Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education Advance Access originally published online on October 29, 2007
The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2008 13(1):1-2; doi:10.1093/deafed/enm056
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From Research to Practice
Editor, Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education
Michigan State University
Correspondence to: Marc Marschark, Ph. D., Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 96 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623 (e-mail: memrtl{at}ntid.rit.edu).
Research in education and the social and behavioral sciences, like research in medicine and the natural sciences, eventually makes its way into our day-to-day lives. Of course, the timescales involved are not always the same, either within or across domains. Indeed, some studies being conducted in chemistry, social psychology, neuroscience, and learning may not affect us at all but may be helpful to our children. In our efforts to understand who we are and how the universe works, the speed with which empirical findings change our lives is not necessarily a metric of their inherent worth. At the same time, understanding such research—and what it tells us—is worthwhile in its own right, both as a means of broadening our own horizons and creating greater accountability among those in whom the public has invested its trust and its money.
In domains such as education, child development, and psychology, we have the potential to significantly affect how we live and behave without requiring a middleman who will manufacture or actualize a particular finding. In these areas, connecting research and practice offers at least the opportunity for synergism as communication between the two can lead to a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The usual question is "how do we go about it?"
In an effort to foster both communication and progress related to the scope of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, and to education in particular, a new partnership of JDSDE and the Deaf Education Web site (www.deafed.net) is being created with the support of Oxford University Press, the College of Education at Michigan State University, and the Center for Education Research partnerships at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. The Research to Practice Network (RPN) will provide for open discussions between JDSDE authors and an increasingly diverse community of teachers and learners. Taking advantage of current technologies and professional networks already in place, authors will share summaries and key findings from their research and engage with their audiences concerning implications of their work for practice. Practitioners, parents, and other readers, in turn, will have the opportunity to provide feedback on ideas, report on attempts at implementation, and become part of a larger community of learners that seeks to optimize educational and personal success for learners who are deaf/hard of hearing (DHH).
Recognizing that initiatives of this sort are still somewhat novel and may not be for everyone, the RPN will begin modestly, with volunteer authors helping to pioneer its initial stages. The Network will utilize a wiki system that can be accessed via links from both the JDSDE Web site (www.jdsde.oxfordjournals.org) at Oxford University Press and the Deaf Education Web site (www.deafed.net) at Michigan State University. Articles that are part of the DHH RPN already can be found in electronic form at the JDSDE site, with links to the Michigan State University site, and discussions for expansion are underway as we prepare this editorial. Perhaps a bit more explanation will be helpful.
It is now projected that the DHH RPN will be "rolled out" in 3 stages. In stage 1, the focus will be upon authors using the wiki system to provide brief, practitioner/parent friendly summaries of the key information in their JDSDE articles. Once the summaries have been posted, authors will be available for several weeks to respond to questions, comments, and ideas via the "discussion" feature of the wiki system. In stage 2 of the "roll out," a blog feature will be added to RPN wiki site. This feature should serve to facilitate interactions by automatically notifying interested individuals when new information has been added to the author's wiki site. In the third and final stage of the roll out, additional features of the wiki system will be enabled to facilitate individuals’ sharing how they used the author's information to enhance teaching and learning with individuals who are DHH.
Although each stage of the roll out will add features to the DHH RPN wiki site, the essential goal remains the same, that is, to speed up the process through which research both informs and is informed by practice. As we move along, we trust that the RPN will gain more participants and a more diverse audience. We encourage you to join us in this adventure.
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