This article that I wrote with David Zeitlyn and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger based on the digital ethnographic research I did for the Oxford Internet Institute/Oxford Anthropology in 2014/15 came out in May 2015. I've been traveling and working in Europe this summer and haven't had time to post it until now. Read it online (for free!) at First Monday: Learning from Failure: The case of the disappearing web site.
Abstract: This paper presents the findings of the Gone Dark Project, a joint study between the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology and the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University. The project has sought to give substance to frequent reports of Web sites “disappearing” (URLs that generate “404 not found” errors) by tracking and investigating cases of excellent and important Web sites which are no longer accessible online. We first address the rationale and research methods for the project before focusing on several key case studies illustrating some important challenges in Web preservation. Followed by a brief overview of the strengths and weaknesses of current Web archiving practice, the lessons learned from these case studies will inform practical recommendations that might be considered in order to improve the preservation of online content within and beyond existing approaches to Web preservation and archiving.
There's a PDF download available on my Academia page. Feel free to follow.
Are any other anthropologists working on digital preservation? Let me know in the comments.
Showing posts with label academic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academic. Show all posts
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| Nook HD 7" and a piece of toast, courtesy of barnesandnoble.com. I don't know why. |
For the paperless academic on a budget
Virtually every article about improving one's academic workflow (note-taking, reading, writing and general office/mobile productivity) begins and ends with the iPad. In some respects, makes a lot of sense. On top of design, branding and marketing elements, Apple also has the advantage of a well-stocked app store. An important trade-off here is a hefty price tag. Meanwhile, there are plenty of devices for well under $200 that offer promising features and competitive app stores as well as the ability to sideload content and apps. Android devices, for example, fit the needs of students and academics extremely well, if not better than their Apple counterparts. First and foremost, many Android or even Windows phones and tablets are more likely to have expandable memory, which is great if you don't keep all of your files in cloud storage and/or if you are not likely to have a regular data or WiFi connection (such as in the field).
Which brings me to my next point: academics actually have a particular and sometimes peculiar set of needs for their devices. These admittedly vary from person to person, by discipline, age, work environment and place on or off the departmental food chain. For me, I focus mainly one three major tasks, in order of importance: 1. Reading. A lot of reading. 2. Taking and making notes. 3. Saving and organizing files. Everything else from photos and video to social media is secondary for the purposes of this review, but certainly not altogether unimportant.
There are a couple more caveats. I'm a strong believer that you should only ever invest in the technology you need instead of overspend on technology you'll never make full use of. So it's best to read this review keeping in mind how you like to work and what you find necessary or unnecessary; intuitive or counter-intuitive. A lot of people come to me for advice about buying tablets or other gadgets. I wish I could say that it always surprises me how often they fail to consider actual needs - what they'll be trying to do with the device - rather than its looks, brand name or quirky functions (that phone doesn't have the app where I can remote start my car's ignition from Mars, I'd better spend the additional $200 and upgrade my service plan ...). If you were taking a tablet to the field for actual fieldwork tasks (interviews, etc.), I would likely recommend something designed for that kind of work, like the Galaxy Note 10.1 or potentially an iPad, but that is a separate review.
Even though I'm a lover of gadgets, for day-to-day use, I actually find tablets rather fiddly for things like social media or anything that involves a lot of typing. I don't play games, listen to music, Skype chat or even watch videos on mine. I have a laptop with internet access, a phone and a media player, so I don't need a tablet to recreate all of the functions that these individual devices do very well. Instead, I want it to supplement the repetitive and/or arduous tasks that my other devices do rather poorly. That is, I need a more effective portable library to store, read and annotate PDFs and eBooks. As it happens, the Nook HD 7" is excellent as both an eReader and a tablet and is therefore worth reviewing as for a device to help academics go paperless on a budget.
That said, it's far from perfect.
About the Nook HD
B&N mostly makes eReaders like the highly rated Nook Simple Touch. Indeed, after B&N's earlier stumbles with the Nook Tablet and Nook Color, the Nook HD itself started its life as more of a glorified eReader than a full-fledged Android tablet. Upon its release, the Nook HD series was burdened by lackluster software including a useless web browser and a very limited app store. However, the recent Google Play update (late 2012) bumped the NookHD/HD+ into fully fledge Android tablet terrain – albeit still somewhat constrained by B&N's restricted version of the operating system - and returned this once unassuming device to my radar. Those with the technical know-how can root it fairly easily to free themselves from B&N's walled garden, but most general users won't need to. (Rooting voids your warranty, which you might not want to do given a software glitch that affects these devices within the return period. See below. Also, regular software updates from Nook will break your root). Just run the update out of the box to get full access to the Google suite of apps including the Play Store, Play Books, Music, Magazines, Chrome web browser, etc.
I chose the 7" HD because it's a good crossover device and therefore best value for my needs. It allows me to read and markup my thousands of academic PDFs while also being lightweight and comfortable enough to read novels. I have something like 2,000 books and articles on my Nook HD added in the three months or so that I've owned it. It also comes in a 9" (HD+) option, which is probably best suited for purely academic work because you get more screen area to work with, so those three-column academic papers require less zooming/scrolling. Socio-cultural anthropology doesn't get much of these multicolumn pages, but my recent foray into cognitive anthropology has been another story. The 7" version is optimal for all other types of books. The lower profile and weight reduces wrist strain and is preferable for those with smaller hands like myself. I tried both out in my local B&N, where they were the same price ($149 for 16GB. There's an 8GB 7" for $129 while the 9" 32GB is $179) and went for the 7" for portability even though the 9" screen was appealing. They've been on sale for as low as $79.
Specifications
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
The full technical specs for the Nook HD are available here. I'll go over what I see as the key points, especially those specs that stand out from the competition.
