RU a PIG In MuD?

Paul Silvia, associate professor of psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, for Pacific Standard reviews Dr. Roberta Ness’ Innovation Generation: How to Produce Creative and Useful Scientific Ideas (Oxford UP), which employs the acronym PIG In MuD:

1. Phrase a question based on interest, observation, and knowledge.
2. Identify the frames and find alternatives.
3. Generate all possible solutions.
4. Incubate.
5. Meld your single best idea back into the process of normal science.
6. Disseminate your innovative finding.

This brief video by Dr. Ness for TEDxHouston is engaging and informative.

 

Dr. Ness is dean of the School of Public Health, University of Texas at Houston.

Inside Higher Ed: Scholarly Publishing

Three articles in Inside Higher Ed today came to our attention.

The controversial proposed law originating in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, the Research Works Act, which would have prohibited the government from requiring open access publication of studies funded by the federal government, lost a key supporter, Elsevier Publishing and has been withdrawn by the bill’s co-sponsors. Steven Kolowich’s “A Significant Flinch” reports on the controversy and the fate of the bill, reminding readers that Elsevier’s support, crucial for the success of the bill, evaporated after a substantial global boycott of the mega-publisher.

Felicia LeClere’s essay “Grant Review Panels as Prom Committees,” despite its snarky title, extolls what she has observed while serving on grant review committees, suggesting that review panels work fairly more often than not.

And what about the anonymous reviewers of journal article manuscripts? Brian Rathbun’s “Dear Reviewers, a Word?” speaks to them, asking them to temper their rejections.

The Professor Is In

Karen L. Kelsky is The Professor of TheProfessorIsIn, a Web site that augments Kelsky’s consulting practice as an advisor to advanced doctoral students and junior faculty. She came to my attention through her essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “To: Professors; Re: Your Advisees,” in which she laments the lack of robust professional advising in graduate school.

Or to put it succinctly in Long’s Axiom: Graduate school prepares you . . . for graduate school.

The Web site offers a variety of suggestions on applying for academic jobs, writing, publishing, grant applications and related professional topics. It is now available through our “blinks” section.

Review: Wood & Ross-Kerr, Basic Steps in Planning Nursing Research

Wood, M. J., & Ross-Kerr, J. C. (2011).  Basic steps in planning nursing research:  From question to proposal (7th Ed.).  Sudbury, MA:  Jones and Bartlett Publishing. 511 pp.

Wood and Ross-Kerr, both nursing faculty members at the University of Alberta, have developed a guide for planning nursing research in their 2011 edition of Basic Steps in Planning Nursing Research:  From Question to Proposal.  This text offers a basic description of how to design a research project, from conception to implementation and would be a useful supplemental text for a beginning graduate course or for an advanced undergraduate course.  Undergraduate nursing students who are in an honors program might benefit from using this text to guide them in developing a research project or proposal.  The content of this text is presented in simple, easy-to-follow chapters.  One of the many strengths of this text is the appendices, which contain multiple examples of research proposals for several different research designs.  While valuable for its ability to inform and guide budding nurse researchers, this book is not analogous to a standard research methods textbook for an undergraduate research methods course and would most likely be used as a supplemental resource in such a course. 

–Heather Evans, PhD, RNC, CLC, Assistant Clinical Professor, School of Nursing, University of Connecticut