There are no types really, I am making up. But I am calling this one way to translate knowledge in the most comprehensive possible terms of knowledge and of translation. Journalists have the job of bringing information to the general public and they acquire knowledge in specific areas and really become experts in them and are trained to tell the general public about them. Researchers have to do the job too, but we cannot blame it all on the researchers for not speaking the "plain" language, or expect that they all become good at this. They spend countless hours and dollars learning to be researchers and this is hard and valuable enough. In addition, their training does not include knowledge translation technology or skills. Even if we find a good place for this training, it is still not fair to expect all researchers to spend time and effort learning to do this with excellence. This is complicated stuff for those who are so focused on the technical pieces, and please let that be good enough. Training time to get really good at it would take away from their training to be excellent researchers, which we have to agree is not related to being a good knowledge translator. This is not to say that we could not receive better training on knowledge translation or that this piece should not be included in the curriculum. Absolutely not; it should be there. How about we leave the researcher work for those trained in research and offer knowledge translation training to researchers who are interested, a little or a lot? I hypothesize that researchers who are interested could make the best knowledge translators but also that being a researcher is not necessary. This year's award for mass presentation of behavior analysis in the media, given by the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis in Chicago, went to Amy Sutherland, who is not a behavior analyst, and has engaged so successfully in one type of knowledge translation. Her article "What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage" was the most emailed article of The New York Times in 2006!
Oh...and this was only to preamble this link, to this little and overly simple but valuable post. Do you know how many people about.com reach?
