AcWriMo 2013 Recap

November ended almost a week ago, and along with it my first AcWriMo experience. At the very beginning of the month, there was this:

#AcWriMo protip: don't try to declare your goals on the mondo Google spreadsheet w/ a toddler nearby. #oops #thankGodforundo #mommaprof
— Donna Witek (@donnarosemary) November 3, 2013

But once I got the hang of navigating the accountability spreadsheet to record my progress, I got nervous about user error resulting in parts of my log being deleted. So, I decided to archive my log here as well, for my own future reference and analysis (#metaliteracy much?). So, here below is my running log of AcWriMo 2013, as well as a declaration of my AcWriMo achievements, and finally a brief reflection on how I thought it went.

GOALS: 1 application for promotion completed and submitted; 1 journal article drafted; 1 article query sent; 1 co-authored book chapter drafted; 1 IRB application revised; 2 metaliteracy blog posts published; 1 masters thesis blog post published; 2 peer evals written and submitted

PLAN: work uninterrupted on at least one goal per work day for 1-2 hours

LOG:

1-Nov: wrote for 5 hours; application for promotion completed and submitted

2-Nov: signed up for AcWriMo and declared goals (including retrospective one from yesterday)

3-Nov: blogged my AcWriMo goals

4-Nov: live tweeted an event related to my research for the journal article; 1 metaliteracy blog post published

5-Nov: no progress on goals -- time overrun with meetings, ref desk, and IL appointments

6-Nov: no progress on goals -- time overrun with IL classroom session and IL one-on-one appointments 

7-Nov: 1 masters thesis blog post published; only worked toward goals for 30 minutes today

8-Nov: spent 1 hr 15 mins doing refresher CITI training course -- counting time twds my IRB app revision goal; spent 15 mins drafting AcWriMo recap blog post to archive progress on goals; spent 5 minutes responding to a metaliteracy-related blog comment; read preface to "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for journal article; printed 7 articles to be used in journal article

9-Nov: read 6 chapters of "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" with highlights and notes for journal article

10-Nov: read 3 chapters of "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" with highlights and notes for journal article

11-Nov: performed lit review of articles re: paradigm shift in libraries for journal article, placed ILL requests and downloaded every article found, both re: paradigm shift in libraries and from BI to IL

12-Nov: no progress toward goals, except downloading articles received via ILL for lit review of journal article -- broke my toe yesterday evening!

13-Nov: spent 30 minutes reading an article for lit review of journal article

14-Nov: no progress on goals -- overrun with IL appointments

15-Nov: no progress on goals -- overrun with IL appointments; did share link to full-text of Master's thesis with Library department colleagues and parish choir director

16-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend and travel prep (plus recovering from broken toe and cold)

17-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend and travel prep (plus recovering from broken toe and cold)

18-Nov: began writing one peer evaluation

19-Nov: finished writing and submitted peer evaluation started yesterday

20-Nov: AJCU VR Annual Meeting -- business travel

21-Nov: AJCU VR Annual Meeting -- business travel

22-Nov: AJCU VR Annual Meeting -- business travel

23-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend

24-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend

25-Nov: wrote and submitted one peer evaluation

26-Nov: no progress on goals -- early snow closure so I did not go into office

27-Nov: no progress on goals -- took [planned] vacation day for holiday

28-Nov: no progress on goals -- Thanksgiving

29-Nov: no progress on goals -- out of town visiting family

30-Nov: no progress on goals -- out of town visiting family

ACHIEVEMENT: 1 application for promotion completed and submitted; 1 metaliteracy blog post published; 1 masters thesis blog post published; 2 peer evals written and submitted

PROGRESS MADE ON: 1 journal article drafted; 1 article query sent

STILL TO DO: 1 co-authored book chapter drafted; 1 IRB application revised; 1 metaliteracy blog post published  

Upon reflection, I can see where I went "wrong" with conceiving of what goals I may actually be able to achieve during this particular month. Two weeks of the month were cut short -- one for business travel, and one for the Thanksgiving holiday plus a snow closure. I knew from the get go I would not be working toward goals (much) on the weekends, or on days I did not go into the office, what with Bookie and my husband being my top priorities while at home. This meant that there were only so many days during the month I'd be attempting my 1-2 hours of uninterrupted work toward my goals. I also broke my toe in the second week of the month!

In addition, I had a campus service commitment I made a while back, which required a lot of time this month reviewing and scoring grant applications. Finally, I did not anticipate the number of one-on-one information literacy (IL) appointments -- both planned and impromptu -- that would occur in the early weeks of the month. They wound up taking up my one block of 1-2 hours I have each work day to "myself" to do, well, academic writing.

All of that being said, I'm proud of what I did accomplish. I did a lot of footwork on the journal article, even if I didn't send the article query to the journal yet. But I also discovered a different journal that may be a better fit for the piece, so now I may query it in two places -- something I didn't anticipate a month ago, but a welcome development. I also plan to dive back into work on the article within the next week, with plans to prioritize the completion of a full draft in January.

