The COVID-19 pandemic is hastening the shift of the world of work and study to online, remote, and flexible hours. The political science profession and its attributes of conferencing and workshopping will likely follow suit. To help direct this flow into relationships of reciprocity and scholarly co-creation, this article details the experiences of a successful online workshopping community known as the Normative Theory of Immigration Working Group (NTIWG). For the past 10 years, this voluntary association comprising 88 migration ethics scholars has been meeting routinely and exclusively online to workshop penultimate drafts of research papers. Three workshop conveners here reflect on the joys of group participation and mutual learning and listening. With the intention of smoothing the way for like-minded groups to emerge and solidify, we elaborate our group’s animating values and its learned-by-doing rules for scheduling, moderating, and offering feedback online. In the spirit of collectively facing the diversity and equity challenges confronting the future of political science, we conclude by reviewing steps that we are taking to address our own challenges of inclusivity.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a shift to online academic meetings such as the webinar and virtual conference. We add to the conversation about how these modes of knowledge mobilization may be more inclusive, accessible, and environmentally friendly than in-person conferences through a discussion of the Twitter conference—during which participants produce threaded tweets of their research and engage in both real-time and asynchronous scholarly discussion. In this article, we discuss how to host a Twitter conference; we claim that Twitter conferences require different skills and have different strengths and weaknesses than virtual conferences or webinars; and we recommend that they should be a permanent addition to the roster of academic knowledge-mobilization events.

Many younger scholars have experience writing research articles and grant proposals but know relatively little about academic book publishing. Graduate training often provides little guidance to students regarding how to navigate the academic book-publishing process. This is unfortunate given that book publishing differs dramatically from publishing research articles. Drawing on the author’s own experiences and conversations with editors, this article provides concrete advise for first-time authors who hope to publish a scholarly book with a university press. The specific topics discussed include crafting proposals, finding appropriate presses, reaching out to editors, the peer-review process, securing and negotiating contracts, and production.

Considerable research finds that male political scientists publish more research on average than do female political scientists. Yet the reasons for this difference are not entirely clear. Those findings may also overestimate the relative productivity of men because they do not account for the longer time that more men have been in the profession and thus have been publishing longer than women. For a prominent survey dataset of political scientists, we demonstrate notable cohort differences in the research productivity of both men and women across time. Our results also indicate that the overall greater productivity of men results in part from senior women scholars not generally enjoying the same benefits of long tenure on their research output as men do.

In an increasingly tight job market, the selection of an adviser has never been more important to help guide young scholars in their career development. Advisers play a critical role in students’ careers and beyond, from providing substantive help with the dissertation to sharing the norms of the discipline, helping them navigate the job market, and introducing them to potential collaborators. Yet, many graduate students do not know how to go about identifying the best adviser for them. Here, we provide some suggestions to graduate students for how best to pick a dissertation adviser and other mentors, noting some of the most important aspects of the relationship and highlighting some of the most critical elements to look for in finding an appropriate and helpful adviser.

This article focuses on disproportionate service burdens faced by women academics and faculty of color in higher education created by COVID-19 and the massive, multilocation street protests that followed George Floyd’s death. Our work aims to inform provosts, deans, directors, and other institutional actors in academia who recognize the need for documenting structural inequities and investing in high-impact, long-term solutions. Recommendations are offered to meet challenges, given the need to raise colleague awareness of disproportionate service burdens.

As greater shares of research and data are digitized, political scientists are increasingly confronted with questions pertaining to data security. Yet, data-management plans rarely evaluate the risks pertaining to a researcher’s data across all project phases. This article highlights distinct risks related to key phases of the research process that deserve more attention by scholars. We emphasize risks during a project’s inception and pre-data-collection phases, as well as risks associated with data publication and its afterlife. We discuss how shifts in political context and (re)newed politicization of topics can present new security risks for both the researcher and the researched communities long after a project has been completed. We provide a framework for recognizing and mitigating data risks, thereby contributing to the growing interest in data-security best practices.

In recent years, political scientists increasingly have used data-science tools to research political processes, positions, and behaviors. Because both domestic and international politics are grounded in oral and written texts, computerized text analysis (CTA)—typically based on natural-language processing—has become one of the most notable applications of data-science tools in political research. This article explores the promises and perils of using CTA methods in political research and, specifically, the study of international relations. We highlight fundamental analytical and methodological gaps that hinder application and review processes. Whereas we acknowledge the significant contribution of CTA to political research, we identify a dual “engagement deficit” that may distance those without prior background in data science: (1) the tendency to prioritize methodological innovation over analytical and theoretical insights; and (2) the scholarly and political costs of requiring high proficiency levels and training to comprehend, assess, and use advanced research models.

A community of practice is where a group works together toward a shared goal. This article argues that Twitter hosts a community of practice within political science and international relations. This occurs in three key ways: (1) offering an area to share feelings about our role as educators, (2) connecting to a wider network of educators in our discipline (and other disciplines), and (3) providing a space to proffer practical support. This has been especially true during the current COVID-19 pandemic, when many educators are teaching remotely and potentially feeling cut off from colleagues and students at their institution. In more normal times, Twitter also offers a valuable means of connecting with other scholars in the discipline across the world, providing a space to learn from and support one another. The article concludes by reflecting on what this might mean for continued professional development in the political science and international relations discipline.

This article examines the effectiveness of guided peer discussion in building news media literacy. Our longitudinal study finds that this instructional approach increased students’ interest in news headlines, particularly among those with initially low interest. Furthermore, qualitative results show students’ increased awareness of the quality and potential bias of news sources. We conclude that guided peer discussion is an effective means of promoting news media literacy.

Although senior capstone courses and projects globally are growing in popularity for undergraduate students in political science, with the potential to integrate prior curriculum and assess student learning, students generally undertake this milestone as individuals. In contrast, we present a teamwork-based capstone course wherein key student submissions—including the final project—are created in teams. Having conducted this course for several years, we describe in this article how we incorporated teamwork and demonstrate how students evaluate teamwork in in-person, online, and hybrid course formats.