I've added a new journal articles feature to the sidebar of my other blog. It works like this: As I come across articles of interest, I bookmark them in Delicious and add the tag "newjournalarticles." Each time this occurs, the list of article titles in the sidebar updates accordingly. So whenever you visit the blog, be sure to check the list for any new titles of interest.
If you forget to check, you can always 1) click on the link to go to the bookmarked titles in Delicious, or 2) subscribe to the RSS feed for the listing and peruse the updates at your leisure in your own newsreader.
One thing to note is that these journal articles are not necessarily available in full-text online. To retrieve the full-text, you have several options:
- purchase the individual article
- sign up for a free online trial for the journal you are interested in (for example, Sage Journals is offering free access to all of its journals during April)
- search Worldcat.org for libraries that subscribe to a particular journal; enter your postal or zip code to determine which library is closest to you, and retrieve the text from that library
- if you are based in a developing country, you might have access to full-text journals through one of these initiatives: Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL); GDN Journal Services; HINARI Access to Research Initiative; JSTOR Developing Nations Initiative.
Finally, it's always worth searching online for keywords in the title of journal article you are seeking. Why?
- Sometimes journal publishers designate specific issues as free online samples: see, e.g., "A Heterotopian Analysis of Maritime Refugee Incidents," abstracted in IngentaConnect, but available at no cost by Wiley InterScience.
- Some articles are posted online in openly accessible journals: see, e.g., "The humanitarian consequences and actions in the Eastern Mediterranean Region over the last 60 years – a health perspective", which was indexed in PubMed.
- Some articles are available as preprints or conference papers: see, e.g, the abstract for "Resettling Refugees in Rural and Regional Australia: Learning from Recent Policy and Program Initiatives"; a report with a slightly different title but with the same authors was published earlier.
01 April 2009
New Journal Articles: Alerts and Full-text Retrieval
17 February 2009
Monitoring legal journal articles
Some time ago, I posted a note on "monitoring journal-reported research" via, among other strategies, generating custom RSS feeds. One journal service that has added this feature since the time that I wrote that earlier post is Current Law Journal Content.
How it works: Conduct a search; the search results page will then display a "feed version of search" link that you can subscribe to in order to be alerted when future results occur that match your search criteria. That's it!
15 January 2009
Updating the Forced Migration Research Guide
I recently made available an RSS feed to let users know what resources had been newly added to my forced migration research guide. To supplement this, I have also added a link and RSS feed to my del.icio.us bookmarks for pending resources that I plan to add to the guide when time permits! This helps me to keep track of things, and it allows readers to access relevant reference and research materials in the interim.
09 December 2008
23 Things: The Eleventh Tool = Wikis
I have written previously about wikis and their use in the forced migration field. I have also used the wiki format to "publish" a research guide (see Researching Forced Migration). Wikis represent an easy way to set up a database online. Personally, I have limited technical knowledge, but using pbwiki.com, I was able to create over 450 pages of narrative text and bibliographic descriptions, and inter-link them in such a way that - hopefully - makes my research guide easy and intuitive to use. I can also regularly update the guide, as well as quickly make corrections to URLs and other bibliographic details.
I did add a page to SLA's Wiki Sandbox, to see what other applications are like.
22 October 2008
Disseminating Research Findings
Academics in forced migration studies often wrestle with how best to disseminate their research findings in order to make an impact on policy and practice. According to Polzer (2007),
There is virtually no explicit writing about the process of disseminating research in the social sciences, and specifically in migration and refugee studies. This stands in marked contrast to the medical and health sciences, where there is a wealth of writing on how to disseminate research findings effectively in order to have the maximum impact on practitioners. A search for the terms ‘disseminating research findings’ on a database of medical research resulted in 346 citations explicitly dealing with the processes of dissemination (see as some recent examples Crosswaite and Curtice 1994; Dowie 1996; Moffatt, et al. 2000; Shove and Simmons 1997; Sobell 1996). The same search in a social science journal database brought up less than 40 articles, most of which only mention dissemination issues in passing. As a specific example, in the flagship journals of refugee and migration studies – the Journal ofWhat are the different methods for disseminating research? A synthesis note from the WEDC lists the following, along with their advantages and disadvantages:
Refugee Studies and the International Migration Review – there has not been a single article specifically concerned with research dissemination since 2001 (p. 4).
