My personal side has been blowing his trumpet:
Read more at https://bruceryandontexist.info/2019/10/31/bruce-of-all-trades/
Bruce of all trades
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Category Archives: personal
What has Bruce been up to in the first half of 2019?
Napier
| When | What | outcome and notes |
| December to early January | marking Work-based learning mid-year reports | Success: Marking was done, including handling students’ queries, and writing and delivering a presentation on how I will mark final reports. |
| January | PB in Brazil: whether and how PB benefits the very poor in Sao Paulo | work on a paper was stalled for ages. It took until late June to get a focus-group transcribed. Translation is to follow… |
| February to May | running WriteNow! sessions on Wednesday afternoons |
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| February onwards | RIVAL: 4 networking events in 2019-2020 for Library and Information Scientists and practitioners | See project website for details. |
| March onwards | GCRF map/database The Scottish Funding Council wants a map of all of the GCRF projects it funds. Image of possible look-and-feel is here | awaiting contract-signature |
| February, May | Internal examiner for 3 BIT MSc students | All three passed. (Credit belongs to the students and their supervisors!) |
| April-May | Writing RFC funding applications |
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| May | Marking Computing in Contemporary Society courseworks | Work was done. |
| June | Marking Work-based learning final reports | work in progress |
Elsewhere
| January onwards | minuting meetings between Community Councils Together on Trams and Edinburgh Council’s Trams Team | better citizen-involvement? |
| September 2018 onwards | member of £eith Chooses steering group | Success! See website. Survey on possible improvements due to close soon. |
| since time immemorial | minutes and websites for three Edinburgh community councils: Leith Central, Leith Harbour & Newhaven, New Town & Broughton | Success, I think: better recording and publicising of hyperlocal government activities |
| ongoing | taking part in various democracy events, e.g. practical democracy project, Democracy Alive | Some better understanding of what various bodies are doing to improve democracy. I’m not sure how effective they will be, or what my role should be. |
Sauntering in São Paulo
Saturday 2019_01_19 (update)
So I did go out to try to sample São Paulo night life.
Continue reading
Spachyderms in São Paulo
Sore bottom in São Paulo
My bahookie is getting bored with sitting on hard wooden chairs in my hotel’s bar/restaurant, despite wearing padded cycling shorts. Yellow bikes don’t help either. Continue reading
What has Bruce been up to in the second half of 2018?
Napier
| # | When | What | outcome and notes |
| 1 | July | RIVAL: community event on the theme of LIS research impact: | success! Also enabled further funding application (line 5) |
| 2 | July | applying for GCRF funding for PB in Brazil | success! See line 7 |
| 3 | July | marking work-based learning 2017-18 final reports | ——- |
| 4 | September | Drafting an idea for some public engagement/democracy work | to revisit in 2019 |
| 5 | September | RSE funding application to follow up RIVaL: RIVaL network | success! Work to start in Feb 2019 |
| 6 | October | marking work-based learning 2018-19 initial reports | ——- |
| 7 | October to present | PB in Brazil: whether and how PB benefits the very poor in Sao Paulo Bruce going to Sao Paulo 4 to 27 Jan, Wegene 4 to 13 Jan | LitRev in progress builds on CSI’s relationship with University of Sao Paulo |
| 8 | November | marking BSAD coursework 1 | ——- |
| 9 | November | application for RIO funding to run WriteNow! writing sessions in 2019 | success! working with Frances |
| 10 | December | marking work-based learning 2018-19 mid-year reports | ——- |
| 11 | December | marking BSAD coursework 2 | ——- |
Question
Could I offer a short course or other help to students’ improve their report-writing skills?
Elsewhere
| 12 | July | contribution to 2018 Digital Governance in Municipalities Worldwide: A Longitudinal Assessment of Municipal Websites Throughout the World | fancy certificate of thanks |
| 13 | July to present | minuting meetings between Community Councils Together on Trams and Edinburgh Council’s Trams Team | better citizen-involvement? |
| 14 | September | Taking part in a follow-up to research by the Scottish Community Development Centre on community councils. | led to involvement in draft PB charter |
| 15 | September to present | member of £eith Chooses steering group | voting Saturday 23 February 2019 |
| 16 | October, November | further participation in Scottish Government (SG) Online Identity Assurance stakeholder group | TBC |
| 17 | November | participation in debate/research on governance of and possible new powers for community councils | TBC |
| 18 | December | commenting on Scottish Government draft Open Government Action Plan | appreciated by SG |
| 19 | December | participation in Scottish Government/CoSLA event on mainstreaming participatory budgeting. Write-up of event is in a set of posts starting here | TBC |
| 20 | all year | minutes and websites for three Edinburgh community councils: | better recording and publicising of hyperlocal government activities |
So what has Bruce been up to recently?
Part of an occasional series of posts to try to show that I don’t lie around all day! This post covers the time since we got back from honeymoon in early September.
At Napier
- Working with my colleague Wegene Demeke on the initiation of a project to investigate some aspects of participatory budgeting (PB) in São Paulo [Wikipedia], Brazil. We’re particularly interested in whether and how PB benefits the very poor. This is going to be fun, not least because neither Wegene nor I speak Portuguese, but we have some excellent partners at the University of São Paulo.
- Working with the Prof on a funding bid for some networking events. That’s ‘networking’ in the sense of connecting humans, not ‘plumbing‘! The bid has been submitted but we won’t know whether we’ve been successful for a while, so watch this space!
- Taking part in a follow-up to research by the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) on community councils.
- Marking courseworks for an undergraduate course.
- Drafting an idea for some public engagement/democracy work. Again, watch this space!
Elsewhere
What has Bruce been up to so far in 2018?
Now that almost all of my current projects are either finished or in other people’s hands, it’s a good point to try to review what I’ve done so far this year. Continue reading
Online identity assurance programme: Scottish Government ‘show & tell’ (28 March 2018) #identityassurance @digitalscots
This post is my digital record of the Scottish Government’s Online Identity Assurance (OLA) ‘show and tell’. The day was very informative, and provided me the opportunity to catch up with friends in civil society circles. I’m especially interested because online identity is a natural precursor to online voting, another problematic area that greatly interests me.
The post starts with a recap of what was said at the event, then notes my input at the event. Next are my reactions to the event itself, followed by my thoughts on the whole OLA programme. In summary, while I think OLA is very worthwhile, and that the Scottish Government is trying to do it the right way, I have a lot of reservations about how useful it will be for those who most need government support.
Continue reading
Igor!
I’ve assembled my first ever Hackintosh, following a variant of this ‘recipe’. I’m rather pleased that it booted first time. Now I need to think of a name for it. (At the moment, it’s named after its case: Phenom.) Continue reading
