Month: October 2012

Announcing The Research Exchange Index (REx)

Posted by – October 31, 2012

The following announcement is posted on behalf of Joan MullinJenn Fishman, and Mike Palmquist, the editors of The Research Exchange Index:

The Research Exchange Index, or REx, is designed to collect information about local, national, and international writing research conducted in unpublished and published studies. REx is also designed to solve a longstanding problem in writing studies: access to a wealth of information difficult to research across publications and difficult to find because it remains in institutional reports, programs, classrooms, or departments.

As a database about the processes of a research study, entries are different than articles about the studies that might be published in journals or books; therefore, entering data in REx not only doesn’t infringe on any copyright, but, once made public, actually serves to promote work by authors/editors.

Your contribution will become part of a peer-reviewed digital publication. After the collection deadline (May 1st, 2013), REx editors will review all entries for clarity and completeness of information, contacting researchers for further information as needed. Once the review process is complete, the edited entries will be included in the searchable REx database. REx editors will introduce the database with a scholarly essay that contextualizes contemporary writing research, offers an overview of database contents, and points to current and emerging research trends indicated by your studies.

From the first edition onward, REx will provide a historical snapshot of writing research, and it will offer a resource for planning future studies. For example, REx might be used to:

  • generate aggregatable data about one or more types of contemporary writing
  • research;
  • demonstrate gaps in our knowledge of contemporary writing;
  • provide models for research studies at new sites;
  • indicate areas of future study;
  • locate archives for historical studies of twenty-first-century writing; and
  • discover potential collaborators or sites for collaborative studies.

With individual teacher-scholars’ participation, REx will provide a rich and comprehensive profile of what research in “writing studies” is and is becoming. Start your entry by going to http://researchexchange.colostate.edu/index.cfm