Virtual environments for collaborative leisure research

Abstract

Collaboration is becoming the ‘new normal’ of research practice in response to the complexity of problems being studied and funding requirements. There is some evidence that, in general, research outputs from collaborative teams tend to be of higher quality and wider interest than those from individual researchers. While recent calls for more collaboration in leisure research are prompted by concerns about quality, relevance and funding efficiency, little attention has been paid to virtual resources for implementing collaborative leisure research. At the same time, the Internet and the World Wide Web are increasingly utilised as resources for research. In this paper, we report the experiences of three researchers collaborating internationally on an interdisciplinary leisure-related project, using a virtual research environment (VRE). The potential benefits of VREs for leisure research, and the pitfalls to be avoided or overcome, are discussed.

Keywords:

• virtual research environment
• collaborative research
• leisure research

Notes on contributors

Pip Lynch is a professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway. Her research interests include outdoor recreation, friluftsliv (Scandinavian outdoor life), outdoor education and experiential learning. She previously held academic positions in New Zealand.

Sally Shaw is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Otago. Her research interests are in non-profit governance and gender relations in sport and recreation organisations.

Robyn Zink's research interests include examining peoples’ experiences in outdoor environments with a particular emphasis on what enables positive relationships to flourish. She draws on post-structural theory in her work because she finds the questions that emerge out of this theoretical framework interesting and challenging. In conjunction with this she is interested in the research process and the relationship between research and practice.

Notes

1. Russell Butson, University of Otago Higher Education Development Centre.