Career education open access journals

Continuing our series on getting access to peer-reviewed journals when we are outside a university subscription system (read more here), this time we consider a few journals helpful to those of us who specialise in the career education field: which includes secondary and tertiary education; the organisations and channels which deliver that career education; the way in which education and training is delivered; and the effectiveness of that education.

• Vocations and Learning (here) is an open access peer-reviewed journal publishing in the vocational and professional learning area; including where learning occurs (i.e. colleges, schools, universities, and workplaces), both international and domestic.
• Then there is the International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training, or IJRVET, here. Based in Hamburg, this open-access double-blind peer-reviewed journal researches vocational and technical topics such as apprenticeships and cadetships. It aims for a global exchange of knowledge so encourages a broad submission of scientifically sound research papers.
• The Journal of Research in Technical Careers (here) is hosted by the University of Nevada, in the US. Articles are open access, and focus on the tertitary career and post-secondary technical education fields, aligned to the US National Career Clusters Framework.
• The Nordic Journal of Transitions, Careers and Guidance (here) is a fully open access journal focusing broadly on career transitions and guidance in institutional, social and policy contexts. It seeks to publish research on the practice and ethics of career guidance across the lifespan including pedagogy, sociology, psychology and political science, but also ethnology, history and anthropology, largely in the Nordic countries.
• The International Journal of Work-Integrated Learning, or IJWIL (here; formerly the Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education), publishes open-access, peer-reviewed original research on Work-Integrated Learning (WIL), largely in the South Pacific. WIL brings together the student, the educator, and an industry organisation so students learn by doing. Students undertake "purposeful work tasks, [to combine] theory with meaningful practice that is relevant to the students' discipline of study and/or professional development" (Zegwaard et al., 2023, p. 38)
• The Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability is an open access journal from Deakin University, here, which has been running since 2010. It puts out a couple of issues each year, focused on SoTL research - the scholarship of teaching and learning - to help graduates into better graduate roles.

To find new open access journals as time goes by, use the search link here for career education.

Sam

References:

CDANZ. (2019). Competency Framework. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tudpuDOP8vc9tG5cE_HjSn2DiRp7xBTM/view

Zegwaard, K. E., Pretti, T. J., Rowe, A. D., & Ferns, S. J. (2023). Chapter 3: Defining work-integrated learning. In K. E. Zegwaard, T. J. Pretti (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Work-integrated Learning (3rd ed., pp. 29-48). Routledge.

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Rehab open access articles

Continuing our series on getting access to peer-reviewed journals when we are outside a university subscription system (read more here), this time we consider a few journals helpful to those of us who specialise in the rehabilitation and disability career field: encompassing conditions such as Autism, ADHD, and depression; short-and long-term injury rehabilitation; types of rehabilitation programmes and schemes; disability support, impairment, metrics, etc.

• Firstly there is the Journal of Education and Rehabilitation, or JER. This is official journal of the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation for the University of Tuzla, with all articles being fully accessible here. This journal covers all aspects of rehabilitation, with career development being a relatively minor component.
• Disabilities explores a broad range of areas, including controlled trials; case studies; feasibility and pilot studies; novel approaches to disability, support and innovations; and transnational disability studies. This journal too is fully open access, here.
• Next we consider the Health, Sports & Rehabilitation Medicine journal, or HSRM, also completely open access, found here. This journal is a bit patchy for quality, usually from Eastern European, junior researchers, but the sports rehabilitation articles can be quite interesting.
• We now turn to Disability, CBR and Inclusive Development, or DCID. This journal too is completely open access (here). The journal is hosted by the University of Gondar in Ethiopia, which teaches community-based rehabilitation. 
• The next cab off the rank is the Developmental Disabilities Network Journal, or DDNJ. This journal too is fully open access (here), and focuses on pre-service preparation, advocacy, research, community services, and info sharing between clients with developmental disabilities and their whanau.

Sam

References:

CDANZ. (2019). Competency Framework. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tudpuDOP8vc9tG5cE_HjSn2DiRp7xBTM/view

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Corporate career open access articles

Continuing our series on getting access to peer-reviewed journals when we are outside a university subscription system (read more here), this time we consider a few journals helpful to those of us who specialise in the corporate career field: i.e. those of us in organisational development, career mapping, leadership, corporate coaching, strategic development, and organisational fit.

• Organisational Dynamics, here. This is a ScienceDirect publication (a marque of Elsevier) which publishes in the corporate space with an HR focus. Those of us who work with adults who are established in their careers may find the research content useful. 
• The Human Resource Management Review is also open access, here. This is also a ScienceDirect/Elsevier publication in HRM, industrial/organisational psychology, human capital, labour relations, and organisational behaviour areas. 
• Asia Pacific Management Review, or APMR (here). Focusing on corporate and management issues around the Pacific, this journal has some open access articles, while others have only the abstract available. It is worth a look.
• Similar to the APMR, the Human Resource Development International Journal has some open access articles. Again, this can be a bit hit and miss, but it too is worth a look here.
• Lastly, there is the Journal of Human Resource Management or HRMJ, which has a number of open access articles here. This too is an international journal, and is the flagship publication for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. 

There are also databases which list open access journals by DOAJ here and ISSN here. 

I hope you find these organisational career development open/semi-open access journal sources useful. Next time we will move onto another of the six remaining specialist areas (Counselling; Disability/mental health/rehabilitation; Career development programmes; Research; Policy; and Supervision; CDANZ, 2019).

