As I read it, the imbalance here is between one group of forces driving
people to cluster into certain groups, which in turn increases another
group of forces driving a desire for something different and more open to
younger students and researchers. The "problem" isn't that one or another
of the resulting configurations is "wrong," but rather that neither
configuration accommodates the needs of both groups. Indeed, one might
wonder whether the implied dichotomy is real or just an artifact of the
current situation.
For what it's worth, there's one organization that I know well that is
trying to grapple with this situation. The Design Society (
https://www.designsociety.org/) spends a fair amount of effort looking for
ways to bring seasoned experts and younger students and researchers
together. One feature that has been recently attempted in the ICED series
of conferences is to replace poster sessions with discussion groups. It had
become fairly obvious that poster sessions were being neglected, yet that
is where many students were presenting their work. In a discussion group,
the hope is that it will cause more mixing and...well, discussion. (duh!)
ICED has done this a few times, and it seems like there's a net benefit,
but I think it's still to early to tell. The DS is also trying to develop
specific activities that bring seasoned and younger people together.
This is not to say there aren't other organizations also working to improve
this; I'm just not aware of them.
It's early days, and much work needs to be done on this front. But I think
there is reason to be hopeful for better days to come.
\V/_ /fas
*Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.*
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
On 30 August 2015 at 07:47, Bijan Aryana <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Barbara,
> I think this is a generic problem in academia. Establishing a reputation is
> not easy and usually those who came first have more opportunities. In
> addition, those who are working in more reputable organizations in certain
> countries usually are being heard more. That's why new journals and
> conferences, and new researchers usually find it difficult to enter this
> closed circle. Universities also just search for "metrics" and these
> metrics are often defined based on what "was" valuable, rather than what
> will be valuable, or what can be valuable. I don't think there is much to
> do with this situation, as we are not making those kind of strategic
> decisions. The only solution is to think about some new organizations
> beyond the conventional academia for following up the cutting edge ideas.
> Online collective projects could be a good start point, as they do not have
> the conventional hierarchical structure that we face when we are doing
> activities in traditional organizations.
> Bijan
>
>
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