Speed: the device is fairly nippy with a Dual Core 1.3ghz processor and 1GB RAM. It runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich (modified by B&N).
Storage capacity: Internal storage varies by price (see above), but you get virtually unlimited storage space because it takes micro SD memory cards up to 64GB for expansion. Not only is this great to have and a definite advantage over other devices that lack expandable memory, but in the case of the Nook HD, its software makes storing your files on an external card highly recommended (again, more on this below). Expandable memory is noticeably absent from the Google Nexus, iPad mini and Kindle Fire HD/X.
Connectivity: On one hand, the Nook HD/HD+ require proprietary charging/data cables which are pretty expensive to replace in the US. On the other, the device charges really quickly compared to, say, the Amazon Kindle HD. I can get a full charge from empty in around 1.5 hours. WiFi-only for downloads and no NFC.
Battery life: Out of the box, I estimate about 9 hours for reading, but just going through the menus and flipping between apps can have noticeable effect. Since I mostly read, I've turned down the screen brightness for comfort and get up to 14 hours on a single charge. It hardly uses any battery on standby. I can pick it up two days later and the battery will have drained only 1-2%.
Pixel Density: Booklovers are already in on the Nook's secret. The screen resolution of 1400x900 at 243 pixels per inch is ideal for – you guessed it – reading. This means much less eye strain if you spend hours pouring over ebooks and documents. Text and images render beautifully crisp and clear. For comparison, 250ppi is the benchmark for the "retina" display that you pay for with Apple and the eye can't make out more detail beyond that point. 243ppi bests the comparable tablets in its price range like the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7", Google Nexus 7" (2012) and even the Kindle Fire HD 7", its most direct competitor as an eReader turned tablet. This alone was a major reason why I chose the Nook HD and it does not disappoint.
Look and Feel
Rating: 4 out of 5
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| Nook HD 7" in Smoke (photo: techradar.com) |
The Nook HD measures 7.7"x 5.0" x 0.43". The screen is the same size as other comparable 7-inch tablets, but it can give the impression that it is smaller/narrower due to the noticeably wider bezel. The aesthetic impact is debatable, but I actually prefer a wide, grippable bezel so you can hold the device comfortably without getting your fingers all over the screen. The fact that the frame is plastic gives it a somewhat cheaper look, but it also allows the tablet to weigh in at a mere 300g, which is a fair trade-off for me. Plus, the plastic is reminiscent of the portable devices of yesteryear that were markedly more durable against everyday wear.
Overall, the device resists fingerprints fairly well. It also has a really comfortable soft-touch rubber backing that feels very stable in the hand and is completely the opposite of the cheaper appearance of the front. More bothersome is the build quality of the buttons and the sd card slot. The volume and power buttons and SD card slot protector are a cheap, clicky plastic which is shiny unlike the matte finish of the rest of the body, almost like an afterthought. The card slot protector feels extremely flimsy. Most of the superficial flaws can largely be mitigated by the various protective accessories (cases, skins, folio covers, etc) available, but if the card slot breaks off, you're pretty much stuck getting dust inside.
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| Nook HD power button and SD card slot. Photos: techradar.com |
Another very obvious shortcoming for the Nook HD when compared with, say, the Kindle Fire HD, is that there is no front- or rear-facing camera. No camera at all. I would have liked to see a front camera at least for the occasional Skype chat, but it's not that big a deal for me personally. However, because there is no camera, not all Android apps are supported, including Skype and anything that requires photos/videos or scanning.
Quality Control/Unboxing
Rating: 2 out of 5
If slight build issues were the only thing to contend with, this would be a near-perfect device at such a low pricepoint. Unfortunately, one major flaw with the Nook HD is that there appears to be a real problem with Barnes & Noble's quality control. I had store credit available, so I purchased my Nook from my local Best Buy. When I brought it home and opened the sealed box, the device was in terrible shape. Although it shipped factory packed in protective plastic, this plastic sleeve and the tablet inside were both covered in heavy smudges and clearly marked with fingerprints. That shouldn't happen with a new device.
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| Unboxing. Photo by author. |
I assumed that I was given a refurbished or open box item and went back to Best Buy for an exchange. This time, I opened Box #2 in front of a sales associate. They were surprised to find that the device inside was also covered in oily smudges. They insisted that they never open products from the factory or re-shrink wrap them, so the source of the problem had to be Barnes & Noble. I was skeptical, but called B&N to find out more. They had never heard of devices shipping in bad condition. I doubt that; but regardless, I did what most people on the Internet do and blamed Best Buy. With my return partially in store credit, I then travelled to 2 more Best Buy locations and opened 3 more Nook HD boxes in front of store managers. All had some kind of damage. In one store, the manager even tried to clean the smudges off the screen, but they wouldn't come off. In another, the bezel was broken and loose from the screen. It became clear that something was seriously wrong with the poor quality devices from B&N. Before giving up, I made a last ditch effort to order from the Best Buy website. It arrived with out any trace of smudge or mark on the screen. Success! However, the inner plastic tray that holds the device was cracked at the corner. And so there was a matching tiny gouge in the plastic bezel near the headphone jack.
Best Buy couldn't get away without the blame this time, as the geniuses packed the item like this:
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| Quality packaging skills from the geniuses at Best Buy. Photo by author. |
The accordion-shaped crush pattern on the box is, I assume, courtesy of UPS. It's nice when companies work together to give you great service.
The screen was flawless and it booted up, so I kept it instead of making a fourth return which would cost me more in gas than the device itself. This is pretty abysmal quality control and prevents me from rating the Nook HD higher than 3.5 stars. That's without even turning it on and thus negates many of its admittedly positive attributes. As an aside, Best Buy was extremely accommodating with my request to keep opening and discarding Nooks free of charge, whereas B&N customer service is pretty useless. When I reported the units damaged, they could only offer a refurbished device as a replacement and also proceeded to deny that their products leave the factory in bad shape. A quick check of YouTube unboxing videos shows their smudges are common.
