Rebecca's Research Blog

Great infographic summarising approaches to pedagogy, making connections with key thinkers in the field. http://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1LGVGJY66-CCD5CZ-12G3/Learning%20Theory.cmap

Games are important when building communities. They help to develop trust and an understanding of each other’s skills and personalities. In terms of language, wordplay helps us to establish register – to work out what we mean and double mean when we use language. Can we create online community without the use of word games? [...]

I thought it made sense to end this blog about being a research student with my graduation ceremony. And I started other blogs. Lots of other blogs. (Partly because I was working on a blogging project that involved setting up lots of blogs for other people.) But the official blog is too official, and the [...]

Notes from a workshop on ‘Writing for peer-reviewed journals’ run by Pat Thomson. Reasons why reviewers and editors say they reject articles: Lack of focus – saying everything, focusing on nothing, cramming too much in one article Not locating the contribution and the position – for a particular audience, in relation to wider debates. the [...]

(Originally from Tony Winefield, University of South Australia. Came to me via an OU research degree supervisor workshop.) Bad supervision, like any other skill can be acquired and developed with practice. Here are six simple rules to follow: Be inaccessible. Don’t return written work because you are ‘too busy’ to read it. Humiliate and belittle [...]

I’ve spent the day looking at the impact factor of various journals. The ISI Web of Knowledge lists 1985 social science journals (according to a workshop I attended recently, only about 15% of education journals are in ISI). The ‘Annual Review of Psychology’ comes in top for 2008, with an annual impact factor of 16.217. [...]

Kieron’s summary of the benefits offered by our current book proposal.

Links associated with regrading of research fellows. http://intranet.open.ac.uk/human-resources/research_associates/Researchassociates_17.6.09_FINAL.doc http://intranet.open.ac.uk/human-resources/research_associates/Appendix_1_Comparative_Summary_280509.doc http://intranet.open.ac.uk/human-resources/research_associates/OU85_Res_Asst_GradeAC1.doc http://intranet.open.ac.uk/human-resources/research_associates/Research_Associate_28.5.09.doc http://intranet.open.ac.uk/human-resources/research_associates/Research_Fellow_28.5.09.doc http://intranet.open.ac.uk/human-resources/research_associates/OU88_Snr_Res_Fellow_GradeAC4.doc Note intranet must be open when clicking on links

My thesis now has many pictures embedded within it – and my pen drive is full of pictures entitled things like ‘pseudonymise this’ and ‘C2 pic7′ in various formats. The question is, which of the many versions hidden in my different folders are the versions I am supposed to be working with? I’ve just devoted [...]

A good blog post on why academics should blog.