates in creating, building, and revising a research agenda, engaging in research activities, and maximizing the impact of one’s research efforts at all career stages.

 

Overall Structure:

The 2009 Academy will be conducted as three concurrent workshops, with up to 30 participants in each workshop. One workshop will be targeted toward doctoral candidates and faculty at the beginning of their careers, the second at mid-career faculty, and the third at senior faculty.

 

Each workshop will be designed to be interactive, engaging, and involve active learning.

 

Academy Workshops:

  1. Launching the Research Agenda

     

    Workshop leader: Suzanne Allard (University of Tennessee)
    Target audience: Doctoral candidates and early career faculty, and those who advise them.

    Topics: Launching a research agenda and getting started.

     

    • Conceptualizing the dissertation research as the first stage in the research agenda
    • Scope of the research agenda – what is reasonable, interesting, tenurable?
    • Strategic thinking – What are the tactics that work best? Stay within an area and change research methods, or stick with one method and change the domain, or other ideas?
    • Planning and plotting—considerations in setting priorities for working on research projects and manuscripts: conference presentation opportunities, journal placement, response/acceptance/publication time frames, funding needs/expectations
    • Collaboration: when, how, and with whom?
    • What role does/should the possibility of funding play on developing the agenda (must we choose between doing what we want, or do what has the better chance to be funded? Or is there another way to frame this?)
    • What is a reasonable research pace considering the demands of teaching, service, and personal life?

  2. Retooling, Redirecting, and Revitalizing: Research after Tenure and Promotion

     

    Workshop Leader: Kristen Eschenfelder (University of Wisconsin)
    Target audience: Post-tenure and mid-career LIS faculty; those who advise them

    Topics:

     

    • Assessing the continued viability of pre-tenure research agenda
    • Risks/rewards in changing research directions
    • Avoiding the post-tenure slump
    • Needs/costs/opportunities for retooling research skills
    • What are the objectives that research will support at this point in the career (beyond the intrinsic merit of creation of new knowledge): promotion to full professor, contribution to the reputation of the school, funding support for interesting projects, support for doctoral students?
    • Maintaining an active research program as an administrator.

  3. Capping a Research Career with Glory

     

    Workshop Leader: Anne Gilliland (University of California - Los Angeles)
    Target audience: Senior faculty, soon-to-be retired, and emeriti

    Topics:

     

    • Keeping a research agenda active in spite of administrative and advising responsibilities, changing environments, changing technologies, research grants going to more junior researchers
    • Staying actively engaged in the post-career period? When you have a accumulated a lot of research data, how do you continue working with this data and write it up even when no longer a full time faculty member?
    • Especially for LIS faculty who did their PhD's later in life, how extend research productivity beyond normal retirement age?
    • Managing freedom. The research drivers present at midcareer (the list of possible objectives in the mid-career set) are much less present (except maybe for supporting doctoral students) at this point and one has freedom to pursue things that might not have been a wise choice at an earlier point in the career. How does one make responsible decisions that balance what may be very personal research interests with continuing responsibility to the school/program?
    • Recalling retired faculty for special projects: under what circumstances is it a good idea?
    • Some retiring faculty worry about their areas and expertise disappearing out of the academy. What are ways they can do "succession planning" or help to continue to keep intellectual and professional areas vibrant after they retire?

Registration:

 

To participate in the 2009 ALISE Academy, you must register using the 2009 Conference registration form. There are no fees to attend Academy, but you must register for the ALISE conference. There are only 30 spaces available in each workshop. Spaces are awarded on a first come, first serve basis. Waiting lists are not maintained.

 

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