Functionality and Usability
Rating: 3 out of 5
Although the software might seem a little clunky (sometimes a lot of actions are required to arrive at a simple task), I actually find it reasonably intuitive. The fact that it's aimed at a wide audience, and with Nook's paired-down focus on reading, means that it's simple to use and learn how to navigate. Opening files is extremely fast, scrolls well and is very comfortable. As mentioned above, access to the Google Play store means that the old complaints about restricted operating software are rather moot for most users. Out of the box, the interface is fairly customizable, with personalized lock screens and wallpapers, widgets, recent documents carousel and sliding desktop screens for categorizing icons. It's certainly nice to look at, if not the most functional if you're in a hurry. There are interface apps you can download to tweak the appearance without rooting. The modified Nook version of Android includes a Nook Today screen which basically tries to sell you eBooks based on your interests (okay concept, but I wish I could add other retailers to that screen. Sorry, B&N, you're too expensive). It also supports multiple user accounts and parental controls, neither of which I make any use of.
The library menu is pre-organized into categories or shelves by Nook that you can't change, including Books, Documents, Magazines, Catalogs, etc. Anything you put into these folders on the device or the matching folders on your SD card will show up there, with the exception of the Documents folder (I can't fathom why). As a result, all books and journal articles stored on the SD card must go into Books if they are going to show up on the device. But then they show in one massive list that is cumbersome to sort. That's irritating. You can create new "shelves" (also cumbersome because they get hidden under "My Shelves"), but not get rid of the default ones. If you buy a magazine from the Nook store that B&N misclassifies as a "Book", you can't move it between shelves to rectify the problem and customer support couldn't care less.
Similarly, you can install new apps, but can never get rid of the ones that come pre-installed (like Hulu Plus, Facebook and Pandora). Even if you click "uninstall" or use a file manager app to force it to uninstall, the next time you put your wifi on, they'll download again. A workaround is to hide the offending apps from your user profile. The same applies to books that you've purchased from Nook. If you want to archive them to the cloud, you have to do so from the B&N website or they'll keep coming back even after you try to hide them. The software is full of little annoyances such as these, but, in general, nothing too major. A custom launcher or file manager app can be an instant remedy to most organizational issues, so it's not worth getting too hung up on the interface.
On the plus side, Nook's native reader application is actually very good. It's light, fast and sleek, supports a wide range of file types, and is easy to use. For regular eBooks (ePubs) the Nook Reader app is as good as any alternative from the Play store. For catalogs, magazines and graphic novels, the Zoom View feature automatically adjusts the page turns to take you to the next relevant section or block of the page while making the best use of the screen real estate. You can also read PDF files in the native Reader app, but I recommend a third party PDF reader for the kind of intensive reading, annotating, editing and highlighting that students and researchers are often engaged in. I'll write up another review for the best Android apps for academics soon where I will go through the various PDF readers, but the app market has quite a few to choose from. From the ones I've tried on the Nook thus far, note-taking, highlighting and annotating functions really well, attesting to adequate screen sensitivity. In short, with a PDF reader installed, the Nook HD becomes an ideal device to read/download academic content.
Another B&N perk is that you can get free wifi at any B&N location. Plus, while you're in store, you can read any books you want for up to an hour. If you have a nice B&N nearby or on campus that can be useful, even if only for reading new bestsellers or novels for free over a series of visits. The Overdrive app also works on Nook, giving you access to eBook loans from your local public library and any participating university libraries.
99% Error
The software is easy enough to get used to with next to no learning curve. Sadly, I encountered a serious glitch that is now impossible to overlook and has long-term affects on usability. I'm referring to it here as the "99% error" and together with B&N's failed quality control, it forces me to cap my overall rating at no more than 3.5 stars. Basically, randomly and for unknown reasons, the Nook freezes during boot-up. Reports from user forum discussions indicate that some sources of the freeze include following a software update or after modifying user accounts, or, in my case, after the unlock screen froze and I had to reboot the device. Instead of fully booting, the screen locks at 99% loading and never loads the interface. The battery would simply drain if you let it keep "loading". The next time you charge it and turn it on, it would again only get to 99%. There are various suggested remedies to fix this, but a hard reset to factory settings is the only thing that really works.
Having to hard reset a device happens from time to time and is not that big a deal. What is a big deal is when you can't actually access the device to back up your files before doing so and there's really no way to tell if or when it's going to happen. This is where I have trouble recommending the Nook if you tend to gather a lot of local files like notes, images and annotations. Apart from the SD card, anything stored to the device memory and not in some cloud service (apps and most app data in Google Play are safe) will be wiped in the event your Nook freezes and needs to be factory reset. This makes regular backups of any data on the drive an absolute must.
However, even more annoying is that if you have made any notes or highlights in your eBooks using Nook's native Reader app, this data cannot be backed up anywhere. You can't even export highlights/notes at regular intervals for your own data preservation. Unlike Amazon Kindle's whispersync service, even your Nook books purchased from B&N will lose their bookmarks, notes, highlights and annotations. The workaround is using a third party app that allows exports (I have not found one that will do this automatically). Even then, all you will have is a separate file with a list of highlights and annotations. You can't import them back into the book's text again. You'll also need a file manager to move any exported files to your SD card from the Nook's internal memory, and that's something novices will probably struggle with. Some apps put files in places on the Nook that appear to fall haphazardly into the My Files category. Making sense of where everything is stored to get your backups right will get more confusing as time goes on and more of the space is used up. It's kind of a mess.
