Academic knowledge in the digital era: 5 podcasts

This post by Amy Mollett was originally posted on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences Blog

Academic research and debate seems to be finding a new home online, visible in the growth of academic blogging, tweeting, and the use of open access archives. LSE Impact Blog editor Amy Mollett recommends 5 podcasts and videocasts on the subject of academic knowledge in the digital era.

1. Podcast: Academic Blogging and the advent of Multi Author Blogging

Professor Patrick Dunleavy and Chris Gilson, editors of the British Politics and Policy at LSE blog, discuss the merits of academic blogging and other new forms of academic communication. This podcast was recorded at the LSE Impact Conference in June 2011.

2. Podcast: The Role of Open Access in Biomedical Research
Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, gives a lecture at the Bodleian Library on scholarship, publishing, and the dissemination of research, aiming to stimulate debate on the issues surrounding changes in scholarly communications.

3. Podcast: Creating a digital public space
This Guardian Tech Weekly podcast considers how “analogue culture is being preserved in a digital world”. Jemima Kiss examines plans for a digital public space – a part of the internet that could grant worldwide access and create links between museums, archives and libraries. Richard Ranft of the British Library and Francesca Franchi of the Royal Opera House discuss public engagement through this digital public space.

4. Videocast: Technology and the Historian
Professor Mark Knights and Dr Sarah Richardson from the Department of History at the University of Warwick discuss how technology can help a modern historian to make their research processes more effective.

5. Videocast: The Digital Natives are Getting Restless: the student voice of the Open Access Movement

Nick Shockey, Director of Right to Research Coalition, discusses how the expectations of students or “digital natives” for the availability of free, remixable information are creating an acceleration in the open access movement.

Do you have a top 5 list that you would like to recommend to readers? Get in touch with the team via impactofsocialsciences@lse.ac.uk or @LSEImpactBlog

1. Sharing knowledge and learning through the digital gateway
2. Running a successful academic blog can make you feel like a rock star: authenticity and narrative are essential for forging your own digital identity
3. Universities are increasingly moving towards recognising digital scholarship despite conflicting messages that favour traditional publishing in journals
4. Academics and universities should embrace blogging as a vital tool of academic communication and impact
5. The use of social media in higher education can be a positive step towards bridging the digital divide, but it is not a fail-safe measure