By A/Prof. Lynn Gribble and A/Prof. Janis Wardrop, UNSW Business School
Published 15 November 2024
Publishing about your educational practices and expertise increases your impact, potentially gaining national and international recognition for your work.
The journals that focus on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can share your innovations with a wide audience, ensuring that they leave the confines of your own classroom to empower and inspire others to innovate. But taking that step to publish can be intimidating.
For many academics their first steps into publishing are during, or an outcome of, their PhDs, and while the supervisor might be cited as a co-author, the experience may be far from a collaborative endeavour. While in the sciences publications are often team efforts, as they result from collective laboratory experiences, in other disciplines, such as the social sciences, the research might be a solo effort. Hence it is no wonder that writing collaboratively seems like a nice idea but may remain elusive for many. Many SoTL outputs investigate or report on teaching practices and actions that may also be solo experiences.
However, developing your SoTL practice and publications does not need to be a solo pursuit.
Collaborating with others lightens the load, broadens your perspectives and balances your strengths and weaknesses.
In the process you can develop personally and professionally while helping others develop too. Some collaborative writing partnerships may only be for a short time, while others will last longer, and they can be fun when you find the right partners.
A collaborative partnership can take many forms. When considering collaborative writing, Sword (2017) differentiates “writing with” from “writing among”. Writing with includes:
- Co-authorship, where two or more authors contribute to the writing and editing of a single piece;
- Co-writing, where two or more people sit down and compose sentences together; or
- Co-attribution, where researchers’ or other participants’ names appear on a single publication, irrespective of whether they have been involved in the writing process.
There are other ways to collaborate and support each other’s writing endeavours that may lead to your finding a partner for a research project; for example:
- Writing groups, where two or more people meet regularly to advance their (individual) writing;
- Writing retreats, where time and space bind the gathering for intense writing periods and conversations about their writing; or
- Writing networks, which are loosely bound groups of colleagues who support each other’s writing in informal ways (Sword 2017).
A few guiding questions can help you start a collaborative partnership.
- What is each person’s experience of collaborating with others in teaching, research, projects and committees?
- How does each person work and like to work? Your own strengths and challenges need to be considered here.
- What does each person expect of themself and of others in the writing process?
These questions, along with some honest discussion with your potential collaborators, can clarify what you are collectively and individually trying to achieve – a vital first step. As collaborators, you also need to consider what to stay firm on and what to let go of.
True collaboration requires each person to do their part, but also trust the other person and focus on the outcome. This is why your collaborations must have a strategic perspective for all parties collectively and individually.
Getting started might feel like a long road ahead, but we have found that it quickly becomes apparent whether the collaboration can work. It may be a case of “one and done” or the start of years of shared experiences. Writing and working collaboratively on a SoTL project might start as a poster presentation at a conference, extend to a paper-development session or workshop and ultimately result in a published piece.
Collaboration is about finding a rhythm, knowing when to lead and when to follow, using strengths and minimising weakness – and, most importantly, sharing the load and having fun along the way.
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Reference
Sword, H. (2017). Air & light & time & space: How successful academics write. Harvard University Press.