Strategies for mobilizing research knowledge: A conceptual model and its application
Paper prepared for the meetings of the Canadian Society for the Study of Education
Montreal, June 2010
Jie Qi and Ben Levin, OISE, University of Toronto
Introduction
Improved communication[1] of research findings is an important focus of concern in all disciplines. This interest is motivated in part by the call for greater accountability in research investments (Buxton and Hanney, 1994, 1996; Cozzens, 1997; Hanney et al. 2003), but also by growing appreciation of the importance of research for enhancing the quality of public services such as health, justice, and education (Levin, 2004).
The many organizations involved in the production and sharing of research are increasingly concerned with effective ways to share what they learn. Because most social policy related research is done in organizations – notably universities but also including various think tanks, policy research organizations and advocacy groups – the capacity of these organizations to implement effective dissemination strategies is an essential element in the whole knowledge mobilization process.
Although many different terms[2] have been used to refer to the various processes that connect research to policy and practice, we refer to this enterprise as ‘knowledge mobilization’ because that phrase reflects well the intentional and active elements required to make knowledge relevant to policy and practice. We also recognize, as described well by Nutley et al. (2007), that there are different meanings ascribed to all the key terms involved. For example, people differ on what counts as ‘research’, while most analysts also recognize that the ‘use’ or ‘sharing’ of research can also have multiple dimensions (see also Weiss, 1979; Knott & Wildavsky, 1980). Our concern in this paper is narrower; it is with analyzing the ways that research-producing organizations try to share their work with various potential audiences.
This turns out to be a complicated undertaking for several reasons. First, as noted already, although universities are the largest sources of research, quite a range of other organizations also produce research of various kinds, especially if one includes secondary analysis as a form of research. So determining the universe of research-producing organizations is not simple.
Further, different kinds of research producing organizations have different purposes and strategies. Nutley, Walter and Davis (2009) define five categories kinds of research communication activities, including tailored dissemination, interaction, social influence, facilitation, and reminders and incentives. Each of these general headings can include a range of specific actions, each of which (or all of which) can be employed by a range of organizations.
There is also a considerable difference in approach between organizations whose central purpose is around the communication of research, such as think tanks or lobby groups, and organizations for whom the research itself is the primary focus with communication as a secondary task., such as universities Lobbies and think tanks have become quite expert at dissemination strategies such as influencing the media in an effort to promote a particular view or position (Rich, 2004). Universities, on the other hand, do not promote any particular position as organizations, although individual researchers may do so. Further, universities are highly decentralized organizations such that there may be – indeed, usually is – no central awareness of the multitude of knowledge mobilization activities taking place across the organization (Sa, Li and Faubert, in press). For all these reasons, assessing research communication activities is complicated.
Despite the call for more effective sharing (or mobilization) of research information, models in the current literature are inadequate to explain how organizations should balance their strategies and what kind of measures they need to consider (Louis, 1996). This paper is intended to contribute to the literature by proposing a conceptual model for evaluating organizational research dissemination practices in a systematic way and providing some preliminary empirical evidence from its application. The core of this article is centered on one question: What can be learned about research dissemination efforts in various organizations from a review of their websites? The paper describes the inductive process used by our team to build a tool to make this assessment and also presents initial empirical results of using that tool.
The web and research communication
The development of the worldwide web (it seems quaint even to use that full term by now) has changed communications in every field in important ways. The web makes vast amounts of information available to every user (Lederbogen & Trebbe2003) and has become the primary vehicle for information sharing in almost every field of activity. Every organization now has its own website, often quite extensive. Institutions of all kinds are spending a lot of efforts “creating, maintaining, and promoting their sites on the World Wide Web” (Miller, 2001, p.243). In the case of universities, there are many sites as sub-units such as faculties or centres and even individual faculty members maintain their own sites. For the purpose of research dissemination, the website is an essential component in the overall information architecture in organizations (Baker, 2005). For most external audiences, the web is the most important way that research is made available. Moreover, some web imbedded features such as electronic storage and search engines create opportunities for organizations to document, arrange and present research knowledge with “extraordinary flexibility, depth, and power” (Association of American Universities, et al., 2009, p.3) and reach more audience at relatively low cost.
Websites offer many features for organizations to structure their knowledge systems such as inventories of research structured in multiple ways. Materials such as books, video and audio resources, and various other publications can also be organized and posted on the web. Some researchers offer tutorials about their own work. Institutions sponsor web-casts of academic conferences, archives of seminars, lectures and so on. Moreover, search engines are powerful tools for users to locate particular information they need. A website is also a platform both to support and supplement various other dissemination practices (Supyuenyong, et al., 2009). Specifically, the web allows many new communication vehicles such as bulletin boards, audio and video conferencing, listservs, wikis, feeds and others which collectively are “permanently changing the structure and timing of information dissemination” (Backer,1991, p.236).
