Back at work with aching legs thanks to an energetic couple of days at TESOLArabia.
I've been saying for some time that I must get more exercise - well, the Job Fair at the conference supplied me with plenty.
I must say, first, that if you have to dash from side to side of a huge open space in the sun like a mad thing in order to get job interviews at which you appear sweaty and knackered, Zayed University Dubai is the perfect setting for it. It is a beautiful building complex with some stunning architecture, a very handsome atrium, and an open area with fountains in the middle.
Unfortunately, all the administration for the job fair happened in one building and all the actual interviews happened in another. Another building far far away, in fact. In between the two lay the enormous open space with its glittering fountains, its carefully laid-out tables with awnings, and the sun - the Arabian sun that beat down on the increasingly frazzled job hunters as they dashed from the interviews they were having to the place where they could find out whether they had been called for any more interviews, and back again, and back once more.
We also had to pass (rapidly and repeatedly) through the Atrium where the actual conference was going on. It looked quite interesting, to the hurried view, and I wished I'd been able to attend some of the sessions.
As it was I was too busy: queueing, three times for a total of one hour and 20 minutes on the first day to get booked in with the Job Fair, then the rest of the time dashing back and forwards.
I did manage to get in for Andrew Wright's bit on creative writing (and speaking and generally creative play with language) in the EFL classroom. Lovely and cheering and with lots of good ideas, some of which I will use immediately, and quite counter-current in most of our institutional settings.
Sunday 14 March 2010
Sunday 3 January 2010
Ahhh yes... research...
We're all supposed to do it, and the institution says it will support it - encourage people to present at conferences etc. In practice it's a little bit more difficult...
Meanwhile, we read proposals that research in HE in the UK should be funded according to its likely "impact".
So I was amused by this piece from the London Review of Books blog:
The Impactometer ™
24 December 2009
Colin Burrow
1. Concern has been expressed about the proposal to deploy research 'impact' as a criterion for allocating resources to UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) under the new Research Excellent Framework. A small group of disaffected scholars with limited understanding of knowledge-capital markets have claimed that 'impact' will be impossible to assess objectively and will disadvantage some disciplines and institutions.
2. We regard impact as a visionary concept, essential to fair and transparent funding-distribution within a modern HE environment, and would urge that it become the sole criterion for the Research Excellence Framework.
3. An interdisciplinary team here at the University of Southern Comforts has developed a modest proposal to develop an Impactometer ™, which will objectively assess the impact of research. Costs will not exceed £ 134 million (plus overheads, subject to paragraph 15 below).[1]
4. Utilizing a unique form of Common Research Appliability Projection the Impactometer ™ will quantify Impact ™ (which is to be distinguished from 'impact' in the common sense) in all known disciplines (viz. Engineering, Physics, Economics, Politics, Cantonese, and Media Studies), and calculate the Research Impact Projection for each unit of assessment.
5. The development of this resource will have major consequences for the distribution of research funding. The Impact ™ of the Impactometer ™ itself will naturally exceed that of all other research projects, since it impacts the very structures and quantificatory methodologies of the Research Excellence Framework.
6. On startup the Impactometer ™ will consequently first calculate its own Impact ™. Our engineers estimate the Research Impact Projection for the Impactometer ™ will be in the order of 14.93 gigapacts ™.[2]
7. Coincidentally, the working assumption of the Impactometer ™ is that the total Research Impact Projection for UK HEIs will be 14.93 gigapacts ™.
8. The Impactometer ™ will therefore automatically allocate to itself and to its stakeholders (chiefly TrustPact Holdings plc trading as The University of Southern Comforts) all research funding for HEIs.
9. This benevolent feedback-loop has significant cost implications. All future research funding can confidently be pre-allocated to a single institution, with consequent savings on administrative overheads. The Research Excellence Framework will become redundant and savings may be passed back to the Treasury.
10. Laboratories, plant, and accommodation blocks presently allocated to HEIs ( 'Universities' in older parlance) which have failed to exploit the potential of the Impact ™ market may be transferred to the Holding Company as the centre of modern research excellence.
11. In pursuance of our aim to ensure maximal return from future contingencies, this infrastructure will be restructured into high quality research nodes for the study of the economics of chance, focussing on practical models derived from poker, roulette, and the dispersion of random patterns of energy through surf. We term this applied game theory, which we see as the future of research.
12. To ensure an appropriate gender balance and real life conditions for this research environment, drinks will be served to participants (at cost, plus overheads) by appropriately clothed Research Assistants, while other distractions and services will be offered which might benefit younger presently unemployed members of the local community. The knock-on effects for presently run-down inner-city HE sites will be significant. Researchers will be invited to hazard their own personal property in the projects, thus ensuring maximum value for money for HEFCE and a viable model of public-private partnership for investment in research going forward.
