SWJ: praise given and reviews (merged)

[richyoung87]

I've read this blog with interest because I've been tasked to develop an IW education pgm for the Joint Special Operations University at USSOCOM. Our primary audience will be our SOF Community (Operators / Staff / Enablers), but we also must include the spectrum of IW actors to make this thing worthwhile and holistic (IA, Academia, NGO, IO, Multinational, Business, etc...). As a former instructor at West Point and CGSC, I understand the value of brick & mortar classes...but...we're in an age where technology and OPTEMPO requires us to have persistent education through the internet (IMO)(online classes, portals for info / issues updates, blogs, wikipedias, etc). My going in idea is to :

1) Create dynamic brick and mortar courses that combine progressive adult learning techniques, use of internet resources, films-documentaries, subject matter experts to facilitate maximum learning (JSOU's format is usually 1 & 2 week courses), panels, debates, etc...

2) Dedicate a portion of the in-class and out-of-class design to teach students how to learn in this current educational/technological environment (Improving memory techniques, speed reading, critical thinking, internet research skills, etc...) With only a week or two, we can only scratch the surface of the intracacies of IW subjects - important to guide students and enable them for self-learning due to optempo issues and preference (younger students are learning more on their own nowadays)

3) TOUGH ONE: Provide students a concise reach-back, online resource so they can continue to learn after the brick & mortar class. As mentioned in this blog, there are tons of IW Ctrs of Excellence, programs and projects in and out of DOD and internationally - you all know what I'm talking about. I literally run across a new program, website, DOD project every day that needs to be included in our effort. The SWJ definitely will be an integral resource ...but...how do we manage these random "1000 Points of Educational Light" to give our students a focused reachback point of continued learning?

I sent out an email request two weeks ago to mainly the (US) Prof Military Education folks for assistance in starting yet another IW Educational COI: sharing ideas, curriculums, briefs, articles, etc... I've received good responses so I know there's an interest in supporting this initiative.

My question or request from the SWJ community is to provide suggestions in the best way to create and maintain this focused, IW learning portal. Going in position is "Don't care who gets credit for this - would love to have a consortium of sponsors / participants all considered equals in this endeavor. I'll be working with folks like JFCOM, Services, DOS, USAID, Brits, Canadians, Aussies, IA (SOCOM has LNOs within most major interagency orgs now), pvt security firms, select NGOs, and the UN for starters.

If anyone knows someone who is conducting research in this area (Modern Collaboration Techniques), please let me know.

[B]I'm also looking for participants that have Subject Matter Expertise in the IW areas listed in the IW JOC (Insurgency/COIN, Terrorism/CT, Unconventional Warfare, Foreign Internal Defense, Stability and Support Operations, and "Understanding People" + the other areas to:
1) Join the cause
2) Provide access to their materials for the IW educational community
3) Be willing to be a guest instructor
4) Be willing to keep the community updated in their particular areas of expertise

If interested, please contact me via PM for additional details

De Oppresso Liber!

[selil]

Yes I have been involved with "modern collaboration techniques". I am NOT a military instructor though and I may be missing elements of your culture. Go to my blog and look up the category scholarship of teaching and learning. I've got a few academic papers published on Web 2.0 tools for learning, and curriculum topics. To say as specific as your previous statements, the universe of the implications is vast, well is a simplification.

[Entropy]

ISTM a lot will depend on what classification(s) you plan for your portal.

As for the format, I would seriously consider the wiki model for a few reasons:

1. As an established, standardized tool, almost everyone understands it. One of my biggest complaints about DoD "portals" of all kinds is that they are all different and many are poorly designed and confusing to navigate. A known standard interface and simplicity should be a priority.

2. Allows for collaboration among all your stakeholders.

[Mike Innes]

Not sure how active this thread is any more, but I thought I'd add my two cents worth anyway. A couple of the posters have suggested that it might be a stretch to consider the SWJ community of platforms a model for future academic work. Rex rightly points out that at least for academics, blogging, forum moderation, etc., count for next to nothing towards the ticket punching that needs to be done for academics to progress.

Where this sort of thing can be better sold to academia is it's value as an extended seminar or workshop platform, a way of extending influence into the public domain, as "conversation" and "discussion" rather than as "publication". I think where some new media can easily fail is in trying to function as an alternative to peer-reviewed publication, or trying to replicate it in accelerated form, or trying to revolutionize how peer-review is done.

Why compete? Blogs, discussion fora, online magazines, all offer opportunities to extend debate and enable new and non-traditional voices to be heard - many of them non-academic practitioners with plenty to say. The can also enable academics, who might never be read or hear by any but their own narrow realm of academic peers, to become members of broader communities of interests, to have their work and ideas introduced to previously estranged communities.

If the management side of things remains focused, and keeps the content focused - as with SWJ/SWC - then the model works, and can be applied in innovative ways.

[Ratzel]

I always viewed SWJ (and the forum) as a place for practitioners of war, and those concerned with war, to trade ideas for use in combat. I'm interested in knowing if anyone learned anything here that benefited them and/or their units in combat? This would be a good survey question. Does this forum have that feature?

[marct]

Hi Mike,

A couple of the posters have suggested that it might be a stretch to consider the SWJ community of platforms a model for future academic work. Rex rightly points out that at least for academics, blogging, forum moderation, etc., count for next to nothing towards the ticket punching that needs to be done for academics to progress.

It's an interesting question / problem set, Mike. I think it is made even more interesting by the shifts that are happening, partly as a result of the new communications technologies, in the very definition and meaning of "academic". For example, one of the major changes that I see happening is a revitalization of the older, "independent scholar" type of academic who may be affiliated with a university (or research unit), but whose career is not controlled by them.

And, just as a note, in my department, blogging does count for academic credit in the tenure system, albeit not for very much.

I think where some new media can easily fail is in trying to function as an alternative to peer-reviewed publication, or trying to replicate it in accelerated form, or trying to revolutionize how peer-review is done.

Hmmm. Back in 1996, I had the chance to sit down with a guy who used to be the main editor of the American Journal of Sociology and talk about this. One of the points he noted, and he had been involved in peer review and editing for about 40 years, was that editing had pretty much disappeared in most journals while peer review tended to be more about theoretical correctness than any type of scientific assessment of the merits of an article. His point was that the heavy pressure to publish when combined with the huge increase in numbers of academics and increasing specialization was what led to this sorry state.

Personally, I see the development of online, hmmm, let's call them "practitioner communities", can serve as an excellent model of where scholarly research could go (if not "academic" research). Over the past 40 years or so, the pressure to use theoretical models, rather than fieldwork and data, has increased (one of those cost issues), so a lot of social science work has been based on "data" that is increasingly divorced from the field actually being studied. Forums such as the SWJ/SWC and the CTLab () act as a work-around putting practitioners and scholars back in contact with each other.

Why compete? Blogs, discussion fora, online magazines, all offer opportunities to extend debate and enable new and non-traditional voices to be heard - many of them non-academic practitioners with plenty to say. The can also enable academics, who might never be read or hear by any but their own narrow realm of academic peers, to become members of broader communities of interests, to have their work and ideas introduced to previously estranged communities.

If the management side of things remains focused, and keeps the content focused - as with SWJ/SWC - then the model works, and can be applied in innovative ways.

I think this gets to the divide I was implying between "scholars" and "academics". Academics are, to some degree, locked into an academic career system based out of universities, while scholars are not necessarily so restricted.

I always viewed SWJ (and the forum) as a place for practitioners of war, and those concerned with war, to trade ideas for use in combat. I'm interested in knowing if anyone learned anything here that benefited them and/or their units in combat? This would be a good survey question. Does this forum have that feature?

Hi Ratzel, yes, we can run single question surveys. You would need to start a new thread to do so. Under the "Additional Options" at the bottom, there is a check box marked "Post a Poll". That will generate a multiple choice (max of 10 options) poll question. If you want to run a survey with more questions, shoot me a PM and I can toss one together on my own site and link it through for you.

Cheers,

Marc

[John T. Fishel]

of a peer reviewd journal, I can tell you that in more cases than we care to admit, peer review is less than it seems. I notice that Military Review is now advertizing itself as a peer reviewed journal.

I don't really know how my department/school at OU sees online publication and blogging since I am not now and don't want to be tenure track. That said, they are full of praise for my online publications and have gone out of the way to publicise them. I also note that a number of academic journals are, in fact, moving to online publication -either as the sole mode or in combination with traditional print. This brings up an interesting practical question: How do we preserve for posterity publications that only exist in the ether? I know, you can't really get rid of electrons and you could archive them electronically. But the reality is that if there is no hard copy, researchers may well have a nearly impossible time finding a document.