Sam

References:

CDANZ. (2019). Competency Framework. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tudpuDOP8vc9tG5cE_HjSn2DiRp7xBTM/view

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Four open access journals

Continuing with the series on open access journals (read more here), this time we consider one not-for-profit membership organisation publication, and three for-profit publication house periodicals.

Firstly, there is the publication of the Asia Pacific Career Development Association: the Asia Pacific Career Development Journal. This publishes career development research from around the Pacific rim. The journal is open access (here; click on the headings in each issue to view each article). The association was established in 2009, and the open access journal in 2018 (APCDA, 2025). Consider becoming a member of this organisation: the membership fee is inexpensive (roughly $50 per annum), and the benefits of membership are sound. The annual APCDA conference is VERY good (around 100 hours of PD), and - as a member, there are two monthly webinars; one free, one paid. 

Secondly, we look at the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology (here), a SAGE open access journal where most of the articles that I have wanted to read have been freely accessible. If we search the journal using "career" there are a substantial number of articles (e.g. here). Much of the research is from Asian universities, but it should be noted that both Stuart Carr and Kerr Inkson have published in this journal. This can be a useful source for the career development field.

Thirdly, we consider the Journal of Vocational Behaviour (here), an Elsevier journal. Most of the articles in JVB are open access. Again, if we search this journal using the "career" search term, we get 200-odd hits (e.g. here). This is a lesser known journal, but does contain some interesting articles.

Finally, we can also explore Social Sciences & Humanities Open (here). This is another hybrid journal where most articles I found are open access. Again, the "career" search generates 300-odd hits (e.g. here). This is a ScienceDirect journal, owned by the Dutch publication giant, Elsevier. 

I hope you find these open access journal sources useful!

Sam

Reference:

APCDA. (2025). History of the APCDA. https://asiapacificcda.org/history-of-apcda/

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The CDI Journal

Continuing with the series on open access journals (read more here), this time we consider a for-profit publication house periodical. Originally called the International Journal of Career Management and established in 1996, the Career Development International (CDI) is a partially open access Emerald Insight journal (Emerald Publishing Limited, 2025). CDI explores careers and development here, often in an organisational setting, sitting under training and development, in the career development and promotion sector. In 2021, CDI was 25 years old, and published a "retrospective of the major trends, research constituents, thematic structure and key factors explaining the citation impact of CDI articles between 1996 and 2020" (Varma et al., 2021, p. 113).

At a little over 40 articles published each year, over 80% of published articles have multiple authors, most often hailing from The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, the USA, UK, Israel, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong and New Zealand (Varma et al., 2021).

Publishing between six and seven issues annually, this is a hybrid journal, which means that article submitters pay to be published. Further, unlike the other two open access journals I have mentioned - NICEC and CJCD, here - not all the articles in IJCD can be downloaded and read without cost. It is a bit of a pick and mix as to whether there is free access or not. And, also unlike NICEC and CJCD, the entire issue cannot be downloaded.

However, at least some articles are free to download, and that is a bonus for career practitioners everywhere.

Sam

References:

Emerald Publishing Limited. (2025). The International Journal of Career Development.  https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1362-0436

Varma, A., Kumar, S., Sureka, R., & Lim, W. M. (2022). What do we know about career and development? Insights from Career Development International at age 25. Career Development International, 27(1), 113-134. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-08-2021-0210

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The CJCD Journal

Previously in our series (here) on how we can stay professionally updated, I talked about the NICEC - National Institute for Career Education and Counselling - journal. So continuing to keep those cost barriers low for improving professional practice, this time we consider an open access publication from Canada - the Canadian Journal of Career Development (CJCD)/Revue Canadienne de Développement de Carrière (RCDC) - created by the Canadian Education and Research in Career Counselling (known colloquially and abbreviationally as CERIC). The journal can be accessed here. 

CERIC established the bi-lingual journal in 2002, with funding from a range of trans-Canadian organisations to publish "multi-sectoral career-related academic research and best practices from Canada and around the world" (CERIC, 2025c). The journal is firmly both "Canadian and international in scope" (CERIC, 2025b). And, as mentioned, it is open access, and "multi-sectoral, [seeking] articles that deal with career development in its broadest sense. Authors are encouraged to submit articles dealing with career development in the corporate, non-profit, secondary education, post-secondary education and government sectors" (CERIC, 2025b).

And the best thing is that, like the NICEC journal, we can read the CJDC/RCDC online at no cost, in either French or English, and improve our practice knowledge. This too is a wonderful resource for career practitioners around the globe. If you haven't yet had a look at the Canadian journal, check out the home page at https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd, and go here for past issues: https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd/issue/archive. Full issues or individual articles can be downloaded.

Sam

References:

CERIC. (2025a). About the Journal. https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd/about

CERIC. (2025b). Archives. https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd/issue/archive

CERIC. (2025c). The Canadian Journal of Career Development (CJCD)/Revue Canadienne de Développement de Carrière (RCDC). https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd

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The NICEC Journal

There are often barriers to improving professional practice, and one of those barriers is the cost of accessing knowledge. 

So, continuing the series (here) on how we can stay professionally updated, this post looks at the NICEC - National Institute for Career Education and Counselling - journal. NICEC is is an open access journal, which, while based in the UK, contains articles submitted from a broad range of nations; for example, the first issue in 2024 contained articles by writers from Scotland, England, Australia, Norway, and Malta. The second issue; England, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

NICEC as an organisation began as a research institute in the mid-70s, but is now a "learned society" (isn't that a lovely phrase?) for career practitioners spanning "career education, development and practice, including the specialties of "research, policy, consultancy, scholarship, service delivery [and] management" (NICEC, 2020). Part of NICEC's role is creating career conversations and sharing innovative ideas... and that is where the journal serves a vital role. The journal "seeks to integrate theory and practice in career development, stimulate intellectual diversity and encourage transdisciplinary dialogue", "to develop research, inform policy, and enhance service delivery". Worthy goals.

