SWECJMC - A Yearly Favorite

One of my favorite conferences is the Southwest Education Council for Journalism and Mass Communication's (SWECJMC) Annual Research Symposium. After virtual meetings, it was lovely to be face-to-face again! The Baylor University team was an awesome host. The Friday afternoon crew is pictured below at the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC).

Research presentations interest me, but the panels are where I scribble notes to bring back to my own program. Here are some of my notes to self:

• Some programs are integrating AR, VR, and AI through digital clubs. "Playing" with the tools (like an Amazon Deep Racer) is OK as we explore what they can mean for news and brands.
• TikTok is a quick way to introduce AR filters.
• Writing Alexa scripts and working through AWS could be a good resume and skills boost.
• Programming a chatbot might be a good way to work through FAQs and think of stakeholders and target audiences.
• One faculty member encourages students to explore new technology and apps by assigning a project where they must find a new XYZ, teach themselves and then teach him. 

Another thing I love about SWECJMC is catching up with colleagues. Dr. George Daniels, University of Alabama, and I celebrated 22 years since our days at the University of Georgia! And I met Jon Zmikly, Texas State, after about a 10-year virtual friendship. I also met new friends and research colleagues and witnessed so many great presentations by graduate students who will be joining the faculty ranks soon. 

See you in Jonesboro, Ark., next year! 

Stop, collaborate and research

When looking back at the past 10 years of research, I was amazed at the number of collaborators I have been lucky enough to work with on various projects. I may have received an award from my college for my scholarship, but I accept it on their behalf. It would not have happened without my partners in research and cheerleaders along the way.

On Facebook, I said my research journey started with my dissertation advisor, Dr. Kathleen Whitson, but I neglected to mention Dr. Daniel Chen, who tried to impart the importance of strong research questions in one of our doctoral research courses. So, there's two people acknowledged. Only 28 co-authors left to thank! 

Then there are all of the journal editors and their anonymous team of reviewers, from the ones that have rejected my work, but made it better with reviews -- and the ones who have suggested needed improvements and worked through multiple revisions.

My research agenda started with a focus on experiential learning in student-run communication organizations and returns there every so often. Adding to that is social media research and most recently listening in social media. Collaborations led me to new efforts like case studies in ethics, mentoring projects, and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) papers and presentations. 

I am grateful for these opportunities because they have informed my teaching. In grad school, you hear about how research is part of the professor's job because it informs your teaching and expands the body of literature. Every project has added something to what I bring to the classroom. 

So, thank you, Academy, for this honor.  Oh, and I forgot the most important: thank you to my family who puts up with writing frenzies stealing me away from time to time.

For wider dissemination: Making infographics for your research

What do you do to fill the gap, reach beyond the Ivory Tower, or drive your gown into town? As part of my graduate research course this semester, we talked about access to research. If researchers have articles behind a publisher paywall, what can they do to bring the findings to the masses.

Enter the infographic. Students have been tasked with making infographics for a handful of research articles. But before I set them out on this project, I thought I better practice what I am now preaching. It's not perfect, but here's my stab at an infographic for a project Dr. Chris Gearhart and I recently completed.

Here's what I learned:

1. Wow, condensing your research to an inforgraphic forces you to boil it down to its core. I suspect this will be easier when the article is not YOUR baby.

2. Letting go of text is HARD for some of us. I found myself wanted to clutter the *graphic* with words. Use the templates and icons as guides. Tell yourself to think in images. Edit, edit, edit. I could probably still replace some words with graphics.

3. So many good, free resources are out there. I chose to use Visme.co, but there are tons of options. As with any freemium, you have to settle for the basic package if you're on a zero-budget. But, I was able to complete my project and export a jpg.

Let me know what you think. What has worked for you when creating an infographic for your research?

Research in Progress: Student-run media and satellite campuses

If you are an adviser at a university or college student-run newspaper, ad/PR firm, TV, or radio station, with multiple campuses, I could really use your input. I am investigating how our student-run organizations connect with and include colleagues on outreach/satellite campuses. Below is a short online questionnaire, which will take only a few moments of your time. Institutional review board permission is on file with my university. Thank you in advance.

https://tarleton.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1AJSISlJWkX9c33

Conference season: Encouraging students to jump in

Lately, I've been spending energy encouraging our graduate students to submit their work to academic conferences. Simply saying, "It's good for you and your career" is not a persuasive sell when students have so many other responsibilities vying for their attention and travel can be a financial strain.

