Attention doctoral students of Information Science: There’s a new video series at INFIDEOS, and it is just for you. Hear! Here! (Ideas for Doctoral Students) aims to help you succeed in the formidable undertaking of a dissertation and doctorate. The ten videos are short and sweet, and last about 75 seconds each. Every episode offers a novel suggestion or expresses a tried-and-true research strategy in a new way. Whenever I say “Hear! Here!” you should listen for the straightforward instructions that follow. The tips come from my own experience as a doctoral student and now almost 15-years as a dissertation supervisor. The insights pertain mainly to qualitative research designs and are situated within Information Science, but the principles could be translated to other methodologies and disciplines.

What follows is a high-level tour of the series. The recommended starting point is a warm welcome and Introduction. Then, Episode 1: Exploratory Research presents a mode of qualitative inquiry that suits topics about which little is known. Exploratory research eschews some of the restrictions of conventional social science research design; is mainly inductive in nature; and embraces the spirited and relentless curiosity of an explorer. Episode 2: Your Dissertation is a gentle reminder to include a personal perspective within your doctoral dissertation, thereby increasing its authenticity and integrity. Episode 3: Indisciplinarity recognizes the wide-ranging root systems of many dissertations these days, and displays a graphical approach to organizing and communicating your study. Episode 4: The Valley of the Universe has been an audience favorite, despite (or perhaps on account of!) its mystical leanings. This video acknowledges the contradictory energies within the doctoral student endeavor; which entails being a novice and an expert at the same time. Episode 5: Cutting Points, explains that you can tame a sprawling dissertation by cutting off superfluous elements, thereby bringing an unruly topic down to its right-size. Episode 6: Writing-Up makes a case for doctoral students to put greater forethought into the writing strategy that brings their research to fruition; a few writing techniques are provided. Episode 7: Beautiful Ideas recognizes that we live in a highly stylized Information Age, and encourages doctoral students to develop the aesthetic dimension of their research. Episode 8: Concatenation, proposes that doctoral students situate their dissertation within a series of small scale studies, which accumulate into a sturdy and multifaceted body of knowledge. This video claims concatenation as the secret to an “everlasting scholarly career.” Episode 9: Souvenirs, aims to start a new trend: the making and giving of souvenirs that capture and carry ideas in playful, memorable, enduring, material ways.  Finally, Episode 10: Write! To Scholars encourages doctoral students to contribute to the social construction of ideas in Information Science, by writing sincere letters to scholars that applaud, inquire, or challenge.

Regular viewers of INFIDEOS may notice that the Hear! Here! (Ideas for Doctoral Students) series displays new, textured designs that flicker like antique movies, as well as surprising color combinations. A recent upgrade to the video-making software, Camtasia 2022, introduced me to the “Blend Mode” feature that enables textured overlays and integrated layers of video. It was a thrilling creative adventure to experiment with these capabilities.

Though Hear! Here! is pitched at doctoral students of Information Science, the potential audience is greater. Supervisors of student research, as well, may learn a thing or two that they can share with their proteges. And, the ten ideas are applicable to research at the masters level, or any kind of qualitative scholarship, really. Hear! Here!: Check out the whole Playlist soon.