The potential to lose all data stored to the internal memory means that it's safer to keep all documents on the SD card except for app data. This should irritate anyone who, like myself, paid extra for 16GB onboard storage ... but at least I have plenty of space for apps?
Conclusion
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5
I would absolutely recommend this device as an eReader (with the caveat that even though the Nook Reader app is great, you'll want to install one that allows some kind of backup if you like to keep your reading notes). I am also confident in recommending it for academic users, because of the availability of quality productivity apps from Google Play and the overall comfort of reading and making notes even with the limited screen size. The battery lasts for up to 14 hours of reading with the screen reasonably bright (the high pixel density means little to no eye fatigue). The screen is also highly responsive. The build makes it lightweight, portable and comfortable to hold. If the software were more stable and the quality control more reliable, this could be a 5 star device. That said, updates are still being released, so there may be a patch for any lingering issues in the future (fingers crossed).
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According to Vicki Lynn, senior vice president of Universum, a global talent recruiting company that works with many Fortune 500 companies, bachelors degrees in anthropology and area studies are useless for finding a job. In other words, they are worthless. As academic anthropologists, we are producing class after class of unwanted, unskilled graduates.
Unwanted Degree #3 - Anthropology or Archeology
Interesting? Yes. Important? Definitely. Marketable? Not so much... Lynn says a bachelor's degree in either anthropology or archeology is "totally limiting. Except for on a faculty or doing tours to the Parthenon, I don't know what you would actually do with this [degree]. Maybe there's some career in excavating or some other specialty, but I would assume the demand for these degrees is really small and shrinking." Again, numbers from the "Hard Times" report seem to back that, with recent grads in these areas logging a 10.5 percent unemployment rate.
Unwanted Degree #4 - Area Ethnic or Civilization Studies
Quick, what exactly does a bachelor's degree in area ethnic or civilization studies help you pursue? Not sure? Chances are neither are most employers, says Lynn, and that could be a problem for landing a job. "Some degrees have really bizarre names, and if you have one of those and you have to try to explain it to the recruiter or an employer, it's not helping you, so I would avoid them. These two fall into that category," she says. Unfortunately, the data from the "Hard Times" report backed Lynn up, noting that recent grads in this field yielded a 10.1 percent unemployment rate.
It's hard to argue with unemployment figures. Yet it is not difficult to see that a sheer ignorance of what key skills these degrees impart is rampant outside of our misunderstood discipline. This goes back to my argument in my previous post that Anthropology has a huge PR problem. It is also reminiscent of the time Gov. Rick Scott of Florida tried to eradicate anthropology from his state because of its inherent uselessness. A comprehensive record of this affair can be found at Neuroanthropology. Perhaps Vicki Lynn missed what anthropologists had to say in response to Gov. Scott's categorization of anthropology as a non-scientific, useless degree with no career prospects.
Kristina Killgrove, bioarcheaologist at the University of West Florida, responded to Gov. Scott in her blog post "Why is Anthropology Needed?", which I find has one of the best responses to the idea that graduates in anthropology have few skills to offer employees in today's marketplace (emphasis added):
First and foremost, the focus of anthropology is on understanding yourself in relation to others. This may sound pretty simple, but it involves critically thinking about why you do what you do, why others do what they do, and what factors affect these actions: e.g., religion, economy, biology, politics, family structure, gender, ethnicity, etc. While we tend to deal with individuals in our line of work, we're also interested in the community - the commonalities in experience at various scales.
That's all well and good, you might say, but what skills do students learn in an anthropology course? Don't they just learn how to throw around adjectivized names like Foucauldian and Marxist? I tell my students - and then demonstrate as best as possible throughout the semester - that anthropologists do learn several key skills:
- We learn clear, precise record-keeping skills and have to be attentive to detail. You have to observe what people say (and what they don't say), what they do (and what they don't do), what their bones or bodies tell you.
- Anthropologists also learn analytical reading and critical thinking skills: how to read between the lines of a text, to question an author's or speaker's biases and the cultural context in which their ideas were formed. Thinking critically means questioning one's own biases in addition to those of others.
- We also learn how to deal with unfamiliar social situations - we learn new languages and new rules for communication with people from all over the world, and we do this through participation in addition to observation so that we can understand where someone else is coming from.
Through these approaches, anthropologists want to understand the amazing variation in humankind - past and present - as well as the social and cultural context in which that variation occurred or is occurring. I think this is a powerful way to approach the world, but students aren't always convinced. How can anthropology help in the job search?, they ask.
The majority of my undergraduate students, particularly in the large lecture courses, will go into one of three main occupational spheres after graduation: health and medicine (doctors, nurses, genetics research, allied health fields, etc.), business and economics, and teaching (from preschool to PhDs). Anthropology is useful to all of these fields:
- Medicine - The health professions aren't just about biology or chemistry or pharmacology. For example, is your African-American patient more likely to suffer hypertension because of his genetics or because of his diet? Anthropologists have tackled questions like these, with our dual emphases on biology and culture.
- Business - You can crunch numbers in econ classes, but it only helps you predict what will happen under certain economic conditions. It is equally important to understand how individuals and cultures deal with money, for example, or how they react to global developments that have lasting effects on the way they see the world and act within it. Future business people can learn about the global economy and people's place within it through anthropology.
- Teaching - This field isn't just about imparting facts for students to learn. A good teacher is attuned to a classroom that has seen many changes over the last few decades. My parents' generation was in high school when integration happened - and teachers are even today dealing with a pedagogical legacy that excludes certain ethnic or racial groups or is prejudiced against them. Today's teachers think long and hard about how to convey information in the best possible way, how to use multimedia, how to engage students who take different approaches to learning, how to remedy old curricula that focus largely on DWMs - dead white males. Future teachers can also benefit from understanding the main tenets of anthropology in designing lessons, engaging in instruction, and communicating with students and their parents.
