Invisible colleges in the adult education research world

Abstract

Keywords: bibliometrics; publications; adult education; invisible college; academic journals Invisible colleges as actor networksResearchers often have a personal involvement in their work -they are keen on understanding more about the issue they are exploring. The struggle with research questions and the joy and despair of writing is only the beginning of the process aiming at being recognised by some audiences -a process of making research work meaningful (Larsson, 2004). To trace research with a similar interest, but also the researchers behind the research is part of the joy of doing research. The aim is to make your research noticed or more ambitious -to have some mutual contact. The notion of such communication and collaboration between colleagues as creating "invisible colleges"

Exploring the Adult Learning Research Field by Analysing Who Cites Whom

“…Although our analysis confirms previous studies as regards to the dominance of anglophone scholars (e.g. Nylander 2014, 2017;Larsson 2010) and sociocultural theories (e.g. Fejes and Nylander 2015), we have been able to provide further insight into the relation between dominating players and as well as outlined a structural interpretation of the different epistemic camps active within the field.…”

“…2 For other discussions on the status of adult learnig as a research field see e.g. Bright (1989), Larsson (2010); Rubenson and Elfert (2015), Fejes and Nylander (2017). 3 Thus, other newer journals such as, e.g.…”

“…Some of these studies focus on a single journal only and its development over time (e.g. Harris and Morrison 2011;St.Clair 2011;Taylor 2001), while others focus on identifying issues of authorship and content across several journals (Fejes and Nylander 2014;Larsson 2009Larsson , 2010Rubenson and Elfert 2015) and yet some focus on conference publications (Käpplinger 2015). In short, these studies identify the following characteristics of adult learning as a research field: authors located at universities in the UK, US, Australia or Canada dominate the field in contribution as well as collegial impact; female authors render more publications than men do, while male authors still dominate the field in terms of scientific recognition and impact (Fejes and Nylander 2015;Taylor 2001).…”

“…Although we do not think that the total number of citations can be taken as a proxy for research quality, we believe that the bibliographic method we outline has a series of distinct advantages in comparison to conventional bibliometrics analysis (Hicks 2004(Hicks , 2013Persson 1991;Lariviére et al 2006) as well as previous bibliometrics studies on the field of adult learning (Fejes and Nylander 2015;Rubenson and Elfert 2015;Käpplinger 2015;Larsson 2010;Taylor 2001). Firstly, we are able to give a synthetic and panoramic view of the research field of adult learning based on previous citation patterns by utilizing the power of big data, spanning in total 151,261 citation links between more than 33,000 different authors.…”

Adult education research between field and rhizome - a bibliometrical analysis of conference programs of ESREA

“…Chang, 2013;Fejes & Nicoll, 2013;Fejes & Nylander, 2013Larsson, 2010;Long, 1983;Nicoll et al, 2014;Rubenson, 1982Rubenson, , 2000Rubenson & Elfert, 2014;St. Clair, 2011).…”