Postgraduate blogs: beyond the ordinary research journal

by Ms Gill Clough, Ms Rebecca Ferguson, Miss Anesa Hosein

The study described in this paper investigated ways in which keeping a research journal as a blog rather than as a paper document influenced the postgraduate student research experience. Four blogs (three individual and one collaborative blog) initiated by three research students were used as the corpus of data. The three individual blogs acted as alternatives to the traditional research journal . The analysis indicated that blogs can promote a community where students are encouraged to reflect and share ideas, skills and research life idiosyncrasies. Blogs also acted as memory repositories and encouraged collaboration amongst the research students.

ID Number: 1150

Date: Tuesday, 4th September 2007

Time: 1700

Location: East Midlands Conference Centre, Lecture Theatre

Theme: Learning technology for the social network generation