Not only is it birthday 1 for Occam’s Typewriter but last week was my literal birthday. So maybe a good time to reflect about what I can do differently in the New Year.<\/p>\n
I have a new job since I started blogging at Occam’s T; a new academic job and as we know the UK Research Excellence Framework<\/a> (RAE) is on the horizon. In case you don’t know, its an assessment of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) by HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) academic department by academic department to see how excellent each is (relatively) which also decides how much money we get in 2015 ! While 2015 seems like a long time away, it isn’t. Especially not from an assessment point of view; good researchers today will be good researchers tomorrow and will be the best HEIs – so the logic goes. There are some fundamental flaws in the logic. The most obvious is, great researchers aren’t necessarily great teachers. Which many of you who have ever been taught in an HEI will also realize is the great understatement of the decade. <\/p>\n But I, as usual, digress. <\/p>\n How can I make my blog better? <\/p>\n Pictures perhaps, Athene Donald<\/a> mentioned adding more pictures (if she were adept with a camera). Maybe I should have some more pictures, real pictures not one’s stolen from elsewhere? Maybe I can invent creative cocktails in the lab like Jenny Rohn<\/a>? I definitely don’t want to work for another PhD like Erika Cule<\/a> (who just upgraded this year, well done). I do use elastic scattering as a technique but this has already been described by Richard<\/a> and I need to read more books like Henry<\/a>. <\/p>\n So what to do? I do think I need to write more about the research I actually do, which involves reading books, taking pictures, interacting with PhD students and drinking (for a variety of reasons) as well as diffraction – so this is my new Occam’s year resolution.<\/p>\n Happy belated birthday Occam’s Typewriter! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Not only is it birthday 1 for Occam’s Typewriter but last week was my literal birthday. So maybe a good time to reflect about what I can do differently in the New Year. I have a new job since I … Continue reading