Academic parents - welcome to the Senior Common Room of Requirement

[BoffinMum]

Welcome to the Senior Common Room of Requirement. You find yourself in a discreet space with a view over rolling lawns from large period windows, and a roaring log fire, with the College dog asleep in front of it. A number of comfortable Chesterfields and wing-backed armchairs are thoughtfully positioned around antique occasional tables. A selection of reading matter is on the medieval chest near the entrance, including New Statesman, Economist, New Scientist, Nature, Prospect, THES, every conceivable daily paper, Spare Rib and the Socialist Worker. Peters, the College butler (sponsored by a successful alumnus with a top domestic employment agency, so at no cost to the public purse) is on hand to fulfil all necessary demands. This is the place for MNetters of academic leanings, and post docs and student parents are welcome to knock on the door should they require academic or pastoral advice. Sit back, quaff your sherry, Fair Trade coffee or even a smoothie made from fruit grown in the College grounds, and enjoy.

It's made v clear to them that they must turn up, participation in class discussions is assessed etc - the course outline for semester 1 made that crystal clear, repeated this semester, both with the warning that they must come to the first lesson because that's when we explain the presentations - but the actual levelling for presentations seems a bit fluid. They're graded on a whole list of things (expressed different on each of the marksheets) but for example one grades A, B, C etc and other other out of 20. But a string of As in content/structure/presentation skills/grammar etc would only ever be a 15 at the most on the other marksheets.

This is why I'm trying to get them all done by me because then at least my groups have been marked to my standards, which should be roughly the same for the course leader of each year because I went along and saw them do it during the first semester.

I'm worried either I'm going to get into trouble or some of my students are going to end up with undeservedly high/low marks compared to the rest of the group. And the last ones to do the presentations will be the ones who have only just turned up....

We always get one or two turning up at the last moment and winging it, sometimes getting reasonable marks too. This is why I don't like presentations as a form of academic assessment. As a life skill, fine, but not as a form of academic assessment.

Anyone know to what extent I have intellectual property in a module I have developed? It was done during work time, so maybe I don't have any ownership over it. I have developed and run a module over the last two years. I'm being made redundant (involuntarily) and was asked to put together a module description so that the module can be taught next year. It just chafes a bit that someone is going to get paid to teach it when I did the work of putting it together and then revising it. Or is this standard?

puts head round door, smiles winningly May I come in for half an hour? I'm an academic administrator, but I'm a very nice one, and I do firmly believe that universities should be researching and teaching, not encouraging people like me to dream up more forms for academic staff to fill in.

Nickname, you probably share the IP with the university, I imagine. But in such a case I would conveniently forget to leave it with them when you go, and make them grovel ever such a little for petty revenge purposes. mwah hah hah!

Nickname, that's really rotten. I would do as BoffinMum suggests, and quietly resist the suggestion - and make sure you get last year's stuff off any intranet or web course delivery systems so that they can't quietly help themselves.

(& hi, by the way - am lurking as I begin the process of getting my head round returning to my job after mat leave. Looking forward to seeing all my students again & really dreading the wanky office politics and REF neurosis.)

Fight incompetence with incompetence

Oooh, interesting thought.

I am just dipping in again with some more REF information from our dry run.

There is indeed going to be a special category for maternity leave (probably the same one that applies to new entrants). Our REF person pointed out it is actually unlawful not to have one.

In the RAE I was a new entrant and only had to give 2 publications. The dept chose to send 4, which I had (need I say that this was prior to children). But they submitted plenty of other new entrants with only 2. The university DOES NOT get penalized for doing this. Rather it gets penalized for submitting people with 2 who ought to have 4. Again lawfulness and all that.

boffin I don't know if you are still thinking about applying for the SL job. I have sat on 2 selection committees in different social science fields in the past 18 months (one as the external). REF-ability is everything. You will have to think strategically about mentioning your mat leaves and pointing out you will NOT be required to have a full slate. (Saying something in your letter like: My remarkable 2 (or 3) publications have occurred despite being on maternity leave, and constitute a full REF submission already. Now I have returned from leave I aim to complete the following projects in time for the REF deadline.

Oooh I forgot a bit: apparently the word is that the REF will frown heavily on repeat material (ie, chapters that draw from previously published material). So that is worth knowing.

roary, what is the view about things published between 1/11/07 and 31/12/07, because one of my best ones came out during that period?

Boff apparently this is a known problem and has been pointed out. I am reassured it won't disappear in to the void but don't know what will be done about it.

That's something of a relief. In that case I have two publications already and as I was on maternity leave a year, that may be as much as is reasonable thus far. I have study leave coming up so there's an opportunity to produce another one or two as well.

Roary, all they would have to do would be to say that stuff published between these dates could be rolled forward to 2008 for administrative purposes. A bit of a no-brainer, surely.

Have had a bit of a chat with someone who is going to be on the panel, and who was my PI once (briefly). He has advised me to apply although with the caveat that first and foremost they are looking for someone at Reader level. However he reckons I tick all the right boxes and they don't give a hoot about maternity leave as long as there's been publication before, and a plan for what will follow afterwards.

Nickname - on the intellectual property issue.

The last University I worked we had specific clauses about IP and courses developed. Basically, we were allowed to use the material ourselves in any future employment but had to leave a copy and permit use by the lecturer who took over the course after we had gone.

Your college/uni probably has a similar policy as part of your contract. You need to check what your contract says.

on maternity leave, but pretending I am finishing my overdue paper in this well catered scr rather than under two sleeping babies interrupted by singing toddler :)

incidentally, how does one manage to appear professional with three small children? have a meeting in two weeks during which I will have to pop home to bf, and a postdoc in crisis who I need to meet, but can only suggest we do so walking a buggy round the local park. will soon be known as the mad woman with too many kids

Well given that you're on MATERNITY leave I would think that your postdoc-in-crisis (shouldn't they have someone else to call on?) should be fairly understanding about you giving up your time and accomodate the walk in the park. You could always say it's to blow away the cobwebs and you think more clearly when you're moving...

Roary - on the question of repeat material. Do you know what the situation is if I publish, say, article A, and then incorporate some of that material in book B. Is that still v. bad?

Re-reading your message, it seems that is exactly what you mean. Oops. But how on earth is one expected to produce a book (essentially 5-6 articles), and three entirely separate REF-able articles in six years, while teaching lots?!

Snap, "blow away the cobwebs" is a good idea. might actually work too!

that the professor who had agreed to look after said post doc has decided he's in a bad mood (for the last 6 months) and washed his hands of anything he doesn't consider fun is a whole other story.

Ahoy Captain. I fear so. But I think they are probably wanting to avoid blatant recycling.

Overlap: It seems likely that the evaluation panel will penalize partial or total overlap between publications.

Quoted from a university email.

A bit of me is quite pleased about the overlap situation, Roary, as one academic I know, who shall remain nameless, has since 2000 sat quite comfortably in her Chair, churning out cloned formulaic publication after cloned formulaic publication based on the tiniest amount of data, all published in journals she is on the editorial board of. God forbid she might have to pull her finger out for a change (I dislike her behaviour as she dumped all her UG teaching on a colleague on the grounds of having to do lots of research, but it's clear to many of us that very little of substance was in fact going on).