Contributions to the blog are welcome!
The blog aims to be a global vehicle for exchange, discussion and network building, especially among researchers. We encourage discussion through comments on each blog post.
The blog shares ideas and techniques to:
- improve research on complex societal and environmental problems
- provide effective education in ways of tackling complex problems
- strengthen the place of such research and education in universities and other research organisations.
Feel free to send in your contribution or contact us to discuss ideas and possibilities.
Blog post topics
For a list of the main topics the blog covers see “What is the blog aiming to achieve and who is it for?” and “Contributions and blog partners” on the ‘About’ page.
We welcome blog posts:
- sharing methods, frameworks, processes, concepts, theories, competencies, cases and toolkits
- covering topics at introductory, intermediate and advanced levels
- sharing new ideas and techniques, as well as “golden oldies,” that is ideas and techniques that have been around for a while and that are worth revisiting.
Blog posts are a great way to:
- test new ideas
- draw attention to important ideas and techniques in new or old published papers. We have evidence that this increases the readership of those papers.
To see what has previously been published by the blog on your proposed topic, use the advanced search function.
Tips for writing your blog post
- 500-1000 words
- Short, clear title
- Open with questions to engage the reader
- The title and opening questions should clearly convey what the blog post is about
- Don’t try to cover too much; keep to one basic idea or technique
- Use short sentences, dot points and short paragraphs to make it easy for busy people to skim quickly
- Keep references to a minimum – only use those directly cited
- Avoid links in the text, unless they are to other i2Insights blog posts; instead provide full citations of work referenced – for an explanation see Practicalities on the ‘About’ page.
- Avoid acronyms and jargon
- Close with questions that invite the reader to comment
- Visuals are welcome. Please provide a reference or copyright information.
- The core language for the blog is English
- Both American and British spelling are acceptable. The index uses British spelling
- We also welcome additional versions of blog posts in other languages
- Provide a recent high resolution photo (head shot) of each author
- For each author, provide a brief biography with current affiliations/s and main areas of interest relevant to research integration and implementation.
How the submission and publication processes work
You can pitch an idea or submit a draft blog post by contacting us:
- When you pitch an idea, we will help you craft it into something suitable for a blog post.
- When you submit a draft, we may suggest edits to get it into house style (see tips above).
When the blog post is ready to publish, it will go into the publication queue. We publish one blog post each week (apart from a break in late December – early January) at 6.30 am Tuesday (Canberra, Australia time). When we have more than a two month backlog of unpublished posts, we publish two blog posts per week, with the second published at 6.30 am on Thursday (Canberra, Australia time). We will liaise with you about the publication date to ensure that you are available to respond to any comments that the blog post may attract. Most comments are made in the week after publication.
We will upload the blog post and index it.
We will contact you a week before the blog post is scheduled to be published and again when it is published.
We will advise you via e-mail when there are comments on your blog post. It helps promote discussion if you respond promptly.
During the first week after your blog post is published we will let you know, from time to time, how often it has been viewed. We prepare monthly reports on viewing statistics for all new blog posts for the first three months after they are published and, unless you’d prefer not to receive it, will send you a copy. You can also view the general blog statistics (updated quarterly).
Advertising, re-advertising and re-publishing your blog post
Advertising
Subscribers to the blog are informed via e-mail each time a new blog post is published. Your blog post will appear on the home page for 3-5 weeks after publication.
Immediately after publication we post a snippet about the blog post on relevant LinkedIn groups and listservs. We send out five tweets about the blog post at various times in the week after publication.
We also encourage you to advertise your blog post via colleagues and social media, as we have found this can significantly improve the number of views that a blog post receives.
Re-advertising
We re-advertise most blog posts around two years after publication, again by posting a snippet on relevant LinkedIn groups and by tweeting about it five times over the course of a week. We advise you when your blog post has been re-advertised and if it has attracted new comments. We also prepare monthly reports on viewing statistics for all re-advertised blog posts for the first three months after they are re-advertised and, unless you’d prefer not to receive it, will send you a copy.
Every month we highlight four blog posts about a particular topic on the home page and re-advertise them via LinkedIn and Twitter.
Republishing
Feel free to republish your blog post in other blogs. Please cite this blog as the original source, for example: “This blog post originally appeared in the Integration and Implementation Insights blog (http://i2Insights.org) as “ADD YOUR BLOG POST TITLE HERE” and is reposted with the author’s permission.” For an example see the citation at the end of this blog post on the LSE (London School of Economics) Impact blog.
Commenting on the blog
Our aim is for the blog to be a vibrant forum for discussion. Ending your blog post with questions invites reader input. Responding to comments promptly promotes further discussion.
When we publish your blog post, we generally invite five or so researchers with similar interests to comment.
We also welcome your comments on other people’s blog posts.
When you post a new comment, please use the “leave a reply” box. When you reply to a comment, please use the small “reply” button, as this will link your reply to the comment.
All comments are moderated.
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Page updated: 22 December 2020