Blogs as Scholarly Communication

          Blogs are an emerging writing tool for scholarly communication.  Rieger (2010) describes scholarly communication as the creation, exchange and dissemination of knowledge within the context of academic discourse.   A large portion of scholars are educators who are concerned with scholarship as if relates to teaching.  McGrath (2010) believes that blogs cause the intersecting of scholarship and teaching. As places for sharing, blogs, over time have become a repository of information which can be linked to relevant sites.  Therefore, blogs have contributed to research and data collection.  An added benefit of blogging is the interactive and interlinking of posts between other nurse educators (scholars) which enhance networking and sharing of information.  Scholarly conversation takes place which leads to analysis and interpretation of information causing further refinement through continued blogging.  The continuation of blogging could be seen as authoring and presenting through a web log which is essentially a free academic conference with a far reaching audience. 

Blogs are causing a communication ripple within all levels of education.  Blogging can be assigned within journalism classes.  Distance education can use blogging as learning and content management system tools.   Graduate students can share research projects and solicit feedback.  In fact, the popularity of blogs is due to its unlimited scope for interactivity (Williams & Jacobs, 2004).  Over time in the course of writing entries and responding to feedback a distinctive style emerges which reflects the personal character of the blog’s creator. 

Blogs have been likened to a “killer app” or described as the “latest disruptive technology” which strives to engage individuals in collaborative activity, knowledge sharing, reflection and debate (Williams & Jacob, 2004).  In fact, blogging has been described as a form of micro-publishing.  “Blogs  provide a forum for academic discourse that reaches beyond the scope of a university subject and which augments the knowledge creation occurring throughout a student's enrolment in a higher education program” (Williams & Jacob, 2004, p. 13).

The OK Nurse Educator’s Blog is designed to stimulate scholarly dialogue with other scholars (nurse educators) within the state to enhance nursing education.  A dissemination of scholarly views and a sharing of knowledge will be the ultimate impetus of the OK Nurse Educator Blog.  IONE is designed to support nursing education and nurse educators within the state; therefore, the promotion of scholarship through blogging is a natural extension.  So, bookmark this IONE website (http://www.institute-one.org/ ) as one of your favorite and take part in the scholarly discourse.  

Maag, M. (2005). The potential use of “blogs” in nursing education. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 23(1), 16-24.

McGrath, J.F. (2010). The blogging revolution: New technologies and their impact on how we do scholarship. Society of Biblical Literature, Atlanta.  

Rieger, O.Y. (2010). Framing digital humanities: The role of new media in humanities scholarship. First Monday, 15(10).

Williams, J. B., & Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector.  Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20(2), 232-247.