The co-authored book chapter draft originally had a deadline of December 1st, but my research partner Teresa became sick late in the month (#frownie) and negotiated a two-week extension with the editors. She is leading on that project, but even with the extension, this item will be off the list by mid-December.

The IRB application revision fell to the wayside, and may not get prioritized until January. With everything on my plate, that particular data collection project may need to take a back seat for now, and I'm okay with that. I did update my CITI training though, so that's something.

This post will technically be the second metaliteracy blog post listed under "still to do", though I do need to write a proper post containing my final thoughts on the MOOC itself, even though I basically bowed out of it halfway through the semester. I hope to do this before the Christmas holiday.

While I don't have the brain right now to declare formal AcWri goals for December, I did submit a conference proposal yesterday (with Teresa) which I'm super excited about, and now this post is added to my AcWri record for the month, so all in all, I'm feeling good about my first AcWriMo experience and my resulting motivation to remain productive. So, cheers!

Application for Promotion and Communities of Practice

...or, the November I did AcWriMo. But more on that in a moment.

On Friday, November 1st, I met the biggest deadline of my career thus far.

The deadline was not just for my application materials (pictured). It was the deadline by which I needed to have met five qualifying criteria for promotion to the rank of Associate Professor, having to do with my three areas of faculty responsibility: librarianship, scholarship, and service. Without describing them in detail, suffice it to say, the requirements are very involved, time consuming, and challenging, each in its own way. By far the most challenging was the scholarship criterion -- which is, basically, that I need to have "substantial" scholarly activity in my field that is juried/refereed/peer-reviewed, etc., and in my profession the minimum I was given was "two peer-reviewed journal articles, published or accepted for publication by the time of application," which thankfully I have. I also needed to complete my Master of Arts in Theology degree. My mantra this past year has been: "Just get to November 1st, Donna." And, by God's grace, and the immense support of my husband, Paul, and my amazing research partna', Teresa, I made it: My application is in, and I actually feel good about my chances of being promoted by my colleagues on the Board of Rank and Tenure at my institution. Either way, I don't need to worry about it again until January, when my meeting before the Board will be scheduled.

Another thing I've been looking forward to is getting past November 1st so I can do my research and scholarly activities without the punitive "whip" of a career making-or-breaking timeline under which I needed to work. I can do my research at the pace that best suits the project, not my academic timeline. I feel very excited about this next chapter in my work, and have a plan in this upcoming year for research that is feasible, exciting, and important. I'm feeling very motivated by this freedom. 

So, on Friday when I returned to my Twitter stream after being away for a few days, I realized a community of practice called AcWriMo was a perfect fit for this next month in my academic life. Like NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, AcWriMo takes place during the month of November, during which participants post their writing goals publicly and have a commmunity of fellow writers with whom to share progress, and from whom to receive support. If it isn't obvious from its name, AcWriMo is a community of practice dedicated to academic writing. 

And so, in the spirit of public accountability, here are my goals for AcWriMo 2013:

GOALS: 1 application for promotion completed and submitted; 1 journal article drafted; 1 article query sent; 1 co-authored book chapter drafted; 1 IRB application revised; 2 metaliteracy blog posts published; 1 masters thesis blog post published; 2 peer evals written and submitted.

PLAN: Work uninterrupted on at least one goal per work day for 1-2 hours. 

Ambitious? Perhaps. And I wonder if I'm setting myself up for "failure" by fully admitting that for a few of these, if I can just end the month with a decent amount of progress made, I will be satisfied, since I can continue to work on them in December. The key for me is that I make a concerted effort to work on all of these this month, so when December comes I won't be starting from scratch on any of them.

The co-authored book chapter as well as the peer evaluations are due by the end of this month, so they will definitely be completed.

I admit that I cheated a bit: I declared these goals yesterday, on November 2nd; I accomplished the first goal on November 1st. But, if 20 pages, single-spaced, of me 1) explaining what it is I do as a faculty librarian, and, 2) making my case for academic promotion to my faculty colleagues, doesn't count as academic writing, I'm not sure what does. And it felt good to start off the month on such a good foot.

The journal article I hope to draft will use a substantial amount of past writing cut from a different article, but to revise it into what I want it to be I need to do some more research, as well as a fair amount of new writing for it. So, while this is still the biggest goal listed (aside from the promotion application), I won't be starting from scratch on it, so I have a good chance at completing it.

And finally, as you can see, blogging figures into my goals as well; more specifically, blogging related to the Metaliteracy MOOC I'm in, which I needed to take a hiatus from in order to finish my thesis and apply for promotion. I'm hoping to return to it (and catch up on past MOOC talks) later this week.

I'll be tweeting with #AcWriMo about this experience. Wish me luck! And for any other AcWriMo folk reading this: Go forth and write (academically)!