In short, anthropology is useful for anyone whose future job will require them to develop the interpersonal skills to work with the public. And that includes just about every college graduate today.
I'd also go one step beyond saying that anthropology is imperative for college grads to work in a globalized market: anthropology needs to be brought into high schools. Many high schools around the country teach courses in psychology and sociology. Both of these are excellent options, but why not anthropology as well? The analytical and critical thinking skills we teach our students are fundamental to future jobs in many different fields, but it's our bio-cultural focus, our understanding of how we as living beings interact with our natural and cultural world, that sets us apart from psych and soc. And I think that's well worth teaching our high schoolers.
Let me close with a quotation from one of my favorite authors (and one-time anthropology student), Kurt Vonnegut, whose words - from an interview in 1973 - still ring true in our poor education of youth in anthropology:
"I didn't learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It's also a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it."
In my previous blog post, I concluded that anthropology's problem is at least two-fold: how we engage with each other and how we present ourselves to the rest of the world. Clearly we are failing at the latter. But as Killgrove argues,
Part of that is our fault [and] we need to figure out ways to make anthropology more relevant. We don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.
It is easy to dismiss assessments like this of anthropology as "ignorant"; however, we are responsible for the level of public ignorance about anthropology and its usefulness in the world.
On another level, this article reveals serious defects in the hiring practices of the current employment market, where prospective employees are expected to be trained to the exact parameters of a job description by the completion of a bachelor's degree, rather than being hired to do a job based on their competence, critical thinking skills, capability of learning on the job and the facility of working with people in multicultural settings, all gleaned from a culturally aware education. Of course anthropologists have less to offer a job market that does not serve, at its very foundations, the needs of clients and customers as people beyond numbers on a spreadsheet.
Check out this presentation for more information about what actual anthropologists do. Hint: it's not about the Parthenon.
In case you missed it:
More open thoughts on anthropology and academia
What matters and what doesn't: open thoughts on academia
See also:
Anthropology is the worst college major for being a corporate tool, best major to change your life (Living Anthropologically)
(12/16/12) Anthropology is useless? Not to my students (Digs & Docs):
Returning to the question of "What's the value of an anthropology major?", Ithinkhope it's self-evident. You leave a good anthro program as a better writer, a more critical thinker, someone who can appreciate not just the fact of human diversity, but why it's so persistent and important. You've learned how to study up on a topic you're not familiar with, analyze the basic assumptions and implications of the topic's party-line thinkers, and how to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. You've learned to distrust simple, one-size-fits-all explanations. And you've gained experience in defining important questions, collecting and analyzing data, and writing up conclusions that are both conscious of your bias and faithful to your observations.
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When did students start adding a list of "unused" references to the end of an essay or dissertation bibliography? Who taught them to do this and who is encouraging it? Please stop.
Let's review. References are not a vanity exercise to make you look well-read and clever. If you haven't cited it within the text, leave it out, and revel quietly and in private at your incredible ability to read stuff (or download it). We are all duly impressed, I'm sure.
Alternatively, upload your impressive list of citations to a public, online database like del.icio.us, CiteULike, Mendeley, Zotero, a wiki, list-serv, an online community or your undoubtedly self-absorbed blog. This process of engaging with other researchers for mutual benefit will at least convert your inability to follow academic convention into something more appropriate and useful.
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(This post is about 9 months old and has been sitting in draft. It made me laugh to read it again, so I’m posting it now).
Turn off all the excessive babysitter prompts ("are you sure you want to allow this?"), forget the hefty footprint (standard HDD sizes on new machines size can take it), and the one feature of Windows 7 which makes it my new best friend: improved file search.
Finally coming out of the dark ages and catching up with Spotlight for file indexing and searching, the lightening fast full-text search means that regardless of whatever quirky way I've decided to organize my multitude of academic files, articles, books, notes, fieldnotes, web junk and miscellaneous accumulation of unsorted mess, I can find it in a few keystrokes. I can even get it to trawl my Zotero database along with my other files. Academics, rejoice. And whatever you do, don't listen to the advice telling you to disable the file indexing system to save resources and speed up the OS. Slim down everything else, but not this.
What makes Win 7 file search worth blogging about is that all I'm really dependent upon to get my PhD done efficiently is a word processor and a browser. I didn't have any fieldnote software like NVivo when I was in the field, so all my files are in separate Word and Excel docs, in Zotero, zip archives or simply photo and video files. My folder tree is fairly logical, but my PDFs, articles, books and resources are scattered across folders corresponding to 8 years of Higher Education and hundreds of subject headers. More file creation and management software never helped. In fact, I discovered a long time ago that I don’t need or want more software to manage it all. That just produces an even more fragmented mess plus ties me in to costly proprietary software. All I need is a good search system.
Congrats, Microsoft. You've made your first improvement since Windows 3.1 (I still have a copy; too bad it won’t dual boot). I'm impressed.
There are many other aspects of Win 7 to rate. Not all would receive such a glowing review, but I work faster and more efficiently than I did before, which is better than a poke in the eye (read: Vista).
Turn off all the excessive babysitter prompts ("are you sure you want to allow this?"), forget the hefty footprint (standard HDD sizes on new machines size can take it), and the one feature of Windows 7 which makes it my new best friend: improved file search.
Finally coming out of the dark ages and catching up with Spotlight for file indexing and searching, the lightening fast full-text search means that regardless of whatever quirky way I've decided to organize my multitude of academic files, articles, books, notes, fieldnotes, web junk and miscellaneous accumulation of unsorted mess, I can find it in a few keystrokes. I can even get it to trawl my Zotero database along with my other files. Academics, rejoice. And whatever you do, don't listen to the advice telling you to disable the file indexing system to save resources and speed up the OS. Slim down everything else, but not this.