Here is a list of reasons attending a conference as a graduate student (or undergraduate!!!) is a good idea. Please feel free to add:

1. Scope - You will see your academic field as a larger entity. We get used to our bubbles on campus. Your department is your world right now, but go to a conference and you will see how small that viewpoint can be.
2. Standings - Many times, I have very humble students who don't think they qualify or can compete on a larger stage. I am always so proud when they try, and realize, yes, I am as good (or better) than that student from a Research I institution. I've had undergraduate students rock presentations where they were the only undergrads at the conference. I've had master's students presenting at conferences surprised to meet doctoral students from top universities who reported being too nervous to attempt a presentation. 
3. Energy and Excitement - You will be surrounded by people passionate about your field. It's hard not to let that enthusiasm motivate you to something bigger. One student was so excited by all of the research he heard, that he exclaimed, "Dr. Maben, research is fun!" I wish he had come to that observation during my class...but it *is* fun to see what others are researching. Sometimes, the reboot is exactly what you needed during the semester.
4. Real People - I laugh when students tell me that Dr. So-in-so is actually a funny person when you go to conferences with her/him. I myself still fan-girl a bit when I see a researcher I have quoted in publications. Researchers and professors are REAL people. You can meet that citation you've been writing over and over, or get to know your own institution's professors better.
5. Extra Mileage  - You've gone to a LOT of work to write that paper or conduct that research. Get the most mileage out of it by presenting at a conference and then use the feedback to fine-tune the project for possible publication. In my master's program, I didn't think my work was good enough to present. Dirty secret: Yes, much of your work is presentable. Work with your professors to take a project from class-ready to conference-ready. This is another great way to get individualized help from your professors. Just think, down the road, you might be conducting research together as peers.
6. Ambassadors - By presenting at conferences, you are showing off your program and school. This is a commodity in the academic world. 

So, now you're interested in going. Let your professors know. They can help identify student-friendly conferences and how to submit a quality product. Your university will likely have money to help send you to conference (see no. 6). I have yet to hear students say that going to a conference was a mistake.

What selling point has worked best in your efforts to encourage (or cajole) students to attend conferences?

How to make a journal editor happy

I have learned a lot about submitting manuscripts from being on the receiving end as a journal editor. Instead of giving a list of my pet peeves, I would rather focus on the positive. Every issue, I am delighted by authors more than I am driven crazy. Delight can come from simple kindness in an email or just following instructions. So, here are ways to make one journal editor happy:

Follow the style guide

• Take the time to tailor your manuscript to the journal's style guide. Yes, it's a pain, but it also tells the editor that you are serious about publication. (If you leave it in the style of the journal to which you previously submitted, a journal editor can tell.)
• You don't have to get fancy and mimic the paginated look with text boxes. This only gives the paginating editor the nightmare of copying material from a text box into the main flow of the article.
• If the journal uses a style guide you don't know well, look for a manuscript editor on your campus or in your community. Shout out to Lacie Harris at Tarleton State! She's an awesome editor and helps our faculty submit cleaner manuscripts.

Make substantial changes based on reviewer feedback

• Provide a memo or table addressing how you handled each reviewer comment. This makes it so much easier for an editor to see that you valued the feedback and truly used it to better the manuscript.
•  This is a great time to find more current or robust citations, too.

Make sure your in-text citations match up with your reference list

• Use the "find" feature in your file, or simply cross reference every citation.
• With multi-author papers, and ones that have experienced many revisions, cited works change. Make it your job, not the editor's, to catch these kinds of edits.

Be responsive

• Update your email system to prioritize messages from editors, or at least prevent them from going to your spam folder. You want to respond in a timely manner. Editors are deadline-driven.
• If given a deadline for proofing or other tasks, respond before your given deadline. This may help an editor move the publication along even faster. 
• When you respond, double check that you have addressed all of the editor's questions. Do so thoroughly. Inaccurate or missing elements may make an editor doubt the quality of your research.

Remember that editors are people, too. Well, sometimes...

• Be nice in your messages, or at least professional. I do not mind an email asking for a status update, as long as it's not rude or snarky. Some editors are not receiving huge stipends, course release, or anything beyond a line on the service category of a vitae to do what they do. 
• Thank an editor after you read a great issue. Or after your article publishes.

Squeezing into a 250-word abstract

Serving as a reviewer for a journal or conference gives you a glimpse behind the curtain of decision-making. Recently, I served as a reviewer for a conference that required a short abstract submission. Yes, it's hard to squeeze everything into 250 words....it's also very hard to judge a paper's potential in that amount of words.

