Dr. Larkin is a core faculty member
in the School of Public Policy and Administration
1.
Please briefly describe your current research.
Early in 2015 Drs.
John Dickey, Ian Birdall, Kwang Sik Kim, and I published the book, Supernumerary Intelligence: A new approach
to analytics for management. Since the publication of the book I have been
collaborating with Drs. Dickey and Birdsall to refine our work in the field of
supernumerary intelligence. Our efforts center on finding ways to assist
managers in all sectors of society to identify, organize, analyze, and report
various types of data and information to produce better planning and management
decisions. We have developed a multistep process for planning and management
decision making that is aided by a proprietary computer program, Quantitative
Cyber Quest (CQC), and an open access data base, the Public Administration
Genome Project (PAGP). Our goal is to provide managers with the tools necessary
to incorporate quantitative and qualitative data with experiential knowledge
into a rational planning and decision making process.
A second related
research area is data visualization. My wife Dr. Martha Larkin, who also works
at Walden in the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership, and I
have been exploring how to present data in meaningful ways to various types of
audiences. With the advent of big data and analytics we are being overwhelmed
with information that is not always easy to comprehend or act upon. Our goal is to discover how to tell stories
with visual representations of data that improve the understanding of the
information being presented and aid in making useful decisions based on the
data.
2.
How did you come to be in this area of study?
Dr. John Dickey was
my major profession during my PhD work at Virginia Tech. We remained in contact
after I completed my degree and we started collaborating on various projects.
Dr. Dickey developed CQC and PAGP and we started using them in our work. A
little later I met another one of Dr. Dickey’s former graduate students, Dr.
Ian Birdsall, when he became a contributing faculty member in the School of
Public Policy and Administration at Walden. The three of us share both personal
and intellectual interests and our research collaboration is the outgrowth of
those interests. Dr. Dickey laid the groundwork and Dr. Birdsall and I
hopefully have been able to contribute to his efforts.
My interest in data
visualization started when I learned of the work of Edward Tufte. I acquired
some of Dr. Tufte’s books and was fortunate enough to attend one of his
workshops in person. Several years later Martha attended a Tufte workshop and
we started talking about how we could apply his work to our fields, share our
knowledge with our colleagues, and advance the field of data
visualization.
3.
What do like best about doing research?
The thing I like
best about doing research is the opportunity it provides me to work with great
colleagues like John, Ian, and of course Martha. We collaborate in an attempt
to advance the state of knowledge in our chosen fields. When we have the
opportunity to work together in person I enjoy the comradery and intellectual
stimulation. I always come away from our sessions feeling energized and just a
little smarter than before.
4.
What do you dislike the most about doing research?
I think most of my
Walden colleagues would agree that research is 20% inspiration and 80%
perspiration. The literature reviews and brainstorming are of little value if
you are not willing to do the far less enjoyable work of refining your work,
testing it, and constantly writing and rewriting your findings to make them
concise and meaningful.
5.
Advice for new researchers who would like to be published?
The best advice
that I think I ever received about being published was that at some point in
time you must stop reading and start writing. Get your ideas down on paper,
review them, and share them with others for their comments, suggestions, and
yes criticisms. Present your work at professional conferences and seek out comments
from those who attend the sessions. You also may be fortunate enough to have a
journal editor who is interested in your research topic attend your session.
Also, starting small and working your way up may be a good strategy. Find high
quality regional or professional organization sectional journals and submit
your work there. Once you become familiar with the peer review and publishing
process you can move on to the more prestigious journals or book publishers.
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