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Earning every mile
The end of the year is time for my traditional running review post, much to the pleasure of absolutely no-one, including myself. Still, that's what traditions are for, so here goes. First, the data part, because you're worth it: Total distance: 1028 miles Number of runs: 136 Total duration: 182 hours Average distance: 7.56 miles Average duration: 1hr 16mins Average pace: 10.09 min/mile Compared with last year, where I was a bit lost and only did a total of 831 miles, this was a big improvement, and I finally broke that 1000 mile barrier. Even so, this still only comes in at just over half an hour a day on…
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How to undermine Facebook
Like many people, I have a Facebook profile, but it isn't something I use much. And like many people I've become increasingly uneasy about the way our interactions are monetised and manipulated. I don't mind this to an extent – I'm willing to trade off free use of something for some adverts I ignore, for example. But it's begun to feel all rather insidious with Facebook. Alan Levine posted that he wasn't going to dramatically quit Facebook, but his plan was to maintain a non-presence: But quitting seems to pointless. Or impactless. So I have an evil plot. I am keeping my facebook account, but I have completely neutralized its…
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The three ghosts of open access articles
WARNING – this post contains stretching of a flimsy idea to breaking point. Look away if you find strained literary metaphors distressing. In keeping with the festive season, I'm going to frame some thoughts on stages of academic publishing with a Dickensian motif. I'm trying to develop an approach that covers three phases of a journal article's life, so let's go for a Christmas Carol. The Ghost of Articles Past – Scrooge is shown his own past Christmases, and given to reflect and reinterpret them. The ghost says he is there for Scrooge's 'reclamation'. For articles, they are usually published in a journal, where they may receive an initial flurry…
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Launching Meta EdTech Journal
The other day I was trying to find a list of Open Access journals. I found this very useful open list from George Veletsianos. While looking through the journals it occurred to me that what would be useful would be a regular review of these, or a kind of meta-journal. Not one that just lists all the papers, but rather a filtered view. I mentioned it on Twitter and Doug Belshaw pointed me at the new Google/Wordpress collaboration, Annotum – a WordPress theme for creating open access journals. So in the a spirit of DIY, I have created Meta EdTech Journal. The idea is simple – three times a year…