- working documents
- research reports
- academic, refereed journal
- professional journal
- conference, workshop, seminar
- training manual
- networking
- Internet, email
- intermediaries
- popularisation/mass media
- participatory techniques
Recently, the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) announced in its Policy Programme for 2008-9 that it would develop "a new series of policy briefing papers on issues relating to forced migration, protection, and humanitarian response" as one of a "range of communication strategies to ensure that its research findings are disseminated effectively to policy makers and practitioners globally" (p. 2).
And the Global Development Network (GDN) just released a toolkit on "Disseminating Research Online" to promote the successful communication of academic research in an electronic environment.
In the end, a multi-pronged approach may prove most effective. As the WEDC notes, "optimum dissemination is achieved through using a wide variety of pathways, from traditional and face-to-face communication methods, to the use of ICTs... ." Polzer (2007) also argues that thinking about dissemination strategies at the beginning of a research project has value for the research process itself, above and beyond influencing policy outcomes (p. 7).
For researchers interested in trying to assess how research findings and dissemination strategies influence policy, ODI's RAPID Programme suggests using "episode studies": These "refer to a study that focuses on a clear policy change and tracks back to assess what impact research had among the variety of issues that led to the policy change." One example of this approach is presented in the case study of the Sphere Project and how it came into being.
References:
Buchanan-Smith, M. 2003. How the Sphere Project Came into Being: A Case Study of Policy-making in the Humanitarian Aid Sector and the Relative Influence of Research. ODI Working Paper 215. London: ODI. URL: http://www.odi.org.uk/RAPID/Publications/RAPID_WP_215.htm
Global Development Network. 2008. Toolkit: Disseminating Research Online. URL: http://www.gdnet.org/middle.php?oid=373
Polzer, Tara. 2007. Disseminating Research Findings in Migration Studies: methodological considerations. Migration Methods and Field Notes 6. Johannesburg: Forced Migration Studies Programme. URL: http://migration.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/notes6-tarapolzer.pdf
Refugee Studies Centre. 2008. Policy Programme 2008-9: Outline of Activities. Oxford: RSC. URL: http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/PDFs/Policy%20Programme%202008%20Outline.pdf
Water, Engineering and Development Centre. n.d. Spreading the Word: Disseminating Research Findings. Leicestershire, UK: WEDC. URL: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cv/wedc/publications/snstw/snstw.pdf
17 October 2008
Free Access to Wiley-Blackwell Medical Journals
I recently added three surveys of international emergency medicine literature to my forced migration guide. They were all published in issues of Academic Emergency Medicine, a title which normally is available on a subscription basis only or through a research library. However, the publisher, Wiley-Blackwell, is offering a free trial of its medical journals for the next three months (through December 2008). Sign up and you can access not only the texts of the above-mentioned literature reviews, but many other relevant journal articles as well.
01 October 2008
Free Access to Sage Journals
Sage Journals Online is offering free access to 500+ journals through the end of October 2008. Interested researchers are asked to register and create a login/password. Sage publishes a number of journal titles in the social sciences. A quick search just on "refugees" in article titles produces 389 results.
Posted in Web Sites/Tools.
08 September 2008
Forced Migration Guide
For any new researchers out there, I have compiled a guide to information resources relating to refugees and forced migration. It is available as a wiki at http://forcedmigrationguide.pbwiki.com.
You can use the guide in two ways. First, read through the chapters just like you would a regular text. Part one begins with an introduction to the concept of “forced migration” that includes a review of forced migration categories, their legal or policy bases, the principal assistance organizations, and the academic perspective on forced migration definitions. The second part of the guide presents a basic framework for conducting forced migration research both in libraries and on the Internet. It introduces key search concepts and principles to consider in any research undertaking, then describes resources that can be used 1) as starting points for research, 2) to help expand research, and 3) to support research. Part three highlights key information sources in forced migration, such as scholarly journals, reports and books, and discusses strategies for finding additional research literature through databases, library catalogues, search engines, and people.