However, so far, little empirical work has been done concerning research communication (Friedman & Farag, 1991) on institutional websites. This project undertaken by our research team is intended to address this gap in the literature by focusing on the research sharing practices of organizations based on the activities shown on their websites. The work explores the way websites are and could be used for the purpose of research communication, as well as finding the patterns of research dissemination strategies on institutional websites. To achieve these objectives, a system of indicators was developed through which the multifaceted institutional websites could be understood, measured and improved.
Websites do not necessarily contain or reflect all of an organization’s dissemination practices, but given their centrality to this work, they do provide much relevant information (Selvanathan, 2007). It therefore seems reasonable to analyze organizational websites as a way of understanding their strategies for research dissemination.
Communicating around research
As Estabrooks and colleagues (2006) show, the literature on knowledge mobilization (or its equivalent terms as mentioned earlier) has been growing rapidly for the past twenty years. Over that time, various conceptualizations of research dissemination strategies have been advanced, although all have common elements. Some of these ideas now have a considerable pedigree. While other papers from our team (Levin, 2010; Edelstein et al., 2010) discuss more recent literature, here we note some earlier discussions as well.
Holzner et al. (1987) explain knowledge dissemination and utilization from an organizational perspective and maintain that today’s organizations influence the development of the society through “knowledge organization, structuring, storage, dissemination, and various other functions” (Holzner, et al., 1987, p.185). Among them, the organizational knowledge structuring function refers to “the specialized activities intended to synthesize available knowledge [and] deliberate efforts at structuring and restructuring extant bodies of knowledge” (Holzner, et al., 1987, p.185). Knowledge storage links tightly with the knowledge distribution function which has been studied extensively from the perspective of communication theory and the economics of information, including issues of the accessibility of information resources to different groups of knowledge users and the structure of the communication process (Rogers and Kincaid, 1981).
Ha and James (1998) studied websites for the purpose of organizational learning and broaden the definition of interaction to cover all the strategies involved which include: information collection, reciprocal communication, playfulness, choice, and connectedness. They divide these five dimensions into two kinds: the first kind is resource-oriented including information collection and reciprocal communication in which feedback is an important indicator – . The second kind is receiver-oriented including playfulness, choice, and connectedness which help determine whether audience can meet their needs in a convenient way.
Trittmann (2001) distinguished between ‘mechanistic’ and ‘organic’ types of strategies for managing knowledge. Organic strategies are designed to foster new knowledge while mechanistic knowledge strategies concentrate on transferring and using existing knowledge. The objects of dissemination could range from concrete interventions, programs or new practices to more abstract concepts or innovative ideas. The same dissemination object could go through different channels to reach different audience (Elliott et al., 2003).
Klein and Gwaltney (1991) summarize three types of dissemination. The first type they call spread, meaning one-way information distribution. Most research publications and other audio and visual materials belong to this type. Within the category, syntheses and interpretations of research knowledge included in user-oriented products can be viewed as enhanced knowledge compared with the reporting of individual studies. The second category they call choice, which focuses more on helping knowledge users acquire different sources of information by providing more options. If the first type is passive in nature, the second type is more reactive and responsive. In fact, it is already quite common for institutions such as intermediate education service centres or school districts to provide different choices for knowledge sharing practices, aided by the growing exchange capacity on the web as mentioned earlier. The third type of dissemination is exchange, which centres around interactions between and among people and organizations, emphasizes the “multidirectional flow of information” (Klein & Gwaltney, 1991,p. 246) through networks, feedback system, etc. Many professional and governmental organizations in education have used this approach to build and maintain networks to support better use of research. “It is viewed as interactive dissemination and is congruent with recent education trends such as restructuring schools to empower teachers and students and accountability goals to identify and share what works” (p.246).
As an illustration of how ideas recycle across time, the Klein and Gwaltney typology is very similar to a more recent typology of producer push, user pull and exchange (Lavis et al., 2003) or a very similar proposed by Amara et al. (2004). Moreover, all these conceptualizations fit well with the basic model used by our research team, as shown in Figure 1 and drawn from Levin (2004); the three approaches roughly correspond to the 3 contexts in this model.
Figure 1
A Model of Research Impact
TIME
Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework displayed below is based on our thinking about two questions:
What are the major strategies used by various institutions to disseminate research-related information?
What are the important indicators of these strategies based on the evidence available on institutional websites?
The three boxes on the left represent the three major strategies, inductively derived, while the categories inside the right hand box represent elements of quality or utility in the way that the products, events, and networks are organized.