And the best thing is that we can read it online at no cost, and improve our practice knowledge. That is a wonderful thing for career practitioners around the globe. If you haven't yet had a look at the journal, check out the home page at https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/index, and go here for past issues: https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/issue/archive. Full issues or individual articles can be downloaded.

Sam

References:

NICEC. (2020, December). NICEC Journal Scope and Author Guidelines. https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/nicec/redactor2_assets/files/151/NICEC_Journal_scope_and_author_guidelines_12_20.pdf

NICEC. (2025a). Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling. https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/index

NICEC. (2025b). Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling Archives. https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/issue/archive

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Keeping up in the field

I was asked a question by a graduate last year for ideas on how to keep up in the field of career development once we no longer have access to tertiary libraries to dig into the research. This is a VERY good question! On thinking about this, I decided to put together a quick post with my ideas on how we can stay professionally updated.

Firstly I think we need to join one or two professional organisations. Then we can tap into the updates that they send out to stay current in an incremental way. A list of possibilities that I would suggest are:

• APCDA (Asia Pacific Career Development Association) paid, but very reasonable cost: https://asiapacificcda.org/ (and the hybrid conference in April/May is absolutely worth attending - very reasonably priced and provides about 75 hours of PD) 
• CERIC (Canadian Education and Research in Career Counselling) free: https://ceric.ca/contacts/ (the hybrid conference in January is good value, providing about 150 hours of PD) 
• CDANZ (Career Development Association of NZ) paid: https://cdanz.org.nz/ 
• CATE (Career and Transition Education Association of NZ) paid: https://www.cate.co.nz/ 
• CICA (Career Industry Consortium Australia) some webinars free, some paid: https://cica.org.au/about-us/

Once we have our names on a few membership organisation lists, following some career bloggers can be a good idea, such as:

• Tristram Hooley: https://adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com/ 
• Tom Staunton: https://runninginaforest.wordpress.com/
• Marc Truyens: https://marcr.net/
• Liz Ryan on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/ and https://humanworkplace.com/ 
• And me - Sam Young: https://www.samyoung.co.nz/search

(and please let me know of other career bloggers who are theory-based!)

Next we can register at two repositories - databases - of papers: ResearchGate (https://www.researchgate.net) and Academia (https://www.academia.edu/). This is a large repository of papers, and often papers which are behind a paywall have been lodged and can be freely accessed on one of these two platforms. NB: it is possible that we may need an educational institution email to join, but once we are a member, then we can change our email in our settings. 

Lastly, I think we need to know what journals are open access, and which ones have some regular open access content. For that, check out my series on open access career development journals (new posts will be appearing mid-month through next year): at https://www.samyoung.co.nz/search/label/Career%20Development+freeware

I hope that helps!

Sam

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What is interdisciplinarity?

Interdisciplinarity is an interesting idea. I have previously posted (here and here) on this topic, about taking knowledge from one area into another. 

I keep thinking that interdisciplinarity means the same as 'intersectionality', but not so. Intersectionality is an idea developed in feminist studies, proposing that our "identities are […] culturally mediated constructs implicated in relations of power, privilege and oppression” (Saxe, 2017, p. 155, citing Liasidou, 2013). Ouch. This feeds into our social constructs of ability and disability, shutting out access to equity and parity with societal barriers, as opposed to the "inherent deficiencies in the ‘disabled’ person" (p. 155). We can think of intersectionality as where our human "struggle against one form of oppression [...] cannot in practice be separated from the many other struggles that members of our communities are engaged in" (Chu, 2008).

No, interdisciplinarity - also known as ID (Klein, 2017) - is about our ability to cross-pollinate our professional understanding. Whether that is of own first professional field, or of a profession we are moving into. Interdisciplinarity is "a method or mindset that merges traditional educational concepts or methods in order to arrive at a new approaches or solutions" (Oregon State University, 2023). It is how we are grounded in one professional field through education and experience, then want to learn a new discipline. And we bring the knowledge of those differing fields together. We get conflation, cross-over, cross-pollination, a Venn diagram in action.

One interdisciplinary definition I particularly like is that it is "a portmanteau word for all more-than-disciplinary approaches to knowledge" and "more specifically refers to the intra-academic integration of different types of disciplinary knowledge" (Frodeman, 2017, p. 4). Love that idea of 'portmanteau': "In the sense of ‘that into which things are packed together’; originally applied by ‘L. Carroll’ to a factitious word made up of the blended sounds of two distinct words and combining the meanings of both; hence used attrib., and subseq. extended to things that are or suggest a combination of two different things of the same kind" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 157). That we pack together our 'discipline', our profession, with another discipline. That is very evocative!

How we know we are working in an interdisciplinary way is because we are "Interacting", "Integrating", "Focusing", "Blending" and "Linking" knowledge and tools across our boundaries of practice (Klein, 2017, p. 22). We create hybrid models, picking up the elements from one field, amending, testing, and using what works in a new place, or in a new way. We create a composite: "A philosopher might use history to inform readers about a particular movement in philosophy or, vice versa, use philosophy to provide epistemological context for a particular event" (p. 23).

We can be alert for these boundary-crossing tools and ideas. It is a great way to reuse good ideas in new ways. 

Sam

References:

Chu, C. M. (2008). Intersectionality and Interdisciplinarity: Information Studies and Studies of the ‘Other’ [Poster presentation]. i-Conference, February 28, www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/15184.

Oregon State University. (2023). Graduate School: What is Interdisciplinarity?. https://gradschool.oregonstate.edu/master-arts-interdisciplinary-studies-mais/what-interdisciplinarity

Saxe, A. (2017). The theory of intersectionality: A new lens for understanding the barriers faced by autistic women. Canadian Journal of Disability Studies, 6(4), 153-178. https://doi.org/10.15353/cjds.v6i4.386

Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (Eds.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., Vol X Poise-Quelt). Clarendon Press.

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YouTube academic channels

In my previous post on this topic (here), I listed a number of different content creators who make: the people who 'do' things. In this post I explore the academic content creators I follow, who help me to strengthen my academic practice through their expertise in research, in theory, in their practice, and in their attitude.

The academic channels I follow, in rough order of enjoyment, are:

• Tara Brabazon, author, academic, Dean of HDR and PhD supervisor currently at Charles Sturt University Australia. Content is varied but covers issues in academia and smoothing the path of new researchers. Usually supplies ten tips to finish each mini lecture. Posts weekly on Friday. https://www.youtube.com/@TaraBrabazonChannel
• ZOE, a group of academics exploring - in a balanced way - the latest global nutrition and health research via a podcast interview format, mostly from the UK, but also the US. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@joinZOE
• Pete Judo, a young academic who reports on academic misconduct, based in the UK. Posts roughly weekly. https://www.youtube.com/@PeteJudo1
• Medlife Crisis, a heart surgeon and standup comic who debunks faulty ideas, based in London UK. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@MedlifeCrisis
• Sabine Hossenfelder, German physics academic, author and researcher who reviews a range of science topics. Twice-weekly posts. https://www.youtube.com/@SabineHossenfelder
• Money & Macro, Belgium-based Dr Joeri Schasfoort explores economic principles and evaluates other's economic post accuracy. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@MoneyMacro
• The Economist, largely EU-based reportage of new trends and good quality course content. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@TheEconomist
• Danny Dorling, author, researcher and Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford explores societal inequality issues. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@dannydorling
• Cold Fusion, Australian-based researcher and author, Dagogo Altraide, explores business issues. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@ColdFusion
• Tom Scott, UK-based researcher who travels the world seeking out the unusual. Weekly posts, which sadly came to an end in December 2023 (but there is lots of content to watch). https://www.youtube.com/@TomScottGo
• BBC World Service, EU-based researchers explore a range of issues. Includes a superb hacking series, The Lazarus Heist (here). Generally posts appear every second day.  https://www.youtube.com/@BBCWorldService
• New Scholars, a group of UK-based academics providing webinars generally focused on post-graduate research methods. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@NewScholars
• CHOICE media channel, aka the American Psychological Association or APA (but they missed registering the APA channel, hence the weird name... but there is also now an American Psychological Association Video channel here too). US source of referencing, library science, and research advice. Weekly posts. https://www.youtube.com/@choicemediachannel6525
• Tristram Hooley, UK career development academic who creates and posts mini lectures on a range of career topics. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@pigironjoe
• Mark Tyrell, UK-based counsellor Mark Tyrell of Uncommon Practitioners explains counselling theories and practices. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@MarkTyrrellUnk
• The Thesis Whisperer, Australian Professor Inger Mewburn on HDR matters. Ad hoc posts (and not that much content, but it supports The Thesis Whisperer blog, which is superb here). https://www.youtube.com/@thethesiswhisperer5534
• Andy Stapleton, UK academic in Australia, exploring the plusses and minuses of academia. https://www.youtube.com/@DrAndyStapleton
• Heather Siago, US academic and researcher who explores research methods. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@heathersaigo
• Gapminder Foundation, a private Swedish research and debunker non-profit founded by Hans Rosling, supported by the Bill Gates Foundation. Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@gapminder
• Practical Psychology, US content creator, a former nuclear engineering student, explains psychological theory (NB: accuracy is slightly variable, so double-check). Ad hoc posts. https://www.youtube.com/@PracticalPsychologyTips
• TED, global academics and researchers in 15 minute slots (NB: accuracy is variable, so double-check). Daily posts. https://www.youtube.com/@TED

I find it fascinating to watch academics with such different skills - and nearly always MUCH, MUCH more expert - to my own. I tend to use YouTube content in my courses as an alternative to hearing my voice; for contrasting views; for voices of expertise; for research soundness. It is such a privilege to be able to access these materials, openly, and freely.

I hope that this list may introduce you to some new content to try :-)

Sam

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Disruption in higher education

Technology has disrupted the 'traditional' job market. Whereas once we were employed in in long-term roles, geographically close to where we worked; post-internet, work has potentially become global (Volkin, 2020). This has hit many sectors, including higher education (Christensen, 2008), resulting in a disrupted social structure and industry (Millar et al., 2018). 

Along with disruption come gig workers. Gig work tends to result in decreased worker terms and conditions, driving out costs for the promise of flexibility (Lawlink, 2020; Oldfield et al., 2021). Here in Aotearoa, neoliberal policies promoting a free market with little government intervention have impacted on permanent employment in our universities. Our casualised university staff are now our Academic Precariat, increasingly resembling gig workers (Oldfield et al., 2021), now described as “microentrepreneurs of the self” (Le Grange, 2020, p. 4) or “on-demand workers” (p. 6). However, we need to consider who holds the power in the relationship: the university, or the academic. 

