#33246
Online Experiments: Ethically Fair or Foul? 
Online experiments may be helping researchers gather more data faster than ever before, but those advantages are coming with greater ethical challenges--threats to participant confidentiality, questions over whether the participants really understand what they're getting into and the possibility that less scrupulous researchers could steal your ideas.
Azar, Beth. Monitor on Psychology (2000). Articles>Research>Ethics>Online
#33562
Technical communication practices have been changed dramatically by the increasingly ubiquitous nature of digital technologies. Yet, while those who work in the profession have been living through this dramatic change, our academic discipline has been moving at a slower pace, at times appearing quite unsure about how to proceed. This article focuses on the following three areas of opportunity for change in our discipline in relation to digital technologies: access and expectations, scholarship and community building, and accountability and partnering.
Gurak, Laura J. and Ann Hill Duin. Technical Communication Quarterly (2004). Articles>TC>Research>Online
#34177
University Publishing In A Digital Age
This paper argues that a renewed commitment to publishing in its broadest sense can enable universities to more fully realize the potential global impact of their academic programs, enhance the reputations of their institutions, maintain a strong voice in determining what constitutes important scholarship, and in some cases reduce costs.
Ithaka (2009). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online
#34608
Electronic Publication and the Narrowing of Science and Scholarship 
Online journals promise to serve more information to more dispersed audiences and are more efficiently searched and recalled. But because they are used differently than print—scientists and scholars tend to search electronically and follow hyperlinks rather than browse or peruse—electronically available journals may portend an ironic change for science. Using a database of 34 million articles, their citations (1945 to 2005), and online availability (1998 to 2005), I show that as more journal issues came online, the articles referenced tended to be more recent, fewer journals and articles were cited, and more of those citations were to fewer journals and articles. The forced browsing of print archives may have stretched scientists and scholars to anchor findings deeply into past and present scholarship. Searching online is more efficient and following hyperlinks quickly puts researchers in touch with prevailing opinion, but this may accelerate consensus and narrow the range of findings and ideas built upon.
Evans, James A. Science (2008). Articles>Research>Publishing>Online
#35286
Research Automation as Technomethodological Pixie Dust
Timothy de Waal Malefyt’s recent article in American Anthropologist details how corporations are turning to “multiple ethnographic vendors to compete for projects in bidding wars.” I am more interested in how such technomethodolgies are being touted. They supposedly offer efficiency gains through transformation, compression, or automation of research process. Technologies of automation have always been coupled seductively with cost savings, and this area is no exception; there are plenty of services competing for business by offering quicker, faster (often capitalized: FASTER) results-time is money and less time is cheaper. So what is cut to save money, and what technologies allow for services to compress research strategy and plan, research engagement and analysis, and research reporting?
Churchill, Elizabeth. Interactions (2009). Articles>Research>Online
#35383
Using the EServer TC Library for Course "Outside Readings"
Almost two years ago, I posted a rough note here about teaching my intro to technical communication course using the TC Library as a supplement to the textbook. Here's a more detailed essay on the method, which is working quite well so far.
Sauer, Geoffrey. EServer (2009). Articles>Education>Research>Online
