Organization Monkey

An exciting new article I read today aligns with some thoughts I’ve had about the development of academic research networks. The article (cited below) looks carefully at the addition and loss of people in individual research networks, a process called “churn.” The article categorizes churn in research networks as either exploratory or exploitative, in which an individual researcher develops ties to new people or severs old relationships (exploratory), or depends on existing ties (exploitative).

The article examines the research networks of a group of scientists over time, to see if the addition/loss of people in those scientists’ networks has an effect on production (measured outputs in this article are publications, grant submissions, successful grant submissions, and grant dollar amounts). A couple of interesting findings: adding new people to one’s research network did not have a significant effect on the number of publications a researcher completed, but a severing of old relationships did; network size had a positive effect on the number of publications completed. They suppose that, “larger networks may also lead to a diversity of ideas.” (p. 8)

I think these findings are especially meaningful to those who are young in their research productivity. We found in our own work, for example, that the networks of the novice librarian-researchers who participate in the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship have active, developing networks, with a lot of churn (cited below). Of course one would expect this at the outset of a research career, but it is useful to think that the addition of new people and the size of one’s network may be able to help these librarian-researchers get to their goals (publications) more efficiently.

Kennedy, Marie R., David P. Kennedy, and Kristine R. Brancolini. 2017. “The Evolution of the Personal Networks of Novice Librarian Researchers.” portal 17(1): 71-89.

Siciliano, Michael D., Erich W. Welch, Mary K. Feeney. 2017 (in press). “Network exploration and exploitation: Professional network churn and scientific production.” Social Networks. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socnet.2017.07.003

I’ve joined our university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) as an alternate member and received a copy of a member handbook to read to prepare myself. (1) I enjoyed reading through the handbook to get a refresher on the history of an IRB as well as to think through the mechanics of how an IRB functions. This book goes deeper than the human subjects training I’ve taken as a researcher, and the concept described in chapter 1-4 (Principles of the Belmont Report) that caught my attention and held it is beneficence.

Now sure, it’s common sense that I wouldn’t want to harm my human research subjects but I don’t think I’ve been prompted in my research career to consider what beneficence is really about, maximizing the potential benefit for my subjects. To consider: is there a way to design my future research projects that intentionally brings about good for my subjects as a direct result of participating in the research? This is a justice issue, at its heart, and the Belmont Report has a section specifically on justice, right after the section on beneficence (see https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/index.html#xbenefit). The concepts of beneficence and justice, and how they are enacted in the research process, are surely more nuanced than I am describing here. I wanted to share the idea with you so that may consider it in your own next research design. Let me know what you think, and how you imagine this may take shape in your own work.

(1) Amdur, Robert, and Elizabeth A. Bankert. Institutional Review Board Member Handbook, 3rd edition. 2011. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.