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Re: [Phys-L] Multiple postings and Response to Can Education Research Be "Scientific"? What's "Scientific"? (was "in Defense of. . . .)



If you reply to this long (14 kB) post please don't hit the reply button - bane of discussion lists - unless you prune the copy of this post that may appear in your reply down to a few relevant lines, otherwise the entire already archived post may be needlessly resent to subscribers.

In response to my post "Can Education Research Be 'Scientific'? What's 'Scientific'? (was 'in Defense of. . . .') " [Hake (2012a)] Keith Taber (2012) wrote [bracketed by lines "TTTTT. . . ."; TAKING DUE ACCOUNT OF TABER'S RESTRICTION: "This posting is copyright Keith S Taber (2012): permission is granted for it to be cited/quoted on the lists to which I have posted it: it may not be reproduced elsewhere except that (a) it is posted in full with no omissions or editing; (b) a copy of the full text in which the posting appears, with details of where posted, are provided to the author at <kst24@cam.ac.uk>"]:

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I appreciate that having the same message posted on several lists can increase the potential for debate, but it also gets very messy. I received the posting cited above, that starts:

"Some subscribers to Phys-L (or whatever list) might be interested in a recent post "Can Education Research Be 'Scientific'? What's 'Scientific'? (was 'in Defense of. . . .')" [Hake (2012)]. The abstract reads:"

from at least three lists. This was criticising a post on one of those lists. The author of that post (Noah Podolefsky) responded to point out that the post cited above misrepresented what he had said by taking things out of context (for example suggesting Podolefsky adopted a position when he in fact reported only that some others adopted that position). But that response has only appeared (so far) on the original list. So on at least two other lists the original posting has (so far) appeared without the person being misrepresented having the chance to put the record straight.

This all seems very messy to me.

I think there are occasions when cross-posting is appropriate, but I find the systematic cross-posting that seems to have become habitual recently, unhelpful.

Perhaps it is sensible to initiate discussions on several lists, but then it may be more appropriate only to post responses to the replies on the particular lists where those replies appear.

I also wonder about copyright issues here. There are normal understandings about what is considered about fair use, but presumably to ignore this statement is infringing my copyright (as well as acting unethically/unprofessionally).

I would not want to start appending such a statement to all my list postings, but perhaps we are reaching the stage where we will need to do this to stop our words being re-quoted in distorted ways on other lists (whether due to poor scholarship or deliberate mischief-making) without our knowledge?

Or perhaps I'm the only one who gets uneasy about the way these things are developing, and everyone else is happy enough with the messy way some messages get selectively redistributed around different lists?

Best wishes

Keith

*This posting is copyright Keith S Taber (2012): permission is granted for it to be cited/quoted on the lists to which I have posted it: it may not be reproduced elsewhere except that (a) it is posted in full with no omissions or editing; (b) a copy of the full text in which the posting appears, with details of where posted, are provided to the author at
kst24@cam.ac.uk*

--
Dr. Keith S. Taber
Chair: Science, Technology & Mathematics Education Academic Group
University Reader in Science Education
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education

Editor: Chemistry Education Research and Practice
(Published by the Royal Society of Chemistry)
http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/rp/about.asp

Book Reviews Editor: Studies in Science Education
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/03057267.asp

http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/staff/taber.html

https://camtools.cam.ac.uk/access/wiki/site/~kst24/index.html
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Two points:
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1. Taber wrote:"[Hake's (2012a) post] was criticising a post. . . .[[Podolefsky (2012a)]]. . . . on one of those lists. . . . . [[That, of course, was not the main point of my post. My post considered two important questions: (a) "Can Education Research Be 'Scientific'? and (b) What's 'Scientific'?]] . . . . The author of that post . . . .[[i.e., Podolefsky (2012a)]]. . . . (Noah Podolefsky) responded . . . [in Podolefsky(2012b)]]. . . . to point out. that the post cited above . . . .[[i.e., Hake (2012a)]]. . . . misrepresented what he had said by taking things out of context (for example suggesting that Podolefsky. . . . .[[(2012a)]]. . . adopted a position when he in fact reported only that some others adopted that position)."

Had Taber broken with discussion list protocol and taken the time to actually*read* my post [Hake (2012a)] before responding to it, he might have realized that Podolefsky's (2012b) claims that I had "misrepresented what he had said by taking things out of context" were baseless - see my post [Hake (2012b)] to AERA-K, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, titled "OFF TOPIC: I Neither Quoted Podolefsky Out of Context Nor Misrepresented What He Wrote (was 'Can Education Research Be . . . .')."


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2. Taber wrote: I find the systematic cross-posting that seems to have become habitual recently, unhelpful."

Unhelpful? Had Taber broken with discussion list protocol and taken the time to actually*read* my post [Hake (2012a)] before responding to it, he might have noticed my reference to his own valuable book "Progressing Science Education: Constructing the Scientific Research Programme into the Contingent Nature of Learning Science" [Taber (2009)]. One might have thought that Taber would consider as helpful my free advertising of his book to a segment of the Academic Discussion List sphere [ADLsphere, pronounced "ADDLEsphere" (pun intended) ;-) ].

Although, Taber may still find my cross-posting unhelpful, others may find it helpful - see e.g. "In Defense of Cross Posting" [Hake (2005a) and "Cross-Posting - Synergistic or Sinful?"[Hake (2005b)]. In the latter I wrote:

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As emphasized in "What Can We Learn from the Biologists About Research, Development, and Change in Undergraduate Education?" [Hake (2000)], discussion lists provide a potential way to surmount disciplinary barriers, caused in part by the traditional departmental structure of universities. The potential of the web as a mechanism for promoting interdisciplinary synergy in education reform is emphasized and schematically pictured on page 3 of my 204 kB pdf at <http://bit.ly/brgk1E>. To enhance interdisciplinary synergy, derelict subscribers such as myself, often resort to the cardinal sin of cross-posting!
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
Links to Articles: <http://bit.ly/a6M5y0>
Links to Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs: <http://bit.ly/9nGd3M>
Academia: <http://bit.ly/a8ixxm>
Blog: <http://bit.ly/9yGsXh>
GooglePlus: <http://bit.ly/KwZ6mE>
Twitter: <http://bit.ly/juvd52>

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbery; and from robbery he next comes to Sabboth-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. . . . . . . and from that to cross-posting.
With apologies to Thomas De Quincy (1827: 2004, p. 28).

REFERENCES [URL shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 02 Nov 2012.]
De Quincey, T. 1827. "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Available in a 2004 edition from Kessinger Publishing, Amazon.cominformation at <http://amzn.to/YgmbAY>, note the searchable "Look Inside" feature. Also online at <http://bit.ly/VkdvKn> (search for "Considered"), thanks to Project Gutenberg.

Hake, R.R. 2000. "What Can We Learn from the Biologists About Research, Development, and Change in Undergraduate Education?" AAPT Announcer 29(4): 99 (1999); online as a 204 kB pdf at <http://bit.ly/brgk1E> and as ref. 7 at <http://bit.ly/a6M5y0>.
Hake, R.R. 2005a. "In Defense of Cross Posting," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at <http://bit.ly/iZhS2i> Post of 24 Jul 2005 to AERA-L and various other discussion lists.

Hake, R.R. 2005b. "Cross-Posting - Synergistic or Sinful?" online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at <http://bit.ly/oaRDYa>. Post of 1 Nov 2005 08:37:12-0800 to AERA-L and ITForum.

Hake, R.R. 2012a. "Can Education Research Be 'Scientific'? What's 'Scientific'? (was 'in Defense of. . . .') "; online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at <http://bit.ly/Ujaogk>. Post of 31 Oct 2012 19:34:16-0700 to AERA-L and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog "Hake'sEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/YrZJUS> with a provision for comments.

Hake, R.R. 2012b. "OFF TOPIC: I Neither Quoted Podolefsky Out of Context Nor Misrepresented What He Wrote (was 'Can Education Research Be . . . .')," online on the OPEN! Phys-L archives at <http://bit.ly/Rwwezt>. The same post was transmitted to PhysLrnR and AERA-K.

Podolefsky, N. 2012a. "Re: In Defense of the NRC's 'Scientific Research in Education', " online on the CLOSED! PhysLrnR archives at <http://bit.ly/TMOR56>. Post of 27 Oct 2012 13:04:51-0600 to PhysLrnR. To access the archives of PhysLnR one needs to subscribe :-(, but that takes only a few minutes by clicking on <http://bit.ly/nG318r> and then clicking on "Join or Leave PHYSLRNR-LIST." If you're busy, then subscribe using the "NOMAIL" option under "Miscellaneous." Then, as a subscriber, you may access the archives and/or post messages at any time, while receiving NO MAIL from the list!

Podolefsky. N. 2012b. "Can Education Research Be 'Scientific'? What's 'Scientific'? (was 'in Defense of. . . .')" online on the CLOSED! PhysLrnR archives at <http://bit.ly/PKp5gF>. Post of 1 Nov 2012 14:03:48-0600 to PhysLrnR.

Taber, K.S. 2009. "Progressing Science Education: Constructing the Scientific Research Programme into the Contingent Nature of Learning Science." Dordrecht: Springer, publisher's information at <http://bit.ly/S8ShK3>. Author's information at <http://bit.ly/RiMWil>. Amazon.com information at <http://amzn.to/VzfDcC>. An expurgated Google book preview is online at <http://bit.ly/SVsV31>.

Taber, K, 2012. "Multiple postings and Response to Can Education Research Be 'Scientific'? What's 'Scientific'? (was 'in Defense of. . . .')," online on the OPEN! Phys-L archives at <http://bit.ly/RziNgC>. Post of 02 Nov 2012 09:33:55+0000 to Phys-L. This same post was transmitted to PhysLrnR and AERA-K by Taber.