The estimated casualisation rate in the academic workforce as high as 40% (Oldfield et al., 2021).  In my experience, just pre-Covid, there were something like 30 teaching staff in one school I taught in, and only about five were employees. While it is difficult to determine who is a contractor and who is an employee - as it is not really talked about - I suspect that the true percentage of contractors is likely closer to 75%.  

While no academics are paid well, contractors are generally paid poorly. For example, remuneration of 50 hours to deliver a course is pretty common. That is a week and a quarter to: set up a course; organise assessments; deliver 15 weeks of course work to the cohort; coach; deliver pastoral care; mark the assignments; bank new ideas for next time; and do the admin. Ouch. It appears that 'disrupting' higher education only meant reducing what people were paid for the mahi. And, to further put the contract hours into context, tutors would theoretically be able to deliver two courses every three weeks, minus 4 weeks for leave... so 16 courses per year; thus eight per semester. Delivering eight courses in a semester would be a huge load: I deliver three, and it is comfortably busy.

Driving cost out of businesses tends to work in the short term, but not in the long term. For example, AirB&B doesn't have a depreciation model: buildings are expensive and risky to replace, yet AirB&B doesn't factor in those costs. The same with Uber. Yes, the car as an asset will take five years to be 'consumed' via the process of doing business, but the business model doesn't take that into account. Commercialising education the same: it doesn't allow for upgrading of assets; development of academic staff; learning for learning's sake; and good quality longitudinal research. These disruptive models don't take the cost out of doing business: they IGNORE the cost of doing business, pushing the cost of maintenance, insurance and depreciation off on the contractor. It is only after one full business cycle that the model begins to fall over from a lack of future investment contingency: 20 years for an AirB&B; 5 years for a car; 10-20 years in higher education. 

Perhaps the 'disruption' in the education sector (Christensen et al., 2008) has arisen in Aotearoa (a) because as a society we want more knowledge workers, so we were able to increase throughput (b) because we pushed a quarter of the cost of education off onto our learner tax-payers directly in the form of 25% fees - the government pays the remaining 75%; and (c) we are paying academics as gig workers so have reduced salary, leave, research conditions, and development costs, and (d) we are as a society underfunding future investment in education. Other less intended results seem to be the potential for less high quality, longitudinal research, and fewer replicability studies. 

We lack a future-focused educational strategy. And we are potentially making learning for pleasure a salariat-only possibility.

Sam and Kris

References:

Christensen, C. M., Horn, M.B., & Johnson, C. W. (2008). Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. McGraw-Hill.

From Behind the Speaker’s Chair. (1902). Strand Magazine: AN illustrated Monthly, 21(7), pp. 79-80. George Newnes.

Lawlink. (2020, March). The gig economy – a changing workforce. https://www.lawlink.co.nz/article/the-gig-economy-a-changing-workforce/

Le Grange, L. (2020). Could the Covid-19 pandemic accelerate the uberfication of the university? South African Journal of Higher Education, 34(4), 1-10.

Millar, C., Lockett, M., & Ladd, T. (2018). Disruption: Technology, innovation and society. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 129, 254-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.10.020

Oldfield, L., Roy, R., Simpson, A., Jolliffe Simpson, A., & Salter, L. (2021). Academic Activism in the Wake of a Pandemic: A Collective Self-Reflection from Aotearoa/New Zealand. International Perspectives in Psychology: Research, Practice, & Consultation, 10, 215-227. https://doi.org/10.1027/2157-3891/a000027

Volkin, M. (2020, March 27). Why the gig economy will drive the future of employment. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/03/27/why-the-gig-economy-will-drive-the-future-of-employment/#6218d5d44f52

* Kris Porter kindly supplied some of the material for this post

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Free career journals

It always staggers me how much a journal can charge for one article: for example, an Elsevier publication article that I had ordered from my institution's library was going to cost USD$75, for one article, just for my access alone, for a year's 'rental'. I didn't own it, and I was supposed to destroy it after the rental period. The librarians got back to me and asked if there was anywhere else I could possibly get the article from as that - at the time - equated to NZD$151: the price of purchasing a textbook which the library would then permanently own. Needless to say, I instead emailed the lead author, who very kindly sent me a copy from their own allocation, thus avoiding the publisher altogether.

But wait, there's more. Other than ten - or so - freebies, the researcher/writer of such articles rarely sees any of the fee charged by the publisher. I have written about the rort that is academic writing before (here), where academics are paid by their institutions for research (usually a woeful one day each week; short by some 200-300% I would reckon). Academics also sit on the journal boards, edit the journals, peer review the articles submitted by other academics, arrange for their libraries to purchase the articles, and set the article reading lists for their students. As part of their salary and conditions, they are stuck in a loop where they must produce content, on which their employment and bonuses - again, if any - depend.

While it is difficult, what can help to counter the rort that is academic publishing is Open Access journals. For Open Access to work, we need to do more of (a) writing for the free access journals, and (b) reading the articles published in them.

