Kieron’s summary of the benefits offered by our current book proposal.
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Category Archives: Things to remember
Regrading of research fellows
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/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
Finding the pictures
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 half an hour to trying to persuade Word to tell me where I got the individual pictures from. I know it knows – but it’s very unwilling to tell me.
The solutions I’ve come up with – and it works, but it’s not as neat as it could be – is to select ‘Save As’ and to save the entire file as a web page. Then I reopen the file in Firefox, select the ‘View source code’ option and it tells me what the picture is called. (See – I knew Word knew). It’s then a simple matter to search for it. (Well, a simple matter on the Mac. PCs always seem to find searching a very tricky process unless they’re helped out by something like Google Desktop.)
Academic blogging
A good blog post on why academics should blog.
And now for something completely different
A news story from early September about my twin nephews – expert canoeists, who have both won medals representing their country.
My sister notes that when the article says Peter was selected to race in Spain, it actually means Denmark :-/
Oh, and here’s how to make six-month pics with a pinhole camera.
[Note to self: really must get my del.icio.us account up and running again.]
Virtual worlds links
Some web references I picked up at the ‘Creating Second Lives’ conference in Bangor.
Exit Reality is an application that allows you to present every web page as part of a 3D virtual world, and to move the same avatar around them. I’ve been a bit limited in my ability to try it out, as it doesn’t run on a Mac and I don’t have time to fiddle around with it at work. My first impression, though, is it takes a lot of energy because you need to configure each web page as you get there. I guess it would be fun to see my Flickr site as a 3D gallery – but I waste enough time already messing around with my pictures online and don’t need an excuse to spend more time there.
Mmogchart.com tracks 45 virtual worlds – each of which has over 10,000 subscribers. Looks like an excellent resource for research – although there doesn’t seem to be much activity on the website at present.
I was impressed by the idea of gamesusd, which apparently translates the currencies of different games into dollars. The site is there, but all its downloads are dated 2005, suggesting that the exchange information is no longer current.
A video I thought wase worth watching. ‘Make Love, Not Warcraft’ – the South Park episode set in World of Warcraft. I usually find South Park unwatchable, but enjoyed this one. I haven’t provided a link, as it tends to appear on the web and then be removed for copyright reasons – but then someone else posts it, so it’s worth Googling. Although the makers worked along with Blizzard, they apparently had to enhance the footage, because machinima made in WoW wasn’t high enough quality.
Just share it
Interesting post on issues relating to SocialLearn by Scott Leslie in his EdTech blog. These are his sub-heads:
- Planning to Share versus Just Sharing
- We grow our network by sharing, they start their network by setting up initial agreements
- We share what we share, they want to share what they often don’t have (or even really want)
- We share with people, they share with “Institutions”
- We develop multiple (informal) channels while they focus on a single official mechanism
- What to do if you are stuck having to facilitate sharing amongst a large group of institutions?
The construction of shared knowledge through asynchronous dialogue
I have a thesis title 🙂 ‘The construction of shared knowledge through asynchronous dialogue’.
And I’m giving notice of intention to submit. Yay!
23 January – that’s my submission date.
Pitching your thesis
Just watched a Ted Talk by David S Rose on producing a business pitch. Thought I could apply it to writing my thesis introduction.
So the intro should start like a rocket, grabbing readers’ attention, and then it should take a solid, steady upward path.
Start with a title, and then an attention-grabbing introduction. Give a quick overview of the thesis. Like the picture on a jigsaw box, this should help people make sense of the elements to come.
Explain how this is interesting to lots of people – in my case that is how is this interesting to educational researchers and educational practitioners. Give an example. Show how this work can be taken forward and who would be interested in taking it forward.
Then validate it in terms of others, so fit it into the literature and what others have done. Reference things that the audience can relate to. This provides validation becuase the audience sees that things they have already accepted as reliable tie in with what you are saying. Explain what the competition is and why your work is special.
Then move to the conclusion, which is interesting and exciting.
Along the way: don’t include anything that isn’t true, don’t interrupt your audience’s flow by including anything they don’t understand, don’t have any internal inconsistencies and don’t include typos, error or stupid mistakes.
Research overview
I’m thinking about the conclusion to my PhD, so I’ve returned to the literature on what examiners are looking for. Stephen Potter’s book ‘Doing Postgraduate Research’ contains a list of potential viva questions, so I’m going to think about how I could answer those, and then see which elements of my answers will fit comfortably within my conclusion. I’ve included the questions below, ordered according to the section of the thesis I feel they are focused on.
Some of the questions are easy to answer, but some are tricky. I’ll have to give some thought to the issue of how I have evaluated my research. Hmm.
Abstract
What have you done that merits a PhD?
In one sentence, what is your thesis?
What is your original contribution to knowledge in your subject area?
What are the main achievements of your research?
Intro
Why were you interested in this research topic?
Literature review
What are the main issues and debates in this subject area? How does your research relate to these?
Which are the three most important papers which relate to your thesis?
Who has had the strongest influence in the development of your subject area in theory and practice?
What published work is closest to what you have done? How is your work different?
What are the most recent major developments in your area?
Methodology
What were the crucial research decisions you made?
Why did you use the particular research methodology in your thesis?
What are the alternatives to the approach or method you used?
What did you gain by the approach or method you used?
What would you have gained by using another approach?
Were there any ethical implications relating to your research? How did you deal with them?
What would you do differently if you could do your thesis again?
How have you evaluated your work?
How do you know that your findings are correct?
Analysis
Summarise your key findings. What was the most interesting to you?
How do your findings relate to the literature on the subject?
Conclusion
Whom do you think would be most interested in your work?
Have you thought about publications? Which journals are appropriate?
How long-term is your contribution?
What do you see as the next steps in this research?
If you were given money tomorrow to continue your research, what would you do?
Personal summary
What advice would you give to a new research student entering this topic area?
Has your view of your research topic changed during the course of the research?
What have you learnt from your research experience?
Potter, S., & Swift, J. (2006). The examination process and the viva. In S. Potter (Ed.), Doing Postgraduate Research (Second ed., pp. 251-275): The Open University / Sage Publications Ltd