What makes Win 7 file search worth blogging about is that all I'm really dependent upon to get my PhD done efficiently is a word processor and a browser. I didn't have any fieldnote software like NVivo when I was in the field, so all my files are in separate Word and Excel docs, in Zotero, zip archives or simply photo and video files. My folder tree is fairly logical, but my PDFs, articles, books and resources are scattered across folders corresponding to 8 years of Higher Education and hundreds of subject headers. More file creation and management software never helped. In fact, I discovered a long time ago that I don’t need or want more software to manage it all. That just produces an even more fragmented mess plus ties me in to costly proprietary software. All I need is a good search system.
Congrats, Microsoft. You've made your first improvement since Windows 3.1 (I still have a copy; too bad it won’t dual boot). I'm impressed.
 |
| Windows 3.1 |
This PhD studentship sounds like fun. If I had better programming skills and if I were masochistic enough to do another PhD, I'd definitely apply. After all, it's only a few short steps from here to the robot war. We should prepare.
Symbiotic cooperation between humans and robotic swarms
Start date and duration: December 2010, 4 years
Location: "Dalle Molle" Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA), Lugano, Switzerland (http://www.idsia.ch)
The objective of the research is the development of novel methods for self-organized control and coordination of heterogeneous teams of humans and robot swarms interacting in symbiotic peer-to-peer modality. The applicant will devise novel ways to include humans' unique sensory-motor and cognitive skills in the loop of robotic swarms. The applicant will investigate different means and combinations of multi-modal communications based on visual cues, human gestures, vocal commands, stigmergic signalling, and radio messages. Particular attention will be also devoted to the modelling of human and swarm emotions and to the study of how to use them to effectively affect motivations, goals, action selection, and learning.
The investigated topics will be a follow-up of IDSIA's previous research in the domain of swarm robotics (http://www.swarmanoid.org, http://www.swarm-bots.org). The research will be carried out in the context of a Swiss research framework.
Candidate Profile:
We are looking for an excellent and highly motivated candidate with a strong interest and a scientific background in: robotics, cognitive sciences, machine learning, and swarm intelligence. The candidate must have a MASTER degree (or equivalent). She/he is expected to have good programming and mathematical skills, and to have a positive attitude toward interdisciplinary research and teamwork.
Time frame, Enrollment, and Salary information:
- Expected duration of the studentship: 4 years, starting from October 2010
- The candidate will be affiliated to the Faculty of Informatics at (http://www.inf.unisi.ch/) and will be supervised by Prof. Luca Maria Gambardella (IDSIA, http://www.idsia.ch/~luca).
- English is the official language both at the Faculty of Informatics of US and at IDSIA.
- The gross salary is roughly 40,000 CHF (29,000 EURO) per year (corresponding to a net salary of about 2,700 CHF/month). There is travel funding in case of papers accepted at conferences and for project meetings.
Research environment:
IDSIA is a research institute affiliated to the University of Lugano and the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland. IDSIA is a truly international, stimulating, and dynamic environment. It currently hosts about 50 people, including senior researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and Ph.D. students.
The research activities carried out at IDSIA address a number of different domains, including: swarm robotics, machine learning, combinatorial optimization, networking, bio-inspired computing, data mining, information theory, complex systems, and simulation.
How to Apply:
Applications should be submitted electronically to Dr. Gianni A. Di Caro at the following address: gianni AT idsia DOT ch
Must include:
Detailed curriculum vitae (including grades)
List of two references (including email addresses)
Statement about the research interests of the candidate, pointing out their relationship with the topics of the project (1 page)
Links to master thesis and publications
The position is open until filled. Candidates are strongly encouraged to send their applications before September 30, 2010.
// Jacob Lee, via ANTHRO-L
Symbiotic cooperation between humans and robotic swarms
Start date and duration: December 2010, 4 years
Location: "Dalle Molle" Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA), Lugano, Switzerland (http://www.idsia.ch)
The objective of the research is the development of novel methods for self-organized control and coordination of heterogeneous teams of humans and robot swarms interacting in symbiotic peer-to-peer modality. The applicant will devise novel ways to include humans' unique sensory-motor and cognitive skills in the loop of robotic swarms. The applicant will investigate different means and combinations of multi-modal communications based on visual cues, human gestures, vocal commands, stigmergic signalling, and radio messages. Particular attention will be also devoted to the modelling of human and swarm emotions and to the study of how to use them to effectively affect motivations, goals, action selection, and learning.
The investigated topics will be a follow-up of IDSIA's previous research in the domain of swarm robotics (http://www.swarmanoid.org, http://www.swarm-bots.org). The research will be carried out in the context of a Swiss research framework.
Candidate Profile:
We are looking for an excellent and highly motivated candidate with a strong interest and a scientific background in: robotics, cognitive sciences, machine learning, and swarm intelligence. The candidate must have a MASTER degree (or equivalent). She/he is expected to have good programming and mathematical skills, and to have a positive attitude toward interdisciplinary research and teamwork.
Time frame, Enrollment, and Salary information:
- Expected duration of the studentship: 4 years, starting from October 2010
- The candidate will be affiliated to the Faculty of Informatics at (http://www.inf.unisi.ch/) and will be supervised by Prof. Luca Maria Gambardella (IDSIA, http://www.idsia.ch/~luca).
- English is the official language both at the Faculty of Informatics of US and at IDSIA.
- The gross salary is roughly 40,000 CHF (29,000 EURO) per year (corresponding to a net salary of about 2,700 CHF/month). There is travel funding in case of papers accepted at conferences and for project meetings.
Research environment:
IDSIA is a research institute affiliated to the University of Lugano and the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland. IDSIA is a truly international, stimulating, and dynamic environment. It currently hosts about 50 people, including senior researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and Ph.D. students.
The research activities carried out at IDSIA address a number of different domains, including: swarm robotics, machine learning, combinatorial optimization, networking, bio-inspired computing, data mining, information theory, complex systems, and simulation.
How to Apply:
Applications should be submitted electronically to Dr. Gianni A. Di Caro at the following address: gianni AT idsia DOT ch
Must include:
Detailed curriculum vitae (including grades)
List of two references (including email addresses)
Statement about the research interests of the candidate, pointing out their relationship with the topics of the project (1 page)
Links to master thesis and publications
The position is open until filled. Candidates are strongly encouraged to send their applications before September 30, 2010.
// Jacob Lee, via ANTHRO-L
Given the widespread support I received from other research students and academics, I felt it pertinent to post an update on the status of the desk debacle described in my last entry.
How and why do things like this happen? Like most academics, I don't mind lashing out at central university administration/managers - notoriously motivated by financial concerns and profit margins - for making poor decisions that affect academic life. In this case, however, according to my university's regulations, as a fee-paying student nearing submission, I am still entitled to the equitable use of university. The "University administration" had not suggested otherwise. Instead, it was my department that had chosen to revoke the workspaces of its research students two months prior to the end of their registrations even though the university gives us the right to use its facilities. Through a gray and murky loophole in wording, the department had chosen to remove itself from the overarching category of "university facilities", restricting this to the university library alone.
To add insult to injury, the department had not taken any steps to notify or consult with students in the final months of their write-ups before making the decision to revoke their privileges within the building. This caused stress, anxiety and a feeling of helplessness amongst students. It is difficult enough entering this unsure time - with heightened deadline pressures and the weight of three to four years of exponentially untenable life/work balances compressing the spine - that losing workspaces should really not come into the equation.
When academics feel that something is rotten in HE, they go to their departmental staff for support. Where could we turn, given that this was an internal act?
Through email and consultation with our supervisors, we fought against the decision and had it overturned (more or less). After an inundation of requests and demands from students that we be allowed to stay in our offices until our registration periods expire, the department has relented and will allow this audacious behavior – working until we're done – to continue as expected. However, I have been forewarned that "furniture will need to be moved" in August, despite any disruption that this may cause. So, rather than shoving the old workhorses out the back door to make way for new recruits, we'll all be crammed into one room. It’s going to be a stuffy August.
The good part: I received unwavering support from my supervisor who was equally baffled by the decision. Student representatives and the student’s union got involved. Senior staff and student advisors know much more about the needs of students and it boggles the mind how these things get through the net without seeking advice and approval from supervisors or the students themselves. Plus, the whole affair has also brought some of the students together and allowed us to reflect on our academic environments, expectations and disappointments.
Of course, this is not just about desks. Problems with space on campuses are perennial and students are not unreasonable. We are likely to share desks, books and facilities and are very rarely proprietary about them. Instead of the issue at hand, it was the unilateral decision-making and disrespect that it implied which were toxic for my department. Some students remain worried about speaking out against the decision, and there is still talk of us losing our spaces, especially for those continuing to extend their work beyond a "standard" registration period. But students who are extending their courses are still paying fees for this reason; they are still students and they still need somewhere to work.
Furthermore, both the original decision and the revised position allowing us to stay at our desks were transmitted second- or third-hand. This has provoked a general sense of detachment. Various statements and allusions made by unnamed persons appear to imply that research students who need more time to write (i.e, failures) are somehow surreptitiously profiting off the department's lack of space by asking to stay at their desks until submission. It has made some of us feel uneasy and as if we were doing something wrong. Is it the fault of research students who have been accepted to undertake their PhDs in a department that the administration of said department has, through mismanagement, run out of space and offered no alternative?
Academics' complaining about a hard life is a joke to most working people, so I think we just tend to take the good with the bad and count ourselves lucky. The truth is that no one really wants to be the one to complain. I was pleased to learn that I wasn't the only one who felt this way and, more importantly, that I'm not the only one notices what academia will be reduced to if we're not careful. In comparison to most things, losing my desk is a small problem, but it is merely one representative example of a much larger problem that any one of us can be affected by.
By airing these views, I do not wish to shame my own department, whose academic members I greatly respect and appreciate, but to draw to light conditions endemic to higher education when fundamental tenets of workplace logic are forgotten or ignored by a few unchallenged managers. In the end, nothing I have said here is revolutionary in the least, unless respect, equality in the workplace and a vested interest in departmental conviviality are things that we shouldn't naturally expect.
I hope that others can learn from the unfortunate mistakes recounted here and choose instead to uphold the integrity of the academic process and support its bottom feeders (the students).
How and why do things like this happen? Like most academics, I don't mind lashing out at central university administration/managers - notoriously motivated by financial concerns and profit margins - for making poor decisions that affect academic life. In this case, however, according to my university's regulations, as a fee-paying student nearing submission, I am still entitled to the equitable use of university. The "University administration" had not suggested otherwise. Instead, it was my department that had chosen to revoke the workspaces of its research students two months prior to the end of their registrations even though the university gives us the right to use its facilities. Through a gray and murky loophole in wording, the department had chosen to remove itself from the overarching category of "university facilities", restricting this to the university library alone.
To add insult to injury, the department had not taken any steps to notify or consult with students in the final months of their write-ups before making the decision to revoke their privileges within the building. This caused stress, anxiety and a feeling of helplessness amongst students. It is difficult enough entering this unsure time - with heightened deadline pressures and the weight of three to four years of exponentially untenable life/work balances compressing the spine - that losing workspaces should really not come into the equation.
When academics feel that something is rotten in HE, they go to their departmental staff for support. Where could we turn, given that this was an internal act?
