A key output of the AHRC funded Temporal Connectivities Scoping Study is a bibliographic resource, which identifies work that is particularly pertinent to the study of time and community. On this page you'll find copies of the database in multiple formats. You can also browse the library on-line and download individual references on Citeulike. If you have difficulties with the files, or would like to check if it is available in other formats please contact Michelle Bastian.

Overview of the resource
While scoping studies are often confused with research reviews, there are a number of key differences in their aims. Most importantly, a research review seeks to provide a comprehensive evaluation of research available, while scoping studies seek to provide a rapid overview or map of a particular area prior to more  in-depth research (see here for more details). As a result, scoping studies outline relevant literature and identify cross-cutting themes and any significant gaps, but do not necessarily evaluate the quality of the articles included in the study. The aim is more to get a quick  sense of what's out there and to provide researchers with a point of orientation within a complex field.

Consequently, this resource comes with a few caveats:
  1. First, given the extent of literature both on time and on community, as well as the time available to complete this study, this bibliography does not represent a comprehensive collection of all relevant literature. Rather it provides an extensive sample that represents the variety of approaches that researchers across multiple disciplines have taken to the problem of time and community.
  2. Second, in aiming to rapidly map the breadth of work available on this topic, the relevance and thematic content of each item was determined in reference to article abstracts, rather than full articles. While suitable for the purposes of this study, other researchers will need to evaluate  which level of analysis is suitable for their project.
The database contains 885 references in total, from disciplines across the social sciences and humanities, as well as a small number of references from the sciences. Most are peer-reviewed publications, but grey literature has also been included. These references are coded according to a number of criteria. First, they are ranked from 1 to 4 according to their Relevance to this study. Only a small proportion of references are in the first category (Highly Relevant). These explicitly examine both time and community. The vast majority of references are in category two (Relevant), which indicates that the resource addresses the topic, but without explicit analysis of both key issues. Work in category three (Of Some Relevance) may still be of interest, but less so. Finally, work in category four (Not Relevant) has been included in cases where it might appear from the title that a resource is relevant, when in fact it is not. References are also coded according to Discipline, Methodological Approach, Geographical Focus, Key Authors and Key Themes. A summary of codes used and their frequency is available here.

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