Cheers

JohnT

[Ratzel]

Hi Ratzel, yes, we can run single question surveys. You would need to start a new thread to do so. Under the "Additional Options" at the bottom, there is a check box marked "Post a Poll". That will generate a multiple choice (max of 10 options) poll question. If you want to run a survey with more questions, shoot me a PM and I can toss one together on my own site and link it through for you.

Thank you, I need to think about how I'd word the question[s]? I should be back soon?

[Mike Innes]

Hi Marc. I lost track of this thread and had to dig around for it...

It's an interesting question / problem set, Mike. I think it is made even more interesting by the shifts that are happening, partly as a result of the new communications technologies, in the very definition and meaning of "academic". For example, one of the major changes that I see happening is a revitalization of the older, "independent scholar" type of academic who may be affiliated with a university (or research unit), but whose career is not controlled by them.

I agree, technology is definitely morphing the dialogue and building bridges in all sorts of ways - SWC involvement in the new Foreign Policy being a pretty strong case in point.

Re. independent scholars, I see that too - or at least, I see the benefit of it, from a personal viewpoint. I'm a full time practitioner with several such affiliations, and they allow me to at least participate on the periphery of academia. It's an interesting position to be in (though pecking order atmospherics can get a bit weird, like in the dept. where I'm actually working on a PhD ).

Rex's earlier comment about his students' accomplishments is a good one, too: academics are practitioners, some practitioners are heavy-hitting scholars, some practitioners have a wealth of first-hand knowledge and experience to share, and between the three there's a useful synthesis that's available, if we're able to spot it when it happens (or wily enough to engineer it ).

And, just as a note, in my department, blogging does count for academic credit in the tenure system, albeit not for very much.

Do tell. I've never heard of the before. How progressive is Carleton? I wonder how prevalent that is? In developing CTlab, I polled quite a few academics on their view of blogging. Interesting, some junior academics seem terrified of the idea, lest they jeopardize their professional trajectories by doing something as flakey as (gasp!) blogging. Dan Drezner's case (denied tenure at Chicago, some say because of his blogging) was cited more than once (though now his success seems to moot the rest of it). Older, established academics seemed to love the idea as a more effective way of engaging the public more broadly. And then, of course, there are the independent souls who couldn't give a rat's ass about establishment expectations, and do it anyway, under a pseudonym or their own names. Bless'em.

Hmmm. Back in 1996, I had the chance to sit down with a guy who used to be the main editor of the American Journal of Sociology and talk about this. One of the points he noted, and he had been involved in peer review and editing for about 40 years, was that editing had pretty much disappeared in most journals while peer review tended to be more about theoretical correctness than any type of scientific assessment of the merits of an article. His point was that the heavy pressure to publish when combined with the huge increase in numbers of academics and increasing specialization was what led to this sorry state.

Fair point, and it rings true. Again, when I was first getting into blogging (not so long ago), and scanning around the web for some insight on how a professional might, errr, blog responsibly, ie. in a way that complements professional activities and standards without betraying the nature of the medium, I came across Research Blogging. It has a pretty interesting approach to things: research blogging, for that community's purposes, is only "research blogging" if 1) the blogger is appropriately credentialed, and 2) is blogging about peer reviewed research. At the time, the Research Blogging community was still sorting out how it wanted to do things, but the big debate, as you might expect, was how to set the parameters of "peer reviewed research". Conference papers? Published articles only? In any self proclaimed "peer reviewed" journal? Or only articles from journals of recognized standard/standing? What about the open source movement in some academic disciplines, and online-only publication outlets? The discussions got into the problems with peer review that both you and John Fishel mentioned. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Research Blogging's full set of criteria, but they set an interesting standard in quality control for blogging, and suggests something akin to what John, Sam, and Bill were getting at,too.

Personally, I see the development of online, hmmm, let's call them "practitioner communities", can serve as an excellent model of where scholarly research could go (if not "academic" research). Over the past 40 years or so, the pressure to use theoretical models, rather than fieldwork and data, has increased (one of those cost issues), so a lot of social science work has been based on "data" that is increasingly divorced from the field actually being studied. Forums such as the SWJ/SWC and the CTLab () act as a work-around putting practitioners and scholars back in contact with each other.

"Work around" is an interesting way of putting it. Heh heh... I wouldn't put CTlab in the same league as SWJ/SWC (yet!), but both are definitely filling a gap and bridging communities. I'm really looking forward to what they'll evolve into (hint hint...).