[Air-L] Let's talk about AoIR.

[Deller, Ruth A]

Hi Nicole/All

Thanks for the comment - apologies if I misunderstood your intentions although I am still a little confused - you state:

"My comment was about the need for different kinds of presentation formats
that support different kinds of work." - Absolutely, I totally agree with you here.

But re: this comment: "For empirical ("straight") research, I think it makes sense to include "findings" when assessments about quality are being made. The perceived low-quality of the conference (and its subsequent implications for funding, tenure decisions, etc.) have been noted by others, and I think encouraging people to include their findings when submitting empirical work will go a long way towards addressing the problems others have noted with regard to cocktail-napkin-notes presentations or excellent abstracts/poor papers." - it seems to suggest (and I may be misreading you so I apologise if so) that any empirical research should be completed with some form of clear 'findings' before submitting an abstract (or equivalent) for a paper - and this is something I'm not very keen on applying as a rule.  

It's great for some to write abstracts including clear findings, of course, but I do think there is a place for papers that represent works-in-progress, or papers that represent empirical research currently underway that will be completed by the conference time.  Indeed, this is often more useful than presenting things that are in press and we can read in journals or books a few weeks later.  For one thing, having a conference paper accepted gives people an impetus to work on understanding, interpreting and analysing their data (if they have data, that is) rather than putting it off.  For another, it keeps things 'fresh' and it also allows comments and questions that may provide vital input into the shaping of publications.  And, of course, it opens up the space for PhD students who won't have concrete 'findings' often until later in their project.

I don't think that's unique to us, by the way, the majority of conferences I've attended (as I mentioned) have papers at all stages of the process, so if people do have some findings to put in their abstract/submission, then that's great, but I would be very wary about making that the standard everyone should have to meet in order to give a paper.  That was what I meant in my response to your earlier comment - however, I may still be misreading your intention here and apologies if that's the case.  If you just mean 'it'd be good to put in your findings if you can at this stage but it's cool if you can't' rather than 'it's a must if you've done empirical research to put your findings in and if you're still figuring them out then you can't submit anything yet' then fair enough.

Ruth
________________________________________
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] on behalf of Nicole Ellison [enicole at umich.edu]
Sent: 31 May 2013 18:39
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Let's talk about AoIR.

Re: Ruth's comment that: "The internet is always changing and I worry that
to fully take on board Nicole's suggestion of only submitting things that
had 'findings' ..."

I'd like to clarify that this is not what I said at all, nor do I think
this should be the case. I'm actually pretty shocked that my note was
interpreted this way.

My comment was about the need for different kinds of presentation formats
that support different kinds of work. For empirical ("straight") research,
I think it makes sense to include "findings" when assessments about quality
are being made. The perceived low-quality of the conference (and its
subsequent implications for funding, tenure decisions, etc.) have been
noted by others, and I think encouraging people to include their findings
when submitting empirical work will go a long way towards addressing the
problems others have noted with regard to cocktail-napkin-notes
presentations or excellent abstracts/poor papers.

***I also think there should be separate formats for the other kinds of
work that Terri and others have mentioned - be they roundtables, birds of a
feather, performances, workshops, etc.*** I think the conference can
support these different kinds of presentation modes.

I agree that having clearer guidelines for authors and reviewers will help
with the reviewing problems that have been noted, as would a larger
reviewing pool.

Thanks, Nicole

--
Nicole B. Ellison
Associate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan
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