13. We emphasise that these transfers of funds and property can be implemented with immediate effect in advance of the actual construction of the Impactometer ™ since its Impact ™ can be predicted with certainty.
14. Members of our team, indeed, are confident that it will not prove necessary to construct the Impactometer ™ at all. The first law of Consequence Management ™ (a science pioneered at the University of Southern Comforts, in which we offer a range of accredited courses) states that the economic product of a hypothetical outcome shall be transferred to its beneficiary in anticipation of the action itself, which consequently becomes unnecessary. The principle has applied in financial markets for some time, to the great profit of UK plc.
15. Once actioned, this proposal promises savings at least equivalent to the costs of producing the Impactometer ™, the manufacture of which becomes unnecessary as a result of the first law of Consequence Management ™. There is therefore no barrier to the immediate transfer to the University of Southern Comforts of all HE resources and infrastructure.
16. The chief deliverable of the Impactometer ™ project, however, is an end to the present arbitrary distribution of HE research funding according to nebulous conceptions of 'quality', and the replacement of all research by RIP. Grounded in objectivity, efficiency, and transparency, our model is one from which all stakeholders will benefit.
C. Hornblow JuniorCEO, The University of Southern Comforts
Notes:
[1] Patents pending in all jurisdictions. Terms and conditions may apply. Investments may be subject to market fluctuations. All communications relating to any alleged association between the University of Southern Comforts and alleged activities of its holding companies in the Seychelles or other jurisdictions should be directed to our solicitors, Messrs Grant, Grant, and Cochon.
[2] 1 pact ™ = the impact of an article 'of national significance' as defined by the most recent Research Assessment Exercise.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/12/24/colin-burrow/the-impactometer%e2%84%a2/
Meanwhile, we read proposals that research in HE in the UK should be funded according to its likely "impact".
So I was amused by this piece from the London Review of Books blog:
The Impactometer ™
24 December 2009
Colin Burrow
1. Concern has been expressed about the proposal to deploy research 'impact' as a criterion for allocating resources to UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) under the new Research Excellent Framework. A small group of disaffected scholars with limited understanding of knowledge-capital markets have claimed that 'impact' will be impossible to assess objectively and will disadvantage some disciplines and institutions.
2. We regard impact as a visionary concept, essential to fair and transparent funding-distribution within a modern HE environment, and would urge that it become the sole criterion for the Research Excellence Framework.
3. An interdisciplinary team here at the University of Southern Comforts has developed a modest proposal to develop an Impactometer ™, which will objectively assess the impact of research. Costs will not exceed £ 134 million (plus overheads, subject to paragraph 15 below).[1]
4. Utilizing a unique form of Common Research Appliability Projection the Impactometer ™ will quantify Impact ™ (which is to be distinguished from 'impact' in the common sense) in all known disciplines (viz. Engineering, Physics, Economics, Politics, Cantonese, and Media Studies), and calculate the Research Impact Projection for each unit of assessment.
5. The development of this resource will have major consequences for the distribution of research funding. The Impact ™ of the Impactometer ™ itself will naturally exceed that of all other research projects, since it impacts the very structures and quantificatory methodologies of the Research Excellence Framework.
6. On startup the Impactometer ™ will consequently first calculate its own Impact ™. Our engineers estimate the Research Impact Projection for the Impactometer ™ will be in the order of 14.93 gigapacts ™.[2]
7. Coincidentally, the working assumption of the Impactometer ™ is that the total Research Impact Projection for UK HEIs will be 14.93 gigapacts ™.
8. The Impactometer ™ will therefore automatically allocate to itself and to its stakeholders (chiefly TrustPact Holdings plc trading as The University of Southern Comforts) all research funding for HEIs.
9. This benevolent feedback-loop has significant cost implications. All future research funding can confidently be pre-allocated to a single institution, with consequent savings on administrative overheads. The Research Excellence Framework will become redundant and savings may be passed back to the Treasury.
10. Laboratories, plant, and accommodation blocks presently allocated to HEIs ( 'Universities' in older parlance) which have failed to exploit the potential of the Impact ™ market may be transferred to the Holding Company as the centre of modern research excellence.
11. In pursuance of our aim to ensure maximal return from future contingencies, this infrastructure will be restructured into high quality research nodes for the study of the economics of chance, focussing on practical models derived from poker, roulette, and the dispersion of random patterns of energy through surf. We term this applied game theory, which we see as the future of research.
12. To ensure an appropriate gender balance and real life conditions for this research environment, drinks will be served to participants (at cost, plus overheads) by appropriately clothed Research Assistants, while other distractions and services will be offered which might benefit younger presently unemployed members of the local community. The knock-on effects for presently run-down inner-city HE sites will be significant. Researchers will be invited to hazard their own personal property in the projects, thus ensuring maximum value for money for HEFCE and a viable model of public-private partnership for investment in research going forward.
