How to Read This Book
As you begin your journey through experiences of belonging in SoTL and ISSOTL, we thought we would provide you with a road map for what follows. In the chapters featured in this Pressbook, you will find a few different elements.
Practical Considerations
Images: We’ve embedded images throughout the Pressbook that connect with our major themes and participant experiences. We became interested in images related to SoTL and ISSOTL from the beginning of the project as we investigated experiences of belonging in the “big tent.” SoTL experiences and perspectives often seem to be conceptualized through visuals so, as you read, we invite you to consider the images we’ve included here, as well as any others that might represent your own experiences of belonging in SoTL and ISSOTL.
Participant quotations: We’ve featured the voices of the scholars we spoke with throughout this Pressbook. Their words are represented in writing, but we’ve also incorporated audio features so you can hear their experiences as well. As we’ve decided to keep our participants anonymous, their voices have been incorporated using Cloud TTS. You’ll find many participant quotations in our thematic chapters under the heading “What We Heard.”
Author reflections: We’ve also incorporated our own reflections into this Pressbook. In particular, the section “Author Reflections on Belonging” includes our own experiences of belonging within SoTL and ISSOTL. We felt it was important to situate ourselves in relation to the major themes we discovered throughout our study as they spoke to our own experiences as well.
Numerical data: Most of our data have been represented qualitatively with a focus on stories and experiences of belonging. Having said that, we did want to give readers a sense of the scope of our study. To that end, you’ll find some basic numerical data related to our study represented in our “Member Perspectives on Belonging in ISSOSTL” and “SoTL Across the Globe” sections.
Opportunities for self-reflection: Each chapter of this Pressbook features a “Your Turn” section. “Your Turn” provides guiding questions related to the content for that chapter to encourage you to reflect on how your experience may converge or diverge with the themes presented. Consider this your invitation to engage with the content on a personal level by using the “documentation tool” to write down your thoughts and then export them for your own use.
H5P Tools: Throughout this volume, you will have the chance to engage with a variety of interactive tools. You will find:
- Accordions: Click on each accordion tab to view content. You’ll find accordions, for example, in our section on further readings on belonging and SoTL.
- Course presentations: Click through each slide to view content. You’ll find course presentations where we’ve featured participants’ voices and personal reflections. These slides feature written content as well as audio recordings of quotations.
- Documentation tools: Enter your own thoughts and then export your ideas as a Word file. You’ll find documentation tools in the “Your Turn” section at the end of each chapter.
- Image with hotspots: Click on the hotspot of an image to view and/or listen to content. A hotspot image is featured in the group photo included in the “Project Background and Context” chapter.
Beyond Practicalities
The information above gives you an idea of how to read this book on a practical level. However, we also want to suggest how you might approach reading this book within the context of our larger study goals.
Considering the “big tent”: One of the key goals of this project is to investigate the notion of the “big tent” that has, to some degree, structured assumptions about belonging and inclusion in SoTL. In particular, we wanted to explore to what extent scholars feel this metaphor represents their own experience within SoTL generally and ISSOTL more specifically. Our project invites you to consider the relevance of the “big tent” to your own experiences of belonging and whether there are images that might more accurately represent your story.
Capturing diverse experiences in SoTL and ISSOTL: Our project endeavors to capture and foreground the voices of scholars representing diverse experiences and perspectives on SoTL and ISSOTL. This includes differences in professional roles, disciplinary backgrounds, geographic locations, levels of experience with SoTL, and prior and current engagement with ISSOTL. While efforts at capturing this diversity were successful in relation to, for example, the disciplinary backgrounds of our participants, they were less successful in capturing a wide range of scholars from diverse geographic contexts. This trend is addressed in different places throughout the volume and is important for contextualizing our data.
Contributing to the literature: This project originated from deep engagement with the rich existing literature on topics related to our major themes. This includes scholarship on the concept of the “big tent” and building an inclusive SoTL community; readings on identity and belonging in SoTL; and work on thinking critically about the dominant geographic and disciplinary contexts that shape our understandings of the field. A key goal of this project was to contribute to this literature by querying existing concepts and accounts of belonging while also investigating experiences of belonging within ISSOTL specifically. You can learn more about this scholarship in our section featuring recommended readings.
