DISCUSSION: Practitioner vs Scholarly vs Conference vs Scholarly Comparison

Practitioner Publication

Practitioner publications are publications, not necessarily peer reviewed, and contain information as expressed by the author. An example would be a publication created by someone within an organization to educate other peers about a certain topic. One example would be an SEO (search engine optimization) best practices to be distributed among the web developers within an organization or similar communication documents created by different teams where the author is considered the topic expert for that specific topic on the publication. An example could be Search Engine Marketing: Transforming Search Engines into Hotel Distribution Channels byParaskevas, A., Katsogridakis, I., Law, R., Buhalis, D. (2011).

Scholarly Publication

Scholarly publications are different in nature, as whatever is published is not just giving a topic from a one-person perspective. These publications go through a review process in which experts in the field who can prove or disprove the content within the publication. One thing to keep in mind is that there are some areas, such as digital marketing where scholarly publications have been reviewed and approved, but due to lack of knowledge in academia on certain digital marketing topics, the resulting reviewed and approved scholarly publication is inaccurate. In another class, found a perfect example, where both the author and the reviewers ended up with an inaccurate publication. Such an example was published by the Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, authored by Moody, M. and Mates, E. (2013). In this example, the author confused SEO (search engine optimization), with SEM (search engine marketing).

Conference Publication

Conference publications are different than the other two types of publications requested for the assignment. Main reasoning is that conference publications are there to complete an established KPI (Key Performance Indicator) which usually would be converting the users to complete a pre-determined action. In most cases, it would be to get people to attend a conference or to sign up for a virtual conference. The information contained within, will most likely be to inform the reader of whom will be there, and which sessions will be held. Enough information will be given to raise a question to increase interest, but not enough will be given to answer those question at hand as this would deter the key logic to the conference, which is for people to attend or sign up. If the answers are given, users would not need to go to the conference or sign up for it, which is not the intended effect.

Read above discussion carefully and below answer below Questions.

• What did you learn from your classmate's posting?
• What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?
• What clarification do you need regarding the posting?
• What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates' postings?

DISCUSSION 2 posted by fellow student

• The practitioner journal chosen is ISSA, Information Systems Security Association International, as I am a member attend local chapter meetings, and read the articles for practitioner knowledge advancement. The journal is called the ISSA Journal. ISSA also sponsors educational training, mentoring and conferences each year. The paraphrased objective is improved knowledge, collaboration and networking for the improvement to information system security industry regardless of which industry. The subject matter covered is entirely about security of information systems. Journal topics are topic focused each month without regard to a specific industry.

• Articles for the journal are typically written by practitioners within I.S. security field. The audience for is stated as I.S. security practitioner and business stakeholders. The submission criteria while requiring academic awareness with sources cited, are not as stringent as an academic journal with stated preference to be concise with under 3,000 words. There are guidelines published on selection criteria such as the use proper grammar, spelling and citations. Selections are made by the journal editor.

• It is noticed on the difference between practitioner and scholarly writing, is the shallow depth of the subject matter or statements that may have been made based upon experiences, observation or even opinion. Some have cited references but does not have the same level of academic rigor as scholarly writing. Cited resources may also not have undergone the same level of review. Practitioner articles are not reviewed with the same level of scrutiny as academic. While thinking about how future articles are read and considered, they may be approached with more critically, but also remembering the target audience and intent must be considered.

• Read above discussion carefully and below answer below Questions.

• What did you learn from your classmate's posting?
• What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?
• What clarification do you need regarding the posting?
• What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates' postings?