Newest thoughts →

September 2018

If I could buy one thing, I would buy more time. I have so many (I think, good) ideas for book projects and not enough time in which to write them all.

#capitalisttime

Shingles update: the worst part is having to come off my immunosuppression, which basically means the rheumatoid arthritis is in full flare up, yielding astonishing joint pain already and that I can only hobble along.

I mean, the shingles aren't great either and I feel ill, but the joint pain is the worst.

"May your viva be as easy as Stephen Hawking's was made out to be in The Theory of Everything" will be my new expression of good wishes to PhD students.

My verdict so far on shingles: "it's a bit hurty".

more painful than reading the REF guidance. Less painful than rheumatoid arthritis and a stroke.

I like that these outputs cannot be submitted to REF: "The outputs of staff who have been made redundant (except where the staff member has taken voluntary redundancy)"

Awoke at 5.30am today and nailed a first draft of an article. The rest of today is backbreaking labour of kitchen disassembly and loading heavy boxes into the loft :O

I had such a fantastic evening, due to the warmth and love of friends and colleagues at my inaugural lecture. Thank you all so much.

Was thinking more about the arguments yesterday at #OAmonographs re. risks for ECRs. Argument was: ECRs should play it safe to get a job. Problem is, this just homogenises candidates to look exactly like the other 100+ applicants, rather than making them stand out.

Likewise, Brexit, tuition fees, the Augar review, institutional failure, all impinge on the viability of #OAmonographs in the UK as institutional revenue streams are mixed.

A point that struck me forcefully at #OAmonographs today was that if the #oer movement succeeds, cross subsidy for research monographs from textbooks will collapse. That's not necessarily a bad thing but has economic implications for OA monographs.

I'm a bit worried by the call for a hub about information on OA for Hums researchers. 1. This stuff is already out there; 2. Someone on the panel said that they didn't want to read complex/long documents... But OA is complex. #OAmonographs

Sorry for a self-centred tweet, but when the question of OA and ECRs comes up... It didn't work out badly for me. #OAmonographs

I'm still an ECR for another two years by AHRC "8-years of PhD" standard. #OAmonographs

Great intervention from @geoffcrossick at #OAmonographs. Treat creative writing as a practice-based discipline and thereby exempt. Third party rights remain among the most challenging parts of a shift to OA monographs.

Important report out for higher education (and society more generally) today from the Migration Advisory Committee. Due around 10am.

My other half expressed no interest whatsoever in the piece of climbing training equipment that arrived today, but I have christened it "The Painmaster 5000".

Just went to login to an old Instagram account associated with my email. Language changed to Arabic. Password changed. But I can't login because Instagram appears to be the worst designed piece of software I've ever seen. And their "my account has been hacked" form doesn't work.

Just took the "heart age test" thing that's going around. "On average, someone like you can expect to live to the age of 71 without having a heart attack or stroke." That last statement doesn't do much to convince me of the personal applicability of this test.

Another Plan S gem: "The above principles shall apply to all types of scholarly publications, but it is understood that the timeline to achieve Open Access for monographs and books may be longer than 1 January 2020"

Since RE is part of UKRI and the Plan seems to apply to green, theoretically Plan S will also apply to a future REF policy.