Episode #8: On Academic/Professinal Conferences

BreakDrink Podcast

Lately, Jeff and Laura have been having a variety of chats about “being a scholar” and what it means to share scholarly work. We recently have been attending a few different conferences together (and apart) in 2017, and have been discussing how we share evidence and practice in higher education. In @BreakDrink episode no. 8, we share a bit more about how practitioner conferences differ from scholarly/research-focused conferences. This might part of a few series of podcast where we talk more about academic work: our experiences being mentored in writing, how to put together a manuscript, proposing a conference paper, peer-review journal start up, or who knows what else -- we think about academic writing and contributions to academe.

Conferences Run Down in 2017: Scholar vs. Academic Conference

American Educational Research Association (AERA) hosts a research/scholarly conference annually and this year #aera17 conference was in San Antonio, TX with Jeff in attendance. This professional association is HUGE, but thankfully it is broken down into Divisions and Special Interest Groups (a.k.a. SIGs). Division I is Jeff’s Jam: Education in the Professions as he also attends the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and perhaps Division J may be were some of the doctoral/graduate scholars hang out. Related to this association you will find THE journal, Educational Researcher, that is well-regarded by scholars; however AERA also has AERA Open and other publication outlets.

We just wish we saw more of this at practitioner conferences. Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA) also held their annual conference at the same convention center in San Antonio, TX back in March. Both Jeff and I were there, and we attended a session on publishing in the NASPA journals from this association [Sadly the new Technology in Higher Education: Emerging Practice was not represented in this session this year.] It’s not as though sessions at Student Affairs or Practitioner conferences do have a poster session, and I have seen “Research Papers” presented at ACPA Convention and NACADA has offered Research Symposiums at regional conferences. The conferences mentioned in Chapter 3 of Hatfield and Wise’s (2015) book: ACPA, NACA, NACADA, NASPA, ACUHO-I, NODA, & NIRSA

Academic Conferences We Have Also Attended to Note:

• i-Schools, hosts an annual iConference in different international locations, that brings together scholars who have a fundamental interest in the relationships between information, people, and technology.
• Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE)
• International Conference on Social Media & Society [via Social Media Lab at Ryerson University]
• Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT)
• Academic of Human Resource Development (AHRD)
• Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
• Digital Learning Research Network 2015 via the University of Texas Arlington Link Research Lab

Conference Proceedings 101

Conference proceedings are scholarly papers a number of academics/researchers include on their vitae for the tenure and promotion. This is the “carrot” as to why faculty or scholars would attend a conference and allow doctoral researchers grants to travel, beyond the value of networking and discussions with peers. A proceeding could be a short (or long) paper presented at a conference, and sometimes there are even print proceedings published for your conference abstracts/papers (e.g. #SMsociety15 proceedings). All papers typically have a specific format (e.g. AECT’s manuscript requirements) and are submitted for a formal (typically blinded) peer-review process before they are accepted. Typically these are shorter papers or a conference abstract (not a beginning of a journal article abstract format), where you present your completed research projects. A number of social sciences and education conferences have specific formats beyond the APA Style 6th Edition, but that is a good start.

If accepted, you will typically present your paper at the conference in a condensed format, such as 10-25 minutes, with a set of other papers in a single session. Each presentation is directed to showcase research by describing a brief literature overview, research methods (data collection, analysis) and findings/implications.This might be moderated by a discussant, moderator, or not at all with a brief (2-5 minutes) for Q&A at the end of your presentation/session time slot.

Other formats typically at scholarly conferences we have seen -- but this is not an inclusive list:

• Conference abstract (1000-2500 words) - how to guide and killer abstract writing
• Full Papers (up to 8000-10.000 words)
• Notes or Work/Research In Progress
• Poster Sessions (also via a device, e.g. laptop, tablet, etc.)
• Workshops/Hands-on Sessions (e.g. how to use R Studio for text mining)
• Competitions or Expos -- challenge/solution program feature to showcase work
• Plenary/Keynotes
• Doctoral Colloquium
• Mentoring Programs

Episode F.A.Q.

Q: Is it considered a self-plagiarism to reuse (published) abstracts for talks?

A: Yes. You want to avoid text recycling and s