Small steps
Today I decided to give the University’s Link Generator a try. I decided that if I am going to try to collect together useful articles, along with bibliographic information, I need to settle on a method of organising things pretty early. The Link Generator does a good job of storing links to articles in one place, and if it works, it makes more sense for me to collect article links there than try to duplicate them here. On the other hand, I sort of like the idea of having my own links here (for searchability and integration with other stuff) so it’s an open question right now.
I started with a search on ProQuest — no particular reason other than I had heard of it before. I used the terms role and playing and online to see what it would turn up. Around 217 hits. I went through and marked anything that looked like it related to higher education or something more general that was of interest, and got it down to 27 articles. Unfortunately on closer inspection almost all of these have very little to do with computer-based or online role-plays at all, so I will either need to improve my searching skills if I’m not going to waste a fair bit of time.
I decided I should look closely at a few higher education journals and search them for online role-play stuff too. All of this is just to get a background picture of what’s going on with online role-plays rather than looking at the more central theoretical issues, but I feel as though it’s time I went back and did some basic literature stuff like this, if only just to get back into the habit of reading. It’s also giving me a chance to test out things like the Link Generator and this blog, so I think it’s worth it.