Presentation at the Operational Planning Workshop, Department of Business Management, University of South Africa (Unisa), 6-7 February 2017, Pretoria, South Africa
AMERICAN LANGUAGE HUB_Level2_Student'sBook_Answerkey.pdf
Building a Research Culture in Higher Education
1. Presentation at the
Operational Planning Workshop, Department of Business Management,
University of South Africa (Unisa)
6-7 February 2017, Pretoria
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/buildings-sky-clouds-123780/
Building a research
culture in a
#highered institution
By Paul Prinsloo
Research Professor in Open Distance Learning
2. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I do not own the copyright of any of the images in this
presentation. I hereby acknowledge the original copyright
and licensing regime of every image and reference used.
All the images used in this presentation have been sourced
from Google and were labeled for non-commercial reuse.
This work (excluding the images) is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
International License
4. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/empty-
abandoned-messy-grunge-scene-863118/
• The playing field is not level – but gendered, raced
and embedded in geopolitical and disciplinary
contestations and networks
• Criteria such as citations are increasingly suspect as
citations, reputation and impact are not necessarily
linked
• Your gravitas as a researcher is increasingly
dependent on the amount of funding you secure
• Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are accused of
mission and ethics creep and the excruciating
impact of the proliferation of reporting to an
increasing number of stakeholders
13. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/confused-
muddled-illogical-880735/
There is therefore a real danger that our strategies and
interventions are misguided due to misunderstanding the
field; underestimating the complexities of becoming and
being a researcher-in-context; and/or succumbing to the
often empty institutional rhetoric regarding building a
research culture
15. Context is everything
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/pier-wooden-
lake-ocean-sea-quiet-407252/
Disclaimer: I acknowledge the impact of my
own intersectionality of race, gender, age,
role, privilege and academic/disciplinary
expertise/field on making sense of ‘building a
research culture’
16. Research looks different between…
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/pier-wooden-
lake-ocean-sea-quiet-407252/
• ‘Types’ of higher education institutions – eg distance
education, comprehensive institutions & research intensive
institutions
• Disciplines – eg mathematics, economics and sociology
• Where you are in your career and where others are in their
careers
• Different intersections of race, age, gender, family
responsibilities, teaching and supervision loads & networks
(whether scholarly, institutional-political, industry)
17. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/building-
reflection-window-glass-922529/
Institutions and individuals often see their rankings &
citations as a true reflection of their standing and
gravitas in a particular field.
These reflections are, however, approximations and
skewed representations due to the structures and
epistemologies underpinning and upholding the
mirrors
20. Image credit:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/timrich26/3308513067
Doing research and disseminating research findings
constitute a minefield of contesting understandings of
knowledge and knowledge generation in and between
different disciplines, contesting narratives between the
global North and South, a quantification fetish and the
commercialisation of knowledge production and
dissemination
22. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/cobweb-network-
spin-nature-1576419/
Being, becoming a researcher and doing
research are therefore fragile notions and
enactments and are found at the intersections
of structural, raced and gendered
arrangements in a particular institutional and
geopolitical contexts
Final preliminary remark
28. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lauren_Cheney_on_the_ball.jpg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2-3-2-3_formation.svg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Referee_Mark_Geiger_advantage.jpg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Radlinger_(Hannover_96)_-_Austria_U-
21_(02).jpg
Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Cleverley_goal_vs_MLS_All-Stars.jpg
Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bartek2205/4483232496
• The player: Her skills &
dispositions
• The field: Discipline, institution –
what is acceptable
• Her position on the field:
(In)experience, quantitative/
qualitative
• The referee – Rules &
implementation of the rules
• The goal - definition
• The prize – what is the prize?
How to score, what are the rules, according to
whom and what is the prize?
29. [(habitus)(capital)] + field = practice/agency
My habitus - how my
context (past and present)
(and my understanding
thereof) shaped and still
shape me
The capital that I have
acquired in the process
(or not)
The field – the
context in which I
find myself in. This
is not a neutral
space, but is, itself,
shaped by various
structures, and
agencies of
individuals and
collectives
My practice/agency and my
understanding thereof…
29
Adapted from Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. Richard Nice
(trans). Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Exploring researcher agency
30. The player: Her context, history &
dispositions
• Gender, race, socio-economic circumstances (past and
present)
• Locus of control, self-efficacy
• Academic background, standing and networks (past and
present)
• Parental/care responsibilities
• Research expertise and understanding of the field
• Quantitative and/or qualitative/mixed methods
31. Her position on the field
• Departmental/institutional
position/location
• Career trajectory
• Disciplinary context
• Institutional context and delivery modes
• Teaching and research expectations and
workloads
• Team composition and team role
• The state of the field –
enabling/disempowering
• What the other players expect of
her/how the other players see her
32. The referee – rules & implementation
of the rules
Multiple levels of refereeing:
• Disciplinary & inter/trans disciplinary gatekeepers
• Networks that include and exclude
• Journal editors
• Reviewers
Multiple sets of rules:
• Disciplinary/ epistemological
• Technical
• Research methodologies
• Disciplinary traditions and conventions
• Publication conventions (eg referencing styles)
33. The goal - definition
• Publication in a preferred or accredited
journal – ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘C’
• Monographs
• Chapters in books
• Conference presentations
Let us also consider…
• Alternative digital forms of scholarship e.g. blogs, sustained
engagement in micro blogging networks?
• Open and peer reviewed scholarship
• How our current practices of privileging closed (behind pay
wall) publications sustain the commercialisation of our
research
35. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Pointer 1
Research productivity is a dynamic,
context-specific, multidimensional
process shaped by mostly
interdependent and mutually
constitutive factors in the nexus between
the institution, the disciplinary locus of
the research, the researcher
39. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/berlin-
olympia-1936-1598445/
Pointer 5
While the current research imaginary is based on
a technocratic logic and sustained by a
quantification fetish, we must find ways to
embrace, acknowledge and support other forms
of scholarship in an increasingly digital and
networked world
41. THANK YOU
Paul Prinsloo (Prof)
Research Professor in Open Distance Learning (ODL)
College of Economic and Management Sciences, Office number 3-15, Club 1,
Hazelwood, P O Box 392
Unisa, 0003, Republic of South Africa
T: +27 (0) 12 433 4719 (office)
prinsp@unisa.ac.za
Skype: paul.prinsloo59
Personal blog: http://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com
Twitter profile: @14prinsp