Yearly Archives: 2007

Data collection moves forward

My grasp of probability is rudimentary (as Anesa knows), but I knew it was going to be tough to get a group of 5-8 students all to consent to have their data archived, when I was contacting 634 students divided into 110 groups. Despite a response rate of about 33% yesterday, I hadn’t managed it – but today members of one of the smaller groups have all consented. Hooray!

Of course, now I have to get their two tutors to agree – but I’m moving in the right direction.

Planning my article

My computer is full of tools for planning the structure of my academic article. I’ve tried it in different Word modes. I’ve tried it on Powerpoint slides. I’ve (halfheartedly) used some concept mapping software. So why is the current plan currently scribbled on the back of a large envelope?

Feeling very angry

I just logged in to FirstClass to see what was going on and in the vague hope that I would have received a message from my unhelpful gatekeeper. No such luck. However, logging on reminded me that while the gatekeeper claimed to have had no time in the past three months to OK a couple of letters I had written, they had found time to exclude me from a whole series of relevant FirstClass conferences.

It’s bad enough to have a gatekeeper who is wasting hours of my time, disrupting my research and stressing me out. That’s their prerogative. They’re not paid to help me. But being deliberately obstructive? hat sort of educator does that? My opinion of this gatekeeper has fallen very, very low.