The Accessibility of Research

 As I am preparing to graduate iwth my master’s degree, I wonder what I am going to do with the next few years of my life. I loved the research aspect of being in school, and yet, I will no longer have access to the resources that I did when I was affiliated with a large university. How then am I to continue learning and growing more in my chosen research area? Apparently, I’m not necessarily supposed to be able to do that.This feels like another method of gatekeeping, ensuring that those who are not affiliated with large universities and have access to all of the latest journals in their fields cannot be the ones who are doing the research that needs to be done. After all, if I as a designer or educational technologist can’t afford to pay $40 per article for the dozens of articles that I would want to be able to look at in order to do a literature review, how can I continue to contribute? You also cannot really contribute unless you are aware of what's happening in the field around you.

    Perhaps this is a small part of the reason that there is such a large gap between researchers and practitioners?

Comments

  1. YvetteMarch 21, 2022 at 9:16 AM

    Thanks, Meg, for your thoughts here regarding the unavailability of research to those who are no longer affiliated with academia. You have made a compelling argument for open scholarship.

    ReplyDelete
  2. EmilyApril 14, 2022 at 3:37 PM

    Thanks, Meg. I feel the same way. Wait! I'm not done yet! I don't know enough! I will be interested to hear what is next for you.

    ReplyDelete

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