13. We emphasise that these transfers of funds and property can be implemented with immediate effect in advance of the actual construction of the Impactometer ™ since its Impact ™ can be predicted with certainty.
14. Members of our team, indeed, are confident that it will not prove necessary to construct the Impactometer ™ at all. The first law of Consequence Management ™ (a science pioneered at the University of Southern Comforts, in which we offer a range of accredited courses) states that the economic product of a hypothetical outcome shall be transferred to its beneficiary in anticipation of the action itself, which consequently becomes unnecessary. The principle has applied in financial markets for some time, to the great profit of UK plc.
15. Once actioned, this proposal promises savings at least equivalent to the costs of producing the Impactometer ™, the manufacture of which becomes unnecessary as a result of the first law of Consequence Management ™. There is therefore no barrier to the immediate transfer to the University of Southern Comforts of all HE resources and infrastructure.
16. The chief deliverable of the Impactometer ™ project, however, is an end to the present arbitrary distribution of HE research funding according to nebulous conceptions of 'quality', and the replacement of all research by RIP. Grounded in objectivity, efficiency, and transparency, our model is one from which all stakeholders will benefit.
C. Hornblow JuniorCEO, The University of Southern Comforts
Notes:
[1] Patents pending in all jurisdictions. Terms and conditions may apply. Investments may be subject to market fluctuations. All communications relating to any alleged association between the University of Southern Comforts and alleged activities of its holding companies in the Seychelles or other jurisdictions should be directed to our solicitors, Messrs Grant, Grant, and Cochon.
[2] 1 pact ™ = the impact of an article 'of national significance' as defined by the most recent Research Assessment Exercise.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2009/12/24/colin-burrow/the-impactometer%e2%84%a2/
Monday 21 December 2009
Are IELTS writing rubrics getting easier?
Looking at published test papers of past IELTS Academic Writing, and it seems to me that the rubrics have become much terser: less wordy and less likely to involve examples.
A colleague, the redoubtable Mr B, says they are getting easier: he's been teaching IELTS Academic for the last 30 years.
I'm not sure if they are getting easier, exactly, but I suspect the trend is to do with the confusers.
As ever, I try to teach students to distinguish between the general topic area and the precise focus of the question. The less wordy the rubric the fewer chances there are for candidates to go straight for the general topic and ignore the actual question.
A colleague, the redoubtable Mr B, says they are getting easier: he's been teaching IELTS Academic for the last 30 years.
I'm not sure if they are getting easier, exactly, but I suspect the trend is to do with the confusers.
As ever, I try to teach students to distinguish between the general topic area and the precise focus of the question. The less wordy the rubric the fewer chances there are for candidates to go straight for the general topic and ignore the actual question.
Friday 14 November 2008
Oh yes...who am I?
This week as an assignment have had to google my own name and feedback on my conclusions.
My conclusion is that I don't exist.
I have a common surname and during the decade in which I was born, parents all around the English speaking world were asking themselves what would be an unusual first name for the new offsprung (it took my parents a long time - I was the only one of their 4 noted on the labels of family film reels as "baby")... and they all came up with the same name.
There is a famous opera singer, an artist, a maker of art lampshades (who lives in the village my folks came from originally, but is no relation) and many many more. There is also a slightly differently spelt person in the same line of work as me, but in Brazil.
But pleased to find my pseudonym not taken here or on Flickr.
Have had this nom de net since 2002 (here) http://ulc.net/forum/index.php?
and am fond of it.
My conclusion is that I don't exist.
I have a common surname and during the decade in which I was born, parents all around the English speaking world were asking themselves what would be an unusual first name for the new offsprung (it took my parents a long time - I was the only one of their 4 noted on the labels of family film reels as "baby")... and they all came up with the same name.
There is a famous opera singer, an artist, a maker of art lampshades (who lives in the village my folks came from originally, but is no relation) and many many more. There is also a slightly differently spelt person in the same line of work as me, but in Brazil.
But pleased to find my pseudonym not taken here or on Flickr.
Have had this nom de net since 2002 (here) http://ulc.net/forum/index.php?
and am fond of it.
small flying critter blues
Have spent much of the week cursing a screen. And often cursing mosquitoes at the same time.
The computer I use is in a very mozzy-rich environment. The owners and operators of this environment spray regularly, possibly with a view to breeding a tougher, nastier form of mosquito.
It seems to be working.
The computer I use is in a very mozzy-rich environment. The owners and operators of this environment spray regularly, possibly with a view to breeding a tougher, nastier form of mosquito.
It seems to be working.
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