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November 2018

An exciting day today. It's taken a long time, but we finished the tagging phase of the Reading Peer Review grant today. We're now about to move on to analysis and write-up!

The Research* playbook on fire today: "You cannot legislate against the dreams of youth—this is why despite the government’s best attempts our art schools and dance conservatoires are still full. It would seem that no one in the DfE has ever actually spoken to an 18-year old."

"If they had they would understand how utterly futile LEO data is as an influencer of applicant behaviour."

"Does it mean that a university wishing to improve its standing in the TEF should aim to recruit predominantly female students? Or does it mean that using LEO data as a proxy for teaching quality is, shall we say, methodologically suspect?"

Plan S implementation consultation. Zero embargo green OA allowed. CC BY-SA, likewise! https://www.coalition-s.org/feedback/

Also, classic: "The journal must not have a mirror/sister subscription journal with substantial overlap in editorial board to avoid business models charging for both access and publication. Such journals will de facto be considered hybrid journals"

The thing I hate most at the cinema are the adverts telling you how brilliant the cinema, in which you are already sitting, is. It's also the case that, at that point, the cinema is rubbish because you've already sat through 25 trailers for identical superhero films.

Got the X-ray evidence today that I have indeed broken my foot. Advice at this stage is that I should "mobilise it within my pain boundaries" whatever that means. So I'm off out dancing at A Love from Outer Space. Have a good weekend all!

Big day tomorrow as the three remaining guinea pigs go to a service called MatchPig - I kid you not - to try to get them to all live nicely together. Mr Pig is excited already!

MatchPig.

Was thinking about inclusive submission to REF earlier and realised that I wouldn't want to be in the firing line when the results come out. Because blatantly the press are going to crudely spin it as: "UK research quality has DECREASED!!1!"

Plan S: journals are not converting to full OA. Our plan is to divert the economics to make this happen. Also we will allow green OA with zero embargo.

The British Academy: there are no full OA journals so this won't work in our space. Also there is a cost to publishing.

Me: 🤷

The excellent @lawsonstu passed his PhD viva this afternoon. Congratulations, Dr Lawson! @the_blochian and I are both extremely proud!

Paula Bialski @PBialski's lecture at @BirkbeckUoL was brilliant this evening. An ethnography of software developers working day in day out in a fashion nothing like the Silicon Valley "break it fast" mentality.

@PBialski @BirkbeckUoL Also, @ajrbyers would love that @PBialski showed the Ballmer peak clip! I also showed that I am a dev ops nerd who thinks they have the coolest job.

Lots of exciting things today, including @alanyliu's new book arriving in my pigeonhole! Can't wait to read this in its finished form.

... and in 30 mins I'm off to hear Paula Bialski give her lecture: "Slow Software". Not a bad way to end the week.

There can be few more worrying things for a sitting prime minister than to hear that you have the support of Michael Gove and that he doesn't intend to resign.

Just turned down an application to speak at a conference on a Sunday. I was flattered/honoured by the invitation and almost accepted, but I don't think we should encourage events to be held on Sundays and didn't want to perpetuate this. Need a work-life balance.

The Prodigy last night were good when they played the classics (Breathe, Firestarter, Smack, even Hospital) but a lot of the set had a somewhat generic metal-DnB feel to it. Sound was unbalanced towards guitar and live drums.

Today I'm hobbling off to Leicester on my crutches for external examining duties. Rucksack full of essays - knowledge seems to weigh a lot on a broken foot. Then I'm going to go hop about to The Prodigy live tonight.

Felt a bit bad and should have been kinder, but gave short shrift to the woman in accident and emergency who asked me what I did and then went on a rhapsody about how great "language", in the abstract, is. "I just love language". Good. Good for you. My foot hurts.

I'm sure there's some line in The History Boys about this.

I'm in A&E with a suspected broken foot. I was nonetheless cheered by the bloke asking where he should pay and the nurse telling him that healthcare in this country is free.

Trying to succinctly summarise speculative materialism while re-reading Meillassoux. The closest I've got is that it “must assert both that thought is not necessary (something can be independently of thought) and that thought can think what there must be when there is no thought”

Will that do?

Sorry, vet surgery, but sending me a promotional text asking whether my pet, who died last week and whose body you cremated, could have dental pain is a trifle insensitive...

grumble grumble

A good week in the Centre for Technology and Publishing at @BirkbeckUoL as @Mauro__Msl joins us to work on Janeway. Pictured here with @ajrbyers !

"Clare College offers two Junior Research Fellowships to persons of outstanding academic ability every year. [...] It is expected that more than 600 applications will be received for the two Fellowships in arts and humanities offered this year."

Speaking at the ISMTE conference today. Have a planned talk but think it might be more fun just to go off-piste and discuss Plan S.

An interesting point on Wellcome's implementation of Plan S: it's not whether the venue is compliant with Plan S (i.e. no hybrid) - it just has to be zero embargo CC BY + monetarily free -- but rather that they won't _pay_ for articles in hybrid titles.

Wellcome are open to working with societies and small publishers on new business models - doesn't need to be APC based. I'd suggest societies get in touch with them to discuss.

If subscription journal allows zero embargo deposit of authors' accepted manuscript under CC BY, then that's also compliant with Wellcome's new policy.

Ok, Wellcome Trust's new OA policy takes no prisoners. Hybrid OA is banned. All funded institutions must sign DORA or Leiden Manifesto. Suspension of funding or no future grants as sanction.

We have an #empowoa Twitter chat today on video research into embodiment at @openlibhums! Sorry I won't be able to make it, but hope that it's interesting. Do get involved.