So, in that spirit, following are a list of open access career-specific journals:

• NICEC (Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Guidance): https://www.nicec.org/pages/24-nicec-journal
• CERIC's Canadian Journal of Career Development: https://cjcd-rcdc.ceric.ca/index.php/cjcd
• The International Journal of Career Development: https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1362-0436

Then we have the Science Direct journals, which contain some career content: 

• Asia Pacific Management Review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/asia-pacific-management-review
• Safety and Health at Work: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/safety-and-health-at-work
• Pacific Science Review B: Humanities and Social Sciences: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/pacific-science-review-b-humanities-and-social-sciences
• Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/organizational-behavior-and-human-decision-processes
• Organizational Behavior and Human Performance: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/organizational-behavior-and-human-performance
• Social Sciences & Humanities Open: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/social-sciences-and-humanities-open

If you are a member of either of the following organisations (APCDA or CDANZ), you get access to the following journals as a part of your membership:

• Asia Pacific Journal of Career Development: https://apcda.wildapricot.org/Journal/
• IAEVG (International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, by the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance): https://iaevg.com/IJEVG-Journal

Further, if you are a CDANZ member, we can apply to get a logon and password to access to the Ministry of Education library, where we can search for any journals which MoE are subscribed to. Access to this library resource has assisted my research a lot.

Lastly, there are some more goodies listed here (CERIC, 2020); and though I suspect those not listed here may be behind a paywall, it is worth checking.

Please let me know if there are any open access career journals I have missed, and I will keep adding to this list :-)

Sam

References:

CERIC. (2020). Career Development Journals that should be on your radar. https://careerwise.ceric.ca/2020/10/15/7-career-development-journals-that-should-be-on-your-radar/

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Boyer’s Dimensions of Academic Scholarship

The centre of academic scholarship has been defined as the "ability to think, communicate, and learn" (Boyer, 1990, p. 15). Being considered 'professional' scholars gives "legitimacy to [our] academic work", enabling us to "move beyond the tired old 'teaching versus research debate'" (p. 16).

Five dimensions of scholarship have been proposed as "separate, yet overlapping" academic work functions (Boyer, 1990, p. 17; Le, 2022, p. 73). They are:

1. The scholarship of discovery. This is "the commitment to knowledge for its own sake, to freedom of inquiry and to following, in a disciplined fashion, an investigation wherever it may lead" (Boyer, 1990, p. 18). Discovery may mean that we ask "what is to be known, what is yet to be found?" (p. 18), so we undertake research in order to find out (Le, 2022).
2. The scholarship of integration. Integration is about scholarly contribution and standing on the shoulders of giants. Our peers "give meaning to isolated facts, putting them in perspective" (Boyer, 1990, p. 18), requiring us to interpret and "fitting one’s own research—or the research of others—into larger intellectual patterns". Collectively and individually we make "connections across the disciplines, placing the specialties in a larger context, illuminating data in revealing ways" (p. 18). The resulting interdisciplinarity assists us to solve complex problems (Le, 2022).
3. The scholarship of application. Application illustrates the academic community's importance in defining how “knowledge [can] be responsibly applied to consequential problems", how academe can "be helpful to individuals as well as institutions", and if "social problems themselves [can] define an agenda for scholarly investigation" (Boyer, 1990, p. 21). Providing we remember that research to discovery to application is not necessarily linear, delivering "socially relevant contributions" is seen as a 'normal' part of academic work (Le, 2022, p. 73; Boyer, 1990) in most countries, usually because it is paid via the public purse.
4. The scholarship of teaching. Teaching in tertiary institutions "both educates and entices future scholars" (Boyer, 1990, p. 23), by being a dynamic transfer where "knowledge is [...] transformed and extended" (Le, 2022, p. 74). What is particularly interesting about this explanation is how short it is! As if - as is often assumed - that teaching is the least important thing that higher educational institutions deliver. Personally, I feel that the clue is in the name: higher EDUCATIONAL institutions. But hey.
5. The scholarship of engagement. Engagement with society - particularly when academics are often paid from the public purse - is needed to prevent a potential detachment between academia, industry, and the general public (Boyer, 1996; Le, 2022). If institutions divorce their work - their application - from "societal concerns [they are likely to] receive less societal support; [with the result that] society receives fewer intellectual benefits; and the civic culture [may] decline" (Le, 2022, p. 74), and academics are seen as being siloed in their 'ivory towers'. Engagement supplies continuous, creative communication which in turn assists the achievement of university goals (Boyer, 1996; Le, 2022). And let's not forget the whole 'us' and 'them' culture on non-engagement which blossomed during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. The general public was less able to understand research-speak; this meant they were effectively cut out of the research loop by dint of non-deliberate obfuscation. With the ramparts of academic writing proving unscalable, the simplification of TikTok and Telegram was so much more seductive (if rarely correct... but hey, what did that matter?).
   

These five elements are interesting, as is the apparent emphasis placed on each via the depth of discussion. What is also interesting is that a path can be seen through three of these elements: that we move from discovery to integration to application. Then perhaps we have two outcomes: those of teaching; and engagement. 

I think this model needs more thought, and perhaps some diagramming. 

Sam

References:

Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate [report]. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED326149.pdf

Boyer, E. L. (1996). The Scholarship of Engagement. Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 49(7), 18–33. https://doi.org/10.2307/3824459

Le, P. A. T. (2022). The academic profession from the perspectives of aspiring academics. [Doctoral thesis: University of Melbourne]. https://rest.neptune-prod.its.unimelb.edu.au/server/api/core/bitstreams/3981b6f3-8c08-4608-a4e4-54dbce1b96a6/content

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The research of Giles Yeo

I am late coming to the party about the metabolic genetics researcher, Giles Yeo. Dr Yeo is the Principal Investigator in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, in the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science at Cambridge.

