Nice new corner! Come and chat!

[NeverEverAnythingEver]

We have our new board! Calling all cademics/aspiring academics/fed-up academics - come and chat!

I'm supposed to be going back to work next week. I was feeling OK about this but now am a bit nervous.

worstofbothworlds Hope today went alright!

It's actually my last day off today. Just about to try and find my sick note(s). Checked my email, just so I could cancel something later in the week, mild feeling of panic but not too bad.

Thanks. I did wonder about blogs too. Sorry for not coming back to this. I meant to and then missed the reminder email re new posts. It slipped my mind after that. Thanks again :) Probably around 6 cases for whoever asked.

Re: the blogs - I have a similar thing with an undergrad atm, but our ethics committee has made it all so tortuous I've steered her towards quantitative analysis instead.

Essentially, they have said that blogs are being written for a particular audience, which isn't research (we're humanities) and thus not an appropriate source for academic research (trying to be careful not to out us here, but they used the example of MH, which has bugger all to do with her topic - it's not something personal in any way) even if you get individual consent from authors.

Have you tried running it past your ethics lot? You could also try asking them for guidance - ours admit that they are erring on the side of extreme caution because "there's not yet a set standard for new media research ethics" and they basically haven't made up their minds yet either: still, it was useful in that it told us essentially, anything qualitative she wanted to do wasn't going to get approved!

I wonder how many sociology thesi have been written using MN posts as observational data?

( suspicious )

Funny enough, I found a blog saying stuff we liked, which made me hunt around until I found a similar letter from same chap to BMJ. We cited him a paper pub. Dec 2013. Then he popped up as a member of a policy-making group (real govt power) 2 yrs later. Which position apparently evolved from his activism in blogging, tweeting, letters, etc.

How's it going worstofbothworlds? Just out of curiosity, who did you have to tell about going off - did you contact a secretary, your head, or what?

Found myself wondering this last weekend when I was knocked down by what I originally thought was a stomach bug but I'm now wondering if it may be an exacerbation of whatever it is that has caused me to feel ill and lose 4 stone since the summer. Hopefully it was just a bug and I'll continue to feel better, but on Friday I literally couldn't stand as I would fall down doubled over in pain in I tried. I did feel better by Sun, but only managed a half day on Mon and this morning I'm feeling worse, with constant low-level pain. I realised I have no idea who I'm supposed to contact if I can't manage my job!

Having a new bout of imposter syndrome or something similar - just looked up someone for their contact info, and noticed he is now a Prof! We were hired at the same time, and in fact I applied for the job he has, although through a comedy of errors from that Uni's HR, I never made it to an interview. Sigh. Just feeling small.

Everyone hired after me is a Prof now.

It's the REF effect. Equivalent of grade inflation.

With days off/timing of sick note today's actually my first day back. I would say I'm concentrating very hard and getting stuff done so haven't logged on to MN till now. But actually my computer is refusing to do anything and I've only managed to open one email folder and to restart it 3 times.

I've had a bit of medical problems recently too but luckily it didn't stop me turning up at lectures. It does make me wonder too what would happen if one of us was "taken out". Not much slack in the department ...

worstofbothworlds

Thanks people! Yes, I am wary of the ethical issues too even with consent from the blogger. The student is awol at the moment so who knows what he/she is doing. That's another issue and one that I have tried to address. I may well run it past ethics, it's a good point. They are super cautious where we are too actually.

Sorry to hear that you are having a rough time murmur and worstofbothworlds.

I was sent a timeline for a research project I want to submit to a funder from an internal research peer review people. Depressingly they want a first draft by 15th Dec. Seriously? That is never going to happen! I am not sure when we are supposed to find the time to do this stuff! I can do bits but not a first draft that would also have to go to a CI etc for comments. Sometimes it does feel very unachievable.

Eeek NK! Hope you are recovering. Do they know what's wrong?

We have a stupid system whereby we are not allowed to cancel/postpone/reschedule any lectures- if the lecturer isn't able to teach, for whatever reason, a colleague has to cover. Madness! And all about student satisfaction - I personally wouldn't be satsified with a specialist subject being taught by a non-specialist, but there you go...

