I write these pieces every 6 months, usually for the Centre for Social Informatics’ all-centre meetings. (I’m usually incapable of speech by the time it’s my turn to report.[1]) I’m still really miffed that we still can’t get together in person. Click this link to see all the pieces in this series. There is a history of my academic work so far on my personal blog.
Academic/Napier
This isn’t the full list – some things can only be publicised later.
| Success | The RIVAL network: This culminated in event 4 parts 1 and 2 in late January and early February. Around these, there was a lot of work to set up and run two surveys of members (one on networking between members, the other on RIVAL’s outcomes), then distillation of findings into a 19-page report to the funders. I look forward to working on a paper reporting the findings later this year. In June, Hazel and I spoke about lessons from RIVAL at the CILIPS and SCURL 2021 conferences. |
| Success | Marking
There’s more marking to come: ‘Professional Practice 2’, ‘Professional Practice – Governance and Risk’, honours projects’ final submissions and MSc dissertations – see below |
| en route | Systematic literature review. I’m working on a literature review of access to online cultural heritage (project leader David Brazier, project mentor Paul Gooding). We are currently whittling many thousands of results from database searches to the select few that will appear in a publication. |
| en route | MSc supervision. I supervised 18 MSc students’s initial dissertation work (research proposals and initial reports. I’m now supervising 6 of these as they complete their dissertations. I will be internal examiner for another 6. |
| en route | Project supervision. With Peter Cruickshank, I supervised two MSc students gathering and analysing data to refresh our surveys of community council online presences. We are now waiting on some verification of data before we can complete the analysis and create an output. |
| success – but not mine |
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| en route | contributions to an international research proposal. (Can’t say more here and now.) |
| on hold | information avoidance and diabetes is on hold because the PI is swamped with other things. |
Non-academic
| Success | Still minutes secretary and web-weaver for 3 Edinburgh community councils |
| Success | £eithChooses PB event: publishing, IT, web, admin, working with Edinburgh Council to enable online voting… |
| Success | Community Councils Together on Trams: taking minutes and asking important impertinent questions |
| TBC | Currently working on a website for a community interest group. More paid work! |
| Success | Occasional bits of proof-reading and writing for my wife’s company, Glen Shuraig Consulting. |
| TBC | Helping my sister buy a house so she can live near our brother and sister-in-law. She moves this week (21 to 25 June). Then we need to clear the former family home – several lifetimes’s worth of stuff! |
| TBC | Trying to get through probate for my late mother. The solicitors who are involved in this have taken on someone with energy and a braincell, so things are moving. However, this won’t be complete until we clear and sell the former family home. |
| Failure – but not my fault | Not had our cycling holiday to a hobbit-house in the Netherlands. And now a combination of the ‘rona and the clowns in the UK government means we may not be able to go next year. We will have a couple of weeks away in September, but it’s likely to be in Wales, so we can go to a twice-postponed Manics gig in Cardiff Castle. I can’t say here how much I need to get out of this septic isle. |
| Failure – but maybe not my fault | In September 2020, it became possible to ‘re-acquire’ the Austrian citizenship I would have inherited from my mother if she kept her own. (She was born Jewish in in Vienna in 1930, and only just escaped in 1938.) I’ve just not had (made?) the time to apply yet. However, I am getting lessons in Austrian-accented spoken German from Kerstin Steiner. |
Obligatory Arnie-quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-za0Lu7tI
I wish I could drink like a lady
I can take one or two at the most
Three and I’m under the table
Four and I’m under the host.
Bruce's IT-ish world 