Today’s Tale from the field is about productive ways of procrastinating. The intention is not to sabotage New Year’s resolutions, but for the following resources to be available for those much-needed breaks in-between writing sprints, or simply to listen on the go for research and teaching inspiration.
Photo Credit: Smithsonian Institution Libraries (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
I have mentioned before the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) YouTube Channel, which contains recordings of lectures on a host of research topics. NCRM also have a very useful collection of podcasts, featuring latest developments in social science research methods through 15-minute interviews. The very informative ‘What is?’ series of recordings from the Research Methods Festival 2012 contains 30-minute introductions to a variety of research techniques.
Another very relevant podcast is Research in Action, hosted by Dr Katie Linder (Oregon State University). This production covers “topics and issues related to research in higher education featuring experts across a range of disciplines. Episodes are posted weekly and include guest interviews and occasional solo episodes. Guests are from a range of higher education institutions and share their expertise on qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods as well as their personal experiences as researchers, research and writing practices, organizational and productivity strategies, and much more”.
On the teaching front, another interesting podcast is Teaching in Higher Ed, where host Bonni Stachowiak explores “the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning”, sharing tips, tools and resources for teaching and productivity.
Another good idea is to check out podcasts related to your respective research topics. In my case, apart from the above, I am currently listening to the Sexual Health Research Network podcast, as well as This Week in Global Health.
Finally, if podcasting is something you might like to explore to disseminate your research/teaching ideas, you might like to listen to examples about how this is done. Podcasts sharing research projects in which I have participated are available here and here, as well as an interview for UN Radio (in Spanish).
May 2017 be filled with lots of research, writing and productive-procrastinating in-between!
Feel free to share other useful resources in the comments.
Jacqueline Priego is a research fellow at BU’s Centre for Excellence in Learning, having previously curated the research blog Favelas@LSE. She has worked in social research for over nine years, specialising in qualitative and mixed-methods. Jacqueline is a CAQDAS trainer and consultant with particular interest in participatory and creative methods. She tweets @jacqpriego
