Monthly Archives: June 2012

messy research – the benefits of following your nose

Posted on June 29, 2012 by

One of the problems with research plans is that they set up expectations. The plan is it. Once it’s down on paper in a Gantt chart or a timetable, that’s your guide to action. Apart from the obvious fact that … Continue reading →

Posted in healthy schools, mess, research plan | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

why mess in a PhD can be a good thing

Posted on June 25, 2012 by

This guest post is by Dr Ben Kraal, who is a Research Fellow in the School of Design at Queensland University of Technology. At the moment he mostly works on the Human Systems part of the Airports of the Future … Continue reading →

Posted in Human Computer Interaction, mess, PhD, research plan, research project, voice recognition software | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

why doctoral researchers should get support for conferences

Posted on June 22, 2012 by

I’ve recently been told by a number of doctoral researchers that their institutions are pretty mean about funding them to go to conferences to give papers. I’m pretty scandalized by this as it seems to me that it ought to … Continue reading →

Posted in conference papers, conference presentation, doctoral education, identity, research education | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

travel diary: titles – do they matter?

Posted on June 19, 2012 by

What do I mean by title? Well, let me get this straight from the start. I’m not talking about book titles here. Or how you decide to begin your journal article or what you call your thesis. They are all … Continue reading →

Posted in recognition | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments

messy research: the ethics of recruiting participants

Posted on June 15, 2012 by

This guest blog by Dr Simon Bailey, a research fellow at the Manchester Business School, addresses a very messy area in research – that of the basis on which we recruit people to our projects. WHAT’VE THE RESEARCHERS EVER DONE … Continue reading →

Posted in ADHD, ethics, mess, research methods, research plan, rules of engagement | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

academic travel diary: coping with mess

Posted on June 12, 2012 by

So on this trip home to Australia my passport disappeared. I maintain it was stolen in Tullamarine somewhere in the jostle between Customs and the car park. This was almost a disaster because not only did it mean that I … Continue reading →

Posted in mess, research methods, research project | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

some musings on the time-limited PhD

Posted on June 6, 2012 by

We have so many time-related expressions – we spend time, we take time, we do things just in time, we write something that is timely, we are out of time, time flies, we are racing against the clock… I recently … Continue reading →

Posted in doctoral education, time, time-limited doctorates | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

why bother blogging?

Posted on June 2, 2012 by

Alice Bell, who blogs as through the looking glass, is currently doing some research on academic blogging She’s focusing particularly on people who blog about education. This post is a response to her questions. I won’t repeat the questions here … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, blogger's block, blogging, publishing, readership, research education | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments