Response to Marcus December 14, 2005
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Action Research , trackbackThis post is my first response to some of the feedback kindly left on my online pilot exhibition recently. I’m concerned that two weeks have passed already due to the effort of writing up a module and then taking a needed rest, so I’m anxious to respond now. Starting at the top, Marcus led off after having been nobbled by me in a synchronous chat followed up by email reminder the next day.
You wrote on November 25th:
This is my second visit to the DAR website, and although action research is not new to me, I had (and still have) difficulties getting a clear idea what DAR is about.
Ah, you’re not the only one, there. The boundaries of the concept are growing clearer in my own mind now, but I think explaining it will often be more of a journey than a delivery. An improved, narrower definition is hopefully going to help.
the relatively small font size
Thanks, I shall make a comparison of font sizes with other blogs and wikis and if necessary change the stylesheets to make for easier reading.
Also liked very much your audio introduction and would urge you to do more of that.
I was genuinely surprised by the positive responses to the podcast as a medium, not having had much time for it myself up until now. So yes, I’ll make space for more but I did come to a conclusion(1) that the unscripted style probably isn’t appropriate for the purpose of exhibition of research findings. Then again, just reading something out loud which is also made available as text seems a bit pointless so I might do better to keep an open mind and experiment further.
I think it would be interesting (and helpful for first-time visitors) if you could give some practical examples or describe situations where/how the DAR site might be useful. They could be a key for others to understand your idea better, and could spin off discussions in which others may carry the idea on.
On a similar note, when you invite visitors in the wiki to contribute, it might help (for a start) to give some examples what you think might be useful to contribute. This is not meant to patronise people or control something, but to further understanding and spark off action.
These are both very constructive suggestions, perhaps not so easy to implement, but definitely something I’d like to try and incorporate into my explanations and introductory texts.
Illustrate ideas and suggest possible contributions through giving examples - got it.
Many thanks again for all of these thoughts.
(1) ” I learned that an audio supplement is much appreciated by many online visitors but that unscripted ramblings may not be suitable for an exhibition. ”
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is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
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