Products encapsulate knowledge in written or audiovisual forms. It includes various publications such as journal articles, reports, books, multi-study or topical syntheses, bulletins, research newsletters, video clips, and specific websites constructed to disseminate research, among others.
Events are activities such as open lectures, conferences, seminars, academic workshops, symposia, and exhibitions where the aim is to disseminate research to practitioners and users. As such, this category excludes events that are primarily focused on the exchange of research findings within the research community, such as academic conferences.
Networks refers to efforts to build relationships among and between knowledge producers and potential users. The primary interest is in connections that actively share research knowledge with target audiences in a way that is sustained over time and highly interactive.
Traditionally, research dissemination has largely relied on publications. Specific practices noted in the literature also include presentation of research information at conferences or seminars, working directly with research users, consulting services, and contribution to the development of goods or services based on research.
The research dissemination practices of various organizations have been criticized for ineffective communication and failure to reach the right audiences. Research reports of various kinds as well asdissemination events such as conferences and lectures are often oriented toward exchange among researchers rather than with potential knowledge users (Yin, et al., 1981). Research results, if they are reported at all in a public forum, are often hard to find. Research reports may be very long with findings and implications not highlighted. Problems of readabilityand the use of academic language unfamiliar to most users also hinder effective uptake (Yin, et al., 1981). User-oriented transformation of information has been increasingly recognized in the literature. Backer (1991) asserts
What is known about an innovation needs to be translated into language that potential users can understand readily, abbreviated so that attention spans are not exceeded, and made to concentrate on the key issues of “Does it work?” and “How can I replicate it in my organization?” (p.234).
Thirty years ago Dunn (1980) was already asserting that the more knowledge providers use a communication style which encourages feedbacks or comments from potential users, the greater the likelihood of knowledge use, an idea that still seems to require emphasis today.
Over time, more and more researchers have come to favor interactive strategies for research dissemination over the use of products because the interaction among knowledge providers and potential users is more likely to be effective (Dunn, 1980). As suggested by the literature, interaction between researchers and research users and between different organizations is key to build an active knowledge sharing system (Yin, et al., 1981). Lavis et al. (2005) highlight this point as follows,
Research on the transfer of research knowledge to and its uptake by managerial and policy audiences has demonstrated that interaction between researchers and these audiences (or representative members of these audiences) appears to be important to explaining why some types of research knowledge are used and not others (p.226).
As noted earlier, internet technologies “have opened the door to an additional and much broader range of dissemination possibilities and have generated entirely new forms of content that must be shared” (Association of American Universities et al., 2009, p. 2). These include not only new forms of product dissemination, but also much more interactive strategies (Lee & Garvin, 2003).
Network building is an increasingly popular dissemination strategy recognized by various organizations (Clifford &Cooper, 1980). Some argue that network strategies are more effective in fostering capacity-building among organizations and individual knowledge users, and in leading to changes in behaviour or practice (Kershner et al., 1998; Wenger, 1998; Masuda et al., 2009). One of the functions of networks regarding research dissemination is to foster greater communication between researchers and users (Hemsley-Brown and Sharp, 2003).
Mathiassen and Vogelsang (2005) distinguish between networks and networking. The former idea stresses the application of technology while the latter term emphasizes relationship building in terms of trust and collaboration. To assess relationships, we could consider their content, form and intensity. Content here includes services, information, or even emotions that are generated through interpersonal contact. Form refers to how long these relationships last and how close these relationships are. Intensity considers how frequently the information exchange happens (Chen & Mohamed, 2007).
Networks are not automatically valuable, however. Williams and Bailey (2002) stress that it is essential to differentiate different types of networks to study their dynamics and provide appropriate support, as the concept itself is often used indiscriminately in the current literature. Making this distinction requires knowledge about characteristics, functions and purposes of networks as well as the degree of interactivity and frequency of communication
Today, networks “have been given a new life by the rapid advance of the Internet and the World Wide Web”(Beacham, et al., 2005, p.1). The web serves as both “conceptual model and practical enabler of networking” (Pedler, 2001). Different types of networks are emerging such as knowledge networks (Clark, 1998), innovation networks (Pittaway et al, 2004), research networks (Gunn, 2002, Williams & Bailey, 2002), and so on. Some networks are intended to disseminate knowledge to the wider public, while some networks are limited to the communication among their members.
A network set up to encourage evidence-based practice will have different structures, goals, activities and outputs from a network set up to foster individual… small-scale, practice-based research, or a network set up to undertake large-scale, interventional or longitudinal studies (Gunn, 2002, p.65).
Within these three categories, as our work proceeded, we began to identify particular elements from the literature that might be predictive of greater effectiveness. Those eventually became the four categories in the right hand box in figure 2. The specific elements in each of these categories are shown in the actual point system below.