Through email and consultation with our supervisors, we fought against the decision and had it overturned (more or less). After an inundation of requests and demands from students that we be allowed to stay in our offices until our registration periods expire, the department has relented and will allow this audacious behavior – working until we're done – to continue as expected. However, I have been forewarned that "furniture will need to be moved" in August, despite any disruption that this may cause. So, rather than shoving the old workhorses out the back door to make way for new recruits, we'll all be crammed into one room. It’s going to be a stuffy August.
The good part: I received unwavering support from my supervisor who was equally baffled by the decision. Student representatives and the student’s union got involved. Senior staff and student advisors know much more about the needs of students and it boggles the mind how these things get through the net without seeking advice and approval from supervisors or the students themselves. Plus, the whole affair has also brought some of the students together and allowed us to reflect on our academic environments, expectations and disappointments.
Of course, this is not just about desks. Problems with space on campuses are perennial and students are not unreasonable. We are likely to share desks, books and facilities and are very rarely proprietary about them. Instead of the issue at hand, it was the unilateral decision-making and disrespect that it implied which were toxic for my department. Some students remain worried about speaking out against the decision, and there is still talk of us losing our spaces, especially for those continuing to extend their work beyond a "standard" registration period. But students who are extending their courses are still paying fees for this reason; they are still students and they still need somewhere to work.
Furthermore, both the original decision and the revised position allowing us to stay at our desks were transmitted second- or third-hand. This has provoked a general sense of detachment. Various statements and allusions made by unnamed persons appear to imply that research students who need more time to write (i.e, failures) are somehow surreptitiously profiting off the department's lack of space by asking to stay at their desks until submission. It has made some of us feel uneasy and as if we were doing something wrong. Is it the fault of research students who have been accepted to undertake their PhDs in a department that the administration of said department has, through mismanagement, run out of space and offered no alternative?
Academics' complaining about a hard life is a joke to most working people, so I think we just tend to take the good with the bad and count ourselves lucky. The truth is that no one really wants to be the one to complain. I was pleased to learn that I wasn't the only one who felt this way and, more importantly, that I'm not the only one notices what academia will be reduced to if we're not careful. In comparison to most things, losing my desk is a small problem, but it is merely one representative example of a much larger problem that any one of us can be affected by.
By airing these views, I do not wish to shame my own department, whose academic members I greatly respect and appreciate, but to draw to light conditions endemic to higher education when fundamental tenets of workplace logic are forgotten or ignored by a few unchallenged managers. In the end, nothing I have said here is revolutionary in the least, unless respect, equality in the workplace and a vested interest in departmental conviviality are things that we shouldn't naturally expect.
I hope that others can learn from the unfortunate mistakes recounted here and choose instead to uphold the integrity of the academic process and support its bottom feeders (the students).
Filed under:
academia,
academic,
anthropology,
anthropology. postgraduate,
dispute,
education,
higher education
Like most PhD students, I can empathize with many of the typical scenarios amusingly depicted in Piled Higher and Deeper, but I enjoy working with my supervisor and I have been given plenty of encouragement to grow academically. I am challenged to explore my work independently while guidance is available to me if and when I need it. I fear, however, that core features of academic life are increasingly at risk within the vulnerable state of Higher Education in the UK today.
Here is a brief email exchange between my department and myself this morning:
Dear Fran,
I have been asked to write to inform you that from September you will no longer be eligible for workspace within the school and you should vacate the workspace you are currently using by 31st July at the very latest.
You are still entitled to use the University's library and computing facilities.
Many thanks,
xxxx
Dear xxxx,
As you know, my extension year ends on 30 September 2010. I therefore do not understand why I (and other full-time research students) should need to vacate our workspaces on the 31st of July. What happened to the other two months between 31 July and 30 September?
As a side note, I have consistently been told that departmental space is scarce, which I have always appreciated. My desk is basic (nigh on shoddy) and in a room with 8 other students. It doesn't even have drawers to keep things in [edit: There are empty tracks where drawers used to be. I asked for replacements, to no avail]. I had no privacy all year to conference with my undergraduate students. I have had to deal with people moving my computer, unplugging it when it was still switched on, leaving coffee stains on my papers and keyboard and numerous other inconveniences due to the complete lack of respect for my workspace all year. We have been doubling up on spaces as it is. I therefore find it particularly appalling that we are not only herded into too small a space, but quickly discarded to make room for the next herd. I do not have a solution to the department's spatial woes, but as a fee-paying student and a regular, paid member of staff with multiple responsibilities in any given academic year (teaching, IT admin, research), I hope the department does not take my lack of sympathy personally.
This complaint is not directed at you personally, but at the policy in place. I would therefore be very grateful if the powers that be could provide a more satisfactory explanation as to why my extension fees are now worth less than they were last month and why the School is so quick to want to wash their hands of me.
I wish to keep my current desk until my registration expires, or be provided with a decent alternative and secure space.
Kind regards,
Fran
I would normally not air such exchanges publicly, but I was inspired by a call to action from a fellow research student who, like myself, feels that PhD students too often put up with being ignored, let down, and treated like lesser academic citizens.
My concerns are also increasingly in response to the latest tide of fear flooding British HE which sees universities under fire to cut costs, save space and increase efficiency. While I was reading the above email in my student email account, over in my "staff" inbox (the fact that the two roles are incommensurate is telling in itself), I received a notice that the University is now accepting applications for "voluntary redundancy" settlements for positions that will remain permanently unfilled to help pay for more student enrollment:
The costs of the voluntary redundancy/early retirement will be recovered through permanent salary savings i.e. the post will not be replaced.
More students, less staff, less office space, more red tape, less time, less effort, less respect. Is this really where we want to go?
Can lowly PhD students make a difference, or are we as expendable as the email above implies?
In return for their rising tuition fees, students get access to a university library and computers and a well-established academic infrastructure (in addition to qualifications and hopefully