Damn, but I wish this man had been my lecturer on any paper in my undergraduate degree as he is a hoot. He has a wonderful knack of translating very complex processes into logical, digestible and understandable bites that we can absorb, and fit into the larger picture.

So this article is a short piece simply to link to two of Dr Yeo's lectures (The Royal Institute, 2018, 2021). These are both firmly recommend viewing, in date order, as follows.

I hope you enjoyed those as much as I did.

Sam

References:

The Royal Institution (27 Apr 2018). Giles Yeo: Do Your Genes Make You Fat? [video]. YouTube.  https://youtu.be/pOJYTMe_bp4

The Royal Institution (14 Aug 2021). How We Got the Science of Weight Loss Wrong - with Giles Yeo [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/GQJ0Z0DRumg

The University of Cambridge. (2021). Dr Giles Yeo. https://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?gshy2

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Decolonisation and science

Wow: Tara Brabazon just keeps it coming. In a wonderful vlog last year, she began a clip on academic publishing with reference to a 2021 debacle at the University of Auckland (UoA). She began exploring the issue of academic publishing by talking about seven university academics having published an open letter:

“In the last week of July 2021, some scientists based at the University of Auckland wrote a rather enraged letter to the Listener” (Brabazon, 2021, 2:25).

Before we go on, I will provide a brief explanation of the New Zealand magazine, The Listener. The Listener is not a scientific journal: it is a traditionalist, white, middle-class TV & radio guide. It has an ageing demographic; my Mother has read it for fifty years (though I must admit, she is considering giving it up). This publication was once considered political, arty, literary, and boundary-testing. It now appears staid, overly-conservative and targeted at an aged, middle-class, and somewhat xenophobic readership. A demonstration of content quality was seen when Covid-19 struck Aotearoa last year. The Listener provided a 'fake news'-style op-ed, suggesting that global death rates were inflated as many infected would have eventually died anyway from other ailments (Radio New Zealand, 25 March 2020). Ouch. The Listener found themselves alone, on the somewhat Breitbart side of thinking.

So when I stop to think about the platform that the UoA professors chose, it seems to me that the letter was not meant to inform, but to scare those in the community who are most likely to be frightened by the dominant Pākehā culture being ‘eroded’. Of them losing their place in society - that their cultural existence was under threat.

A bit like Māori have been since colonisation.

Tara went on to say:

The “seven professors […] expressed their worry that a working group was transforming Aotearoa New Zealand's curriculum to recognise a parity between mātauranga Māori and other bodies of knowledge” (Brabazon, 2021, 2:59).

Tara then pointed out that “this is an ontological discussion, and that's great. We need more ontological discussions. But it was also a moment of questioning of colonisation, decolonisation, and maybe - just maybe - a light of post-colonialism” (Brabazon, 2021, 3:16).

She related that the University of Auckland professors “attacked the course that was supposedly embedding Māori knowledge into the science curriculum. And what was the course doing? Well, I'll use a quote directly from the course syllabus details: ‘to promote discussion and analysis of the ways in which the sciences have been used to support the domination of a Euro-centric view’.” (Brabazon, 2021, 3:42)

Tara went on to say that “those Euro-centric views include how Māori knowledge has been demeaned, and marginalised, and erased to allow colonisation to occur” (4:08). The “course was discussing the very nature of knowledge, and how knowledge is used by the powerful to continue their power” (Brabazon, 2021, 4:21).

These University of Auckland professors “argued that indigenous knowledge, and languages, and people may be important for ‘local practices and policy’ but ‘falls far short of what could be defined as science itself’. The professors were implying that mātauranga Māori may help science, but it's not science. OK. Wow, I wish in my daily life I had that degree of epistemological, methodological, and ontological certainty” (Brabazon, 2021, 4:57).

Tara continued “Now science is many things, but one thing it's not is closed off to alternative arguments and evidential bases [, or closed off to] testing against alternative ideas” (Brabazon, 2021,5:44). “We also do need to recognise […] that colonisation was fuelled through science: remember that James Cook's expeditions were called scientific expeditions” (6:04).

Her conclusion? “Why are we creating a binary opposition between white science and Māori knowledge?” (6:16). “of course, this is a false binary opposition” (6:26), with the implication that by the UoA professors saying what they were saying, it is an act of continuing colonisation of indigenous knowledge. “The point of decolonization – the actual point – is to create an openness to knowledge systems to ensure that we experiment, and we explore, and we test in multiple contexts” (6:46). “Mātauranga Māori is not antithetical to Western science” (7:00). “Knowledge systems improve when [there is] dialogue” (7:10).

And ain't that the truth.

Sam

References

• Brabazon, T. (20 August 2021). Vlog 283 - The politics of publishing [video]. Office of Graduate Research Flinders University. https://youtu.be/VrX9JebU6dQ
• Radio New Zealand (25 March 2020). An outlandish call for Covid-19 surrender. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018740142/an-outlandish-call-for-covid-19-surrender

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Using VLookup in Excel

Do you have related data which you have to regularly - and manually - add to a marking sheet? I use Excel to mark, and need both the student name, AND the student ID number on each marking sheet. I use two formulas to prevent me having to repeatedly add data to worksheet fields.

I use one Excel workbook, and add a new tab - worksheet - for each student. I have written about how to enter the student name onto the worksheet here. But basically I paste each student name into the tab name, and have a formula in the worksheet name field, as follows:

=MID(CELL("filename",A1),FIND("]",CELL("filename",A1))+1,255)

The tab name then appears in the worksheet. Done.

