[Can be forwarded, without restriction.]

Dear Research_Practice Friends,

We have been working for more than a year on launching the Journal
of Research Practice (JRP). It is now on the Web at:
http://jrp.icaap.org/ This is a pre-publication version. Some
coding/typographic errors still remain; after these are removed, we
will also produce PDF versions of the articles and upload the same.

It is an occasion to appreciate the silent work of Research_Practice
members as authors, reviewers, advisors, associates, supporters, and
sponsors in this complex project. Some of the persons who helped JRP
are not yet members of this group. Hope they will also join and be
part of the JRP email network.

I feel like sharing some of my thoughts on research and researchers.
I think, the term 'research' is synonymous with organised and open
inquiry, in which individual thoughts/experiences are sought to be
combined creatively to produce meaningful (and useful) collective
outcomes, progressively revised over time. What is known as modern
science today can be considered a product of such organised open
inquiry, which had been associated with human efforts from long
before. Some of the other products of such inquiry over the ages
are, I think, the arts, literature, sports, traditional medicine,
democracy, philosophy, and even religion.

Somehow, those who are engaged in research today do not seem to be
sufficiently mindful of the wider relevance of their work.
Consequently, there is a disconnection among researchers working in
different disciplinary, professional, or institutional territories.
The thread of open inquiry that ought to bind all of them together,
gets forgotten. This leads to various kinds of difficulty for the
progress of inquiry in different domains.

The most disheartening feature of research in the academic world
today is the degeneration of research training, which has, by and
large, remained confined to techniques of data collection and
analysis. I think, in research, data must always be treated with
vigorous scepticism--the greater the vigour, the higher the chance
of something interesting happening in research. When we take data as
facts, we may also become aware of how these got 'fact-ed' or 'manu-
fact-ured'. I really like the following statement, commonly
attributed to the Canadian poet and author, Bliss Carman, which says
something interesting about facts: "What are facts but compromises?
A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let
investigation cease" (source unknown to me).

To end, I would like to quote from the editorial article, from the
inaugural issue of JRP:

>
One of the ideals of JRP is to develop itself as an important
companion to every research-inclined individual and every research
student in the world. There are obvious hurdles in achieving this.
However, as a research-like project itself, JRP will remain open to
inputs and initiatives that help it move closer to this ideal (Dash
& Ponce, 2005).
>

Yours sincerely,

DP

Journal of Research Practice (JRP)
http://jrp.icaap.org/
Editors: DP Dash, HR Ponce
--

Reference

Dash, D. P., & Ponce, H. R. (2005). Journey of Research Practice
(Editorial). Journal of Research Practice, 1(1), Article E1.
Retrieved March 5, 2005 from
http://jrp.icaap.org/content/v1.1/editorial.html

[There is a coding error in the article number on the Web site, it
should be E1.]