Good question but not one with a standard answer since each country and
discipline has a different way of valuing these things.
However I would say that I've never learned much, or met anybody
interesting in the process of publishing in a journal. Conferences build
the field of research in a much more dynamic way.
In the UK there is a general prejudice in favour of journals, however in
some disciplines (I think it applies in some areas of computing) some of
the highest rated university departments have a major part of their
outputs in conferences. Design does not have a core set of highly rated
journals in the way that many disciplines have, there are two reasons -
we are relatively new at the game and our research is eclectic- we get
involved with many other disciplines and many different kinds of
investigation that might lead us into all kinds of specialist journals.
In the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise (where the government works
out who gets the money) Art and Design researchers submitted approx 800
journal articles for peer assessment, the majority from designers as
artists tend to use other forms of dissemination. Those 800 papers were
spread across nearly 500 journals. Some of those journals were highly
regarded research journals, others may have been less scholarly, but the
huge diversity meant that nobody had an easy way of working out which
were the serious ones. So the review panel had to assess the work
themselves with the result that papers in research journals had the same
chance of success as those in conference proceedings or in
unconventional publications.
So I'm relatively relaxed about this for myself although I would always
look out for an opportunity to publish in a journal. Colleagues in more
traditional universities tend to find it difficult to argue along my
lines because their bosses are used to the culture of journal
publications. They find it pretty scary that a bunch of arty designers
could even imagine they are doing research.
best wishes from Sheffield
Chris
********************
Professor Chris Rust
Head of Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
+44 114 225 2686
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www.chrisrust.net
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