I started off thinking about how scholars communicate online and the implications of these communications on scholarly communications (altmetrics and all). I'm still interested in this topic, but not in way where I wanted to undertake a huge research project to think about it.
Through jumping from article to article on Twitter a while ago, I started seeing little glimpses of amateur (or citizen) science. I did a little bit of digging and realized that this was a relatively untapped area of research.
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| Source: Regalado & Mastracci |
What made me really fascinated by this topic is that I see it all the time at the library where I work. Regulars come in to do their research and they are members of the public. There is such a wealth of literature on the information-seeking behavior of professional scientists. And yet, there has been little done on citizen scientists.
I think that I became more excited about this topic (even if it sadly came later in the term) because it's more closely aligned with what I'm most passionate about: outreach and social justice in libraries. So even though this final proposal won't be as flushed out as I would hope, I actually ended up finding a topic that I am genuinely interested in. Now, I can go back through the course material and figure out how to potentially make it happen.
Jelena, I really hope you do something on this. I wonder if you could cover it as a reading course project, or if you did a document analysis of sites or social media outlets where citizen scientists congregate. Or, even an actual thesis?
ReplyDeleteJelena, I really hope you do something on this. I wonder if you could cover it as a reading course project, or if you did a document analysis of sites or social media outlets where citizen scientists congregate. Or, even an actual thesis?
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic, Jelena! I agree with Jess -- there's a lot more to be done here -- very exciting. I think that you could put together a reading course, thesis project etc. where you look critically at the social justice implications for citizen science at different sites and scale.
ReplyDeleteAin't that a victory in itself, becoming excited about a project because it aligns with what you are really passionate about? And since these passions of yours, outreach and social justice in libraries, are sincerely very noble, I do think like Jess and Bridgette that you should really do something of this project, even if it is only spark other researcher's interest in the matter by publishing a scholarly article of presenting part of this research at a conference. No pressure here!, but this is a very relevant topic that could be of interest for a lot of information professionals.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jess, Bridgette, & Catherine!
ReplyDeleteI definitely want to do something with this eventually. I've started putting together that "to-read" bibliography :)
I didn't end up writing my proposal on this topic because I started researching it too late (I went back to my proposal), but this process definitely forced me to think about research interests.