However, I was still manually adding the student ID. So instead, I copied my semester list of student names (column A) and IDs (column B) into each marking workbook on a sheet named "Students", and, using a VLookup, have created a formula which appears in the Student ID field:

=VLOOKUP(C2,Students!A:B,2,TRUE)

Then I sorted the students into alpha-numeric order by name. NB: that is a very important step. The key data column in the VLookup must be in alphabetic order else the data association will appear to be randomly selected.

However, if for any reason we have another column that we want to sort on (such as a surname column instead of a first name column), we can change the last component of formula from 'TRUE' to 'FALSE' or '0' to avoid the sort, as:

=VLOOKUP(C2,Students!A:B,2,FALSE) if text, or =VLOOKUP(C2,Students!A:B,2,0) if a number

While I could have organised the VLookup so that my marking workbooks would refer back to my Master Excel workbook - i.e., not having to copy my list of students out into each marking workbook - I travel with my data. The drive letters change depending on where I am, and what device I am on. I would have been constantly having to repair my lost or broken links, so I decided it was better to have the data unlinked... and reduce problems.

Despite that small amount of double handing, I now have each student ID appearing once I create name each new marking sheet. One small piece of work done at the beginning of the semester saves double-handing for the remainder of my cohort marking.

Too easy.

Sam

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Notes on virtual conferences

Last year I attended four conferences. This is much more than I would normally attend, and they only became available to me because of Covid-19: the conferences went virtual, and - therefore - became accessible.

I attended two North American conferences, one Australian conference, and one New Zealand conference. The differences between the conferences was interesting. Some sessions were recorded, and so if I missed that particular conference session because I was attending another strand, I could go back and tap in to the presentation later. There were differences in the time that the sessions were live past the conference having taken place. One conference got the sessions live within a week or so, and kept the sessions live for three months. The other took about a fortnight, and will keep the sessions live for a year. One sent us a live link, but, because that conference required you to register for the sessions you wanted to attend, sent out a link to a recording that could be downloaded.

First of all, session times were tricky. With the two North American conferences, much of the programme was scheduled for quite awkward times. 4am is not a good time when you have a full day of teaching ahead, so I found that I was unable to attend many of the live sessions I wanted to. The Australian conference sessions were all in the evening, which make it very easy to attend.

Secondly, because I was not 'at' a conference, the time was not carved out of my calendar to attend: my teaching life carried on. I had quite a different mindset to the conferences themselves. I found there was a difference in how I approached the conference sessions: I knew I could go asynchronously. Usually we are forced to carve out the time, because we are out of the office. It was the fact that I knew that I could tap into the sessions later that made registering viable (though it was still quite expensive). Attending the conference was not a break from work: it was alongside - on top of - work. I am wondering if I need to take a different time orientation towards them, and take leave to attend... or whether it is OK to not take that break.

Thirdly, normally when attending a conference we pick the sessions in the streams we think we will enjoy. We make some poor decisions, we make some spectacular decisions, but we cannot be in many places at once. Choices are forced upon us. The virtual conference allows us to attend ALL sessions, over time. However, I can relate that three months is not long enough to see all the sessions I wanted to see. I fitted in viewing all the extra sessions around work. Some were great, some were rubbish. But I packed in as many as I could, to get my 'money's worth', and still ran out of time to see everything. I was interested in why I wanted my 'money's worth', too: that value became a key driver.

Fourthly, the synchronous/asynchronous nature of virtual conferences means we are less overloaded: we can digest in smaller segments. We can also take the time to think more critically. I suspect we will absorb more.

Lastly, I found that I like to be able to download the video and slide decks. Some video was downloadable from all conferences, but the sessions that I had to watch again in only on PC without downloadable or supporting material annoyed me. I still am not quite sure why: perhaps collecting the conference materials is part of the perceived value?

While virtual conferences have made attending much more accessible, they remain expensive. In deciding to attend, I think we need to consider our time zone; consider leave; consider our length of access; and to consider what materials we walk away with at the end.

Sam

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Making et al possessive

A student recently sent me a draft master thesis which contained an interesting attempt at making an APA "et al." citation possessive. The citation was:

The implications of this research goes back to Seville’s et. al., (2008) definition of resilience...

I was surprised at how quickly I spotted this, and immediately went to add a comment that perhaps this should be formatted as "Seville et al.'s"... before I brought myself up short.

What was I thinking? I was attempting to apply the English plurals rules - 'cups of tea', 'tape measures' - to 'et al.'. This is a Latin construction... and contraction, for that matter. Surely we would not Anglicise a Latin construction by belting a possessive apostrophe on it?

So I went for a riffle through my APA 7th edition handbook (2019). While on page 162 there was a brief discussion of style around possessive apostrophe use, it did not relate to in text citations. Time for a Google search.

I hit pay-dirt with the wise words of Sarah Madden who responded to a Quora question on just this topic (Klyne, 2020). Sarah said that, as 'et al.' is already a plural abbreviation for 'and the others', making the phrase possessive would be inelegant. How masterful! Her suggestion was a rewrite to make the possessive unnecessary. A later responder, Joanne Treasure, also added that, as a Latin phrase, we should not attempt a possessive aphostrophisation (if that is even a word!).

A simple rewrite avoids a possessive apostrophe completely:

The definition of resilience (Seville et al., 2008) has implications for this research...

Writing is fascinating.

Sam

References:

• APA (2019). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.). American Psychological Association
• Klyne, M. (2020). What is the possessive form of et al. in APA style? https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-possessive-form-of-et-al-in-APA-style

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