A couple of years ago at our Clearing OD (I'm AT for my department) I had a mother actually shouting in my face, asking how I was going to guarantee that her daughter wasn't going to drive two hours to university and find her lecture cancelled I suggested that she follow my advice and ensure her daughter lives in for the first year : she was mollified by hearing about this policy! It was rigorously enforced the first year, but seems to have been quietly subverted in the meantime - it was hideous, though, because apart from the fact it means you can't actually be off if you are unwell (I had to arrange both grandparents' funerals around teaching- nice for the rest of our rather large extended family! Mind you, by the time my grandfather had died, they had stopped asking for a copy of the death certificate - this wasn't for grieve leave: just to go to the bloody funeral...) it's a crappy deal for the students. But at least I can say I've had the pleasure of teaching with a temperature of 103 and whilst throwing up every two minutes into a handy bin...

We used to be able to self-report illness on the system, but also had to ring our line manager (in practice, heads of department) by 8.30: now, it's all done centrally, so you have to ring them, but then ring the school office so that it's on the system. It really is a tedious process.

NK I hope you are starting to feel better - that sounds terrifying! My mother had something that sounded very similar - they did loads of tests and traces, and in the end concluded that it was stress... (I think that's the default diagnosis for a lot of things) Let us know how you are!

Sorry you're so unwell, NK5.

Am I the only one on this thread who enjoys being an academic?

Interviews... The rumour is that all our Faculty have to do Xmany interview sessions & Xmany marking sessions & Xmany hours of teaching each yr... but that some Faculty conspicuously duck out of their duties with no repercussions whatsoever. It's not a problem to me, but doesn't help with team spirit & all that.

Oh I do enjoy being an academic and don't want to do anything else. :) But the demands seem to be endless. I think people do reschedule lectures in our department but it's a complicated business, what with joint degrees and the lack of suitable teaching rooms for certain subjects. People do cover other people - but it's not nice to ask because everyone's so busy.

I like almost every part of my job (apart from exam marking - that's the WORST) but sometimes it gets overwhelming when you have to do them altogether...

Oh, NK5 sorry to hear about that! I hope they get to the bottom of it.

I hate that double-work thing. Did I ever mention about how I got my scheduled week off, meant to help manage my condition, but instead when I got back people had not actually covered for me? So I came back to a good 250% the work load, and several things were faaaaar more trouble to fix retrospectively than to do actually at the time. Still not sure if it was worth it, but I suspect I may not be doing as well (hahahaha) as I am now had I not had a tiny break.

hefzi - what the heck with the lectures? I couldn't cover for someone else's lectures. I can barely make sense of someone else's slides when given them as a guide to making lectures in an area I'm expert it. That would be a comedy of "Hmm, here's an interesting picture. Probably has something to do with topic X but I don't know what. On to the next slide..."

Exams are coming up here, and I'm having a bit of a childish fit at the number of students requesting answers to past exams. We provide the exams themselves, but not the answers, telling students to check their own notes and find the relevant material. Basically, the 'answers' don't exist, as you just, you know, mark them by evaluating what the students said and how well it matches what you may have taught them plus any outside reading they did that impressed you. So they want a non-existent resource. At this time of year, I get an endless stream of requests from first years wanting the answers. I've just had one who spent paragraphs explaining how she couldn't determine what material went with what and how much harder it made it to revise. I feel like just saying, "okay, then, everyone, if the past exams are so much trouble for you without the answers, we won't let you see them at all anymore". Of course, I can't do that. I just get so frustrated at how much spoon-feeding they want. I try to remind myself that most of them are just out of school and its not their fault as this is how they were taught before (or so people tell me).

Exams - our department has a policy NOT to give out answer. It's handy for us just to say that. "It's departmental policy." Done.

I do love being an academic too. Lots of really positive points. Like never, I am just finding the demands hard at the moment. Just had a fab Skype meeting which was great in terms of a research project. I love that side of it! I do love the teaching too, I am just struggling with the usual family/teaching and research thing. Lots of colleagues don't have children or have much older children and I am finding it harder than before now that I have young children.

I don't want to do anything else though and love the flexibility and autonomous nature of the job.

Hefzi, we have the same policy re non cancellation too. I can see the point but it does not work if a specialist lecture.