How authors handled the 250 words was illuminating. Some made great use of the space and others wasted too much time on introductions. This brings me to my list of tips/observations about submitting an abstract (especially a short one) for a conference's paper competition:

• Don't waste too many words on an introduction. If you end up with words to spare, you can add a short sentence that introduces your topic. Have you ever been to a presentation where the "introducer" spends more time speaking than the speaker she is introducing?
• Lit Review. Include some sense that you have reviewed the literature and have a strong understanding of where your study fits. Mass cites and "e.g." can help save you some words. Here's a sample: "This work adds to the foundations of framing theory (e.g. CITE) by expanding..." You can do this in 1-2 sentences.
• Theory in a nutshell, a tiny one. Quickly mention the theoretical foundation for the study. You can weasel this in an introductory phrase like "Based on XYZ theory" or "Using ABC theory." That only takes 3-4 words from your 250 words.
• Research question(s). This is a short-form way to get to the heart of your study/project.
• METHODS. This is where I would spend a few more of your precious words. This particular reviewer (me) is looking for the strength of design. Were the methods suitable to address your research question(s). At the least, give reviewers words like "case study, experimental design, qualitative, quantitative or mixed method."
• Use shorthand when possible. To explain your sample size, (N=124) does the trick.
• Why it matters. End with what the study will offer to the public, readers, practitioners, academics, etc. 

So, my list is 243 words. It can be done. As always, read the instructions. Some writers neglected to hit the three questions the instructions specified. If it's a study in progress, you can say that.

How do you squeeze into a 250-word abstract?

Partnering on research

Partnering on research projects can be a way to maximize your time and efforts, learn new methods/approaches yourself, and add a layer of accountability. Some institutions and tenure/promotion committees want to see single-author publications, and others accept and value collaborative works. You can see from my vitae, the little girl who hated group work in grade school has learned how to co-author and co-present.

So if you're ready to partner up, let me offer these thoughts:

1. Test run. Pick a small project to start. This could be a co-authored guest blog post or regional panel. You will be able to see how each other works. And it's OK if it's not a good fit.
2. Consider your threshold for deadlines and procrastination. Before my little one arrived, I was up for late night writing sessions that pushed deadlines to within seconds. Now, I can't guarantee you that kind of window of work. I work much more in advance because I must.
3. Find partners with complementary skills sets. Maybe you have a great network for survey solicitation, and your partner is a strong statistician. Find someone to strengthen your gaps and vice versa.
4. Cross disciplines. Find ways to bridge the silos and connect with colleagues in different departments. This also opens your work to more publication options.
5. Communicate. Discuss openly issues like order of authorship and timelines before beginning a project. 
6. Going separate ways. You're kind of like a band. Play while it works. Strike out for a solo tour when you need, and be open to the reunion project. 

A semester in review

In my classes, I typically ask students to reflect at the end of the semester. Sometimes I hand back the first-day assignment and other times I challenge them to list everything they learned in the semester. What did they learn about themselves and what inspiration did they find this semester? It could simply be the revelation that they didn't like a certain aspect of public relations. This goes beyond the course learning objectives and regular course evaluations. If I believe it's good for them, then I should follow my own advice.

Reflections from this semester

1) Nap time is a great time for writing. While the toddler sleeps, I feel the urgency to work as efficiently as I can. I worked on two new research projects and three revise and resubmits. So far in 2017, I have added three publications to the vitae. I should have been doing this before the kiddo came along!!!

2) Class size makes a difference. In retrospect, I should have changed how I handle our graduate ethics class when it moved beyond the 10 students I had last time. Each night, we had so many peer presentations to jam into our time together that I fear class became predictable and routine.

3) Expect a lot. I'm a believer in setting expectations high and helping our students get there. And they will. Our grad students submitted to NCA, a call for book chapters, and a PRSA conference. The ethics case studies they wrote this semester were exceptional and I hope to see them present and publish soon.

As the semester winds down, what are your semester-in-review reflections?

Why Dissertation Dilemmas are the Best

In retrospect, a messy dissertation process has been a blessing. The ups and downs and workarounds prepare you for the realities of academic research and the race to publish.

During my childhood, my Mom would say during times of distress, "it will make you a better person."At the time of my dissertation, it seemed that a hurdle await at every turn. If Mom's saying proved correct, I would be the best person, ever.

It's taken more than six years to come to this realization, but I am thankful. I find that most projects have some kind of setbacks and the storm before the calm — that moment where the thought of abandoning the project is appealing. If you can make it through the cloudy chaos, which for me normally means parking myself in a chair and setting a timer for a required work period, you will see progress.

So, if you're doing the dissertation dance, jump the hoops, leap over the hurdles and keep pressing. The battle scars will help you in the research part of your future faculty positions.

Research Graveyard

Have you ever taken a walk through your research graveyard, the projects that just never found a home? I know some believe there's a home for every paper/project, but I think there is a time to cut your losses and let it go.

Here's what I learned when taking a critical eye to my failed works. They shared some themes:

1. Lacked focus. The paper may have been better as a brainstorming piece to get me to the bigger picture, and should have been the precursor only.
2. Tried desperately to force something. At one conference, our entire panel sat in disbelief as NO ONE attended our presentation. So, we decided to make use of the time, and devised a project. It was forced and never found a home. This can also happen when you try to manufacture a concept to fit a conference theme or merge too many researchers' interests into one piece.
3. Rushed. Not leaving enough time to properly conceive the research design and collect the data is a recipe for a failed project.
4. Failed to answer the so-what question. Just because you want a publication on your vitae does not mean a project really matters. I try to ask, who would care? Who can this help? What will the research mean?

The goal would be to have a small research graveyard. As the semester kicks off once again, I use this list as a reminder to fully develop research projects on the front end, so they will find a home.

First-year Seminar syllabus share

In 2013, a few communication colleagues were tapped to teach our college's inaugural First-year Seminar (FYS) course. With student learning objectives (SLOs) handed down from the university, we began to craft a course to meet those objectives. So, on the road between Stephenville, Texas, and Norman, Okla., Dr. Lora Helvie-Mason (author of Communication & Higher Education blog) and I developed activities and assignments to help students make the transition from high school to university, in a mandatory one-hour course.

Through weekly reflective writings, a collaborative original research project and presentation, required attendance at campus events, readings (Tina Seelig's inGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity), and a predetermined financial literacy module, the course came together. In our first semester, we were a bit ambitious, but wanted to hold the line of academic rigor. Here is the original syllabus, and you can see how it has adapted based on student feedback and faculty reflection to the 2016 syllabus.

One of our challenges was catering to the many and varied majors in our college, from criminal justice to geography to fine arts to social work to communication studies. We created choices where possible, to allow students to tailor projects to their interests. In the syllabus file, you can see the reflective writing prompts, which gave students some room for major and career exploration as well as multicultural exposure.

The collaborative original research project and presentation was something we tried, in order to tackle multiple SLOs. Students followed activists on Twitter for a mixed methods research paper with an oral conference-style presentation. Lora and I chronicled this project for our own teaching and learning research endeavors. Two journal articles will be published. One explains the project details and the other looked at student perceptions of their learning.

• Helvie-Mason, L., Maben, S. K. (in press). Twitter-vism: Student Narratives and Perceptions of Learning from an Undergraduate Research Experience on Twitter Activism. Teaching Journalism & Mass Communication. aejmc.us/spig/journal/
• Maben, S. K., Helvie-Mason, L. (in press). When Twitter Meets Undergraduate Research:  A First-year Seminar Project. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 29(1). www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/

I applaud anyone who teaches FYS/FYE courses. They are rewarding, and the challenge to incorporate so much into a one-hour course is a stimulating curricular exercise for a prof. My contribution was for one semester, and I'm excited to think that many of my FYS'rs are getting ready to graduate! Lora and I are following up with our first cohort to see what FYS course elements stuck with them, and what mattered most to their successful transition to college.  Stay tuned for those results!

Research Update: Social Media Training

Thank you to all of the advisers and students who participated in our survey asking about social media training at student-run communication organizations. A full report will be published in the Spring 2017 issue of Southwestern Mass Communication Journal. Until then, Kay Colley and I wanted to share this slideshow with you: #NotAllBaptismByFire slides.

Social Media Training in Student-run Comm Organizations

How are student-run communication organizations (like news organizations, radio/TV stations and PR firms) training college students to strategically use social media? Dr. Kay Colley (Texas Wesleyan) and I are conducting research on this topic, and if you are an adviser at a student-run operation at a U.S. college or university, we'd love to have your input. Our Institutional Review Board approval is on file and the intro screen will further explain the study. 

Survey link: https://www.psychdata.com/s.asp?SID=172572

We hope to share our findings this fall! Thanks for participating or sharing with those who serve in this capacity.