Second, access the information resources described in the guide either by:
- type of source (e.g., bibliographies, periodicals, glossaries, etc.);
- specific index term (e.g., climate, culture, refugee impact, etc.);
- broad subject category (e.g., asylum/legal protection, mental health, etc.);
- region (if applicable);
- language (if applicable); OR
- using the search function (for example, search on an author or a keyword that is not included as an index term or subject category).
Hope you find the guide useful!
Posted in Web Sites/Tools.
18 February 2008
Researching Migration Web Book
Researching Migration: Stories from the Field (Social Science Research Council, Dec. 2007)
This Web-based book is available online as a complete PDF and by individual chapters. The abstract reads as follows: "...[F]ellows of the International Migration Program reflect upon their experience conducting research on international migration to the United States. Although their essays describe the substantive findings of their research, their main focus is on the multiple methods employed in producing those findings. The narratives of methodological practices in this publication have been selected in part because they address central themes and questions of international migration studies and will be substantively relevant to the research findings of other scholars in the field. ..."
04 January 2008
RSS Feeds for Policy/Research Publications
Most research centres and think tanks in the forced migration community have not yet adopted RSS as a standard mechanism for distributing news and information about their publishing activities. But this is slowly starting to change. Here are five examples of organizations that do offer RSS feeds:
European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) [web site] [feed]
Feinstein International Center (FIC) [web site] [feed]
Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), Overseas Development Institute (ODI) [web site] [feed]
- Other ODI feeds are available.
Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) [web site] [publications feed]
- Other NAI feeds are available.
United States Institute of Peace (USIP) [web site] [feed]
Several information services use RSS to announce new additions to their collections. Subscribing to their feeds is a useful way to keep track of a wide variety of new policy and research publications. One caveat: There may be a delay between the time a report is received and the time information about that report is disseminated to a wider audience. Examples of these services include:
Eldis Newsfeeds [access] [conflict feed] [migration feed]
Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog [site] [feed]
Human Security Gateway [general feed] [generate a customized feed]
01 September 2007
Research News Updates
The following resources compile information gathered from various research sources and provide e-mail alerts/RSS feeds to visitors accordingly.
Monitoring Research Reports
Many if not most organizations within the forced migration research community have established some kind of presence online. And they often provide notification services in order to apprise visitors of their activities and publication updates. For example, the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement maintains a listserv, the Feinstein International Center offers an RSS feed, Forced Migration Online has set up a blog, and the Refugee Women's Resource Project circulates an electronic newsletter.
To find other research institutes online and their respective mechanisms for keeping the public informed, search in Forced Migration Online's directory or ReliefWeb's directory.
In addition, take advantage of the e-mail alerts and RSS feeds provided by the following report/grey literature repositories:
ecoi.net
- Country of origin information database.
Eldis
- Development information gateway, with resource guides on "Conflict and Security" and "Aid."
Human Security Gateway
- "Refugees and internally displaced people" is an option in the topic menu.
Refworld
- UNHCR's collection of country reports, policy documents, and legal information.
ReliefWeb
- Humanitarian information hub, with a "Policy and Issues" documents library.
Why I created this blog...
A proposal for an article of mine was recently accepted by the editors of a special issue of Refugee Survey Quarterly. The theme is "Researching Refugees" and the editors called for articles to fall under one of three topical areas: Historical Overview of Refugee Studies, Methodological and Ethical Aspects of Refugee Research, and New Approaches to Refugee Research.
My article will address the following:
So I will be exploring a number of web services in order to make recommendations, and I thought a blog would be a useful way to not only keep track of my experimentation but also provide an online supplement to the final article.Refugee studies is an interdisciplinary field of study with a strong policy and practice orientation. As a result, the pool of potentially relevant research literature is diffuse and challenging to monitor. This article will review resources and strategies for keeping current with research and publication developments. The focus will be on Internet-based services that any researcher can utilize, regardless of the type of institution within which s/he is based. Resource types that will be highlighted in the article include weblogs, discussion lists, and current awareness services. Relevant tools such as RSS feeds, e-mail alerts, and news readers will also be described in practical terms.
