The [unintended] disservice academia is doing to trainees and the general public

This weekend, I read about Geoff McGhee (@mcgeoff) in The Functional Art—a journalist and expert in multi-media and interactive data visualization currently at Stanford University. He is notable for bridging the "huge gap between newsroom and academia” regarding information graphics and data visualization. Dr. Cairo describes that Geoff McGhee is able to speak “the language of both seasoned practitioners and brainy intellectuals” and can act “as a translator between them.” While I think this is an important endeavor, it makes me wonder why we need “translators” at all.

In the world of journalism, the expectation appears to be to first "learn about everything and [then] go deeper into something: statistical charts, maps, illustrations, and so on." Would any respected journalism program train aspiring investigative journalists solely in methods of investigation and then make them rely on others to “translate” and share the information they uncover? [Hopefully, this answer is resoundingly a NO]

So why do academic researchers need to rely on “translators”? Why are we not learning how to effectively disseminate our research findings to the general public and not just our scholarly peers? My experience as a graduate student (and likely that of many Ph.D. students) is that the standard curriculum skips right over learning about everything and goes straight to having students focus in-depth and learn about a very specific "something." In particular, there is a critical lack of training in skills outside of research methodology and statistics. The most highly valued skill in academia is publishing research results in peer-reviewed academic journals, but they are usually locked behind a paywall and inaccessible to the general public.

The issues don’t stop at a lack of training during our graduate programs. In health research, my field of interest, a 17-year research-to-practice gap has been repeatedly reported, with issues all along the way. When attempting to close the gap, the focus is often on communication between researchers and clinicians, but dissemination needs to go beyond reaching healthcare providers (who would ideally be reading the scientific research if their schedules allowed the time). We also need to reach the general public, the patients and their families, lawmakers and other individuals influencing public policy—which is where I personally believe data visualization and information graphics could make a large positive impact.

Through the use of media and partnerships with groups outside of academia, Dr. Christine Chambers (@DrCChambers), Professor at Dalhousie University, is an example of how an academic can succeed while pursuing this goal.

From Presentation by Dr. Christine Chambers

However, academia is not structured in a way to encourage others to follow in her steps. Dr. Ursula Sansom-Daly (@usansomdaly), a clinical psychologist from Australia, wrote a great article discussing the gap between researchers and clinical practice and did a great job of explaining how the current metrics used for advancement in academia disincentivize using alternative methods to disseminate research.

This issue has also been noticed outside of academia: a piece by Nathan Robinson was published in the magazine Current Affairs questioning why “academics who work the hardest to spread knowledge and improve the public discourse are considered unserious and will have a harder time advancing in their field.”

How can I be surprised that our graduate programs don’t bother to train us how to effectively disseminate our information to the general public when an advice article in the Chronicle of Higher Education written by an Associate Professor strongly discourages academics from veering away from traditional peer-reviewed publications:

“Too many early-career scholars seem to be investing their time and energy writing a lot for the wrong kinds of publications. By “wrong,” I mean venues that won’t lead to tenure… I see more and more academics listing blog posts, op-eds, or other opinion-oriented writings on their CV.”

In summary, as I come towards the end of my doctoral program, I know what I want to do, but it seems like a focus on the "translation" and dissemination of existing research to the general public may not be highly valued by potential future employers.

So for now, I leave you with this drawing from Nathan Pyle (@nathanwpyle), which nicely illustrates how your typical graduate student "disseminates" research findings.