Where have you been, Kate?
Great question, I’d love to tell you. It’s been a long time between posts here because in 2021 I started studying an Executive Masters of Business Administration at RMIT, then switched to Melbourne Business School in 2022, then switched roles within the University of Melbourne in 2023 and now here we are in 2024. Here’s a snap of me graduating and one of me accepting the Social Leadership Award which I was very honoured to receive as it was voted on by my classmates.
With a full-time study load, full-time work, and a new role to master, my posts and work on Sound Knowledge fell by the wayside but now I’m back! And I have exciting news.
This year I’m producing Australia’s first peer-reviewed podcast. It is also the first in urban studies and possibly the first to be published through an academic journal anywhere in the world…although I need to check that last one. Maybe someone beat me to the punch? Either way, it’s a pioneering project and aims to set a standard for scholarly peer-reviewed podcasts everywhere.
What is a peer-reviewed podcast?
Again, great question. It’s still a fledgling concept but I think there are a few key ingredients:
It has to produce new knowledge. Podcasting is mainly used as a research dissemination tool. You get interviewed on a podcast about work you have already completed to promote your work and yourself. Maybe to attract further funding. Like most research communication, it’s often an afterthought. Podcasts don’t usually produce new information or present new concepts, but represent already peer-reviewed ideas.
A peer-reviewed podcast however does produce new knowledge. It can be part of the research methodology for example. It can be gathering oral testimonies and interviews. It can be making new connections across existing work.
The latter is what we are doing with our podcast – interviewing a range of leading academics about their work and drawing new conclusions across the pieces.
It has to go through a peer-review process. Sounds obvious but peer reviewing audio is not exactly like peer reviewing text. With a written piece you pull it together, send it off and get feedback, then edit and resubmit.
Similar to text, a peer-reviewed podcast is reviewed by academic peers in a relevant discipline. Unlike text, not all the feedback from peer reviewers can be implemented in the episode they have reviewed.
For example, if the feedback comes back saying “I wish you’d asked them about this” or “the conversation would be better is held in a garden since you’re talking about biophilic design”. sure, thanks, great feedback BUT we can’t go back and rerecord a whole interview. And because audio takes place in a space and every space sounds different, you cannot just speak a few words into your memo app and splice them in. They won’t fit. The sound will be jarring and out of place. Atop all this is the rhythm and vibe of a conversation which is also impossible to reproduce unless you’re working with professional actors.
But if the feedback says “the content would do well to reference the X theory, or such-and-such’s work”. Yes. We can do this.
In our peer-reviewed podcast we have cohosts who top and tail the interview, and sometimes come in with interjections. This is where we have room to add in extra concepts or layers, or references.
When feedback from reviewers that cannot be implemented, we make it iterative. We fold it into the next episode, the next series.
It’s possible we might publish feedback alongside the series for a level of transparency. I don’t know yet.
Another way to think about peer reviewed podcasts is that the series is like a journal issue, and the episodes like articles therein. So as a whole you want the series to be cohesive but each episode is a deep dive into a particular area.
The series is still a work in progress, due to be released August 2024 and I’ll update you when it launches. Plus I’ll post another piece reflecting on the process: what worked and what we could do better for next time.
I also have a poster presentation on peer-review podcasting at the Australasian Research Management Society (ARMS) Conference 2024 in Darwin, 11-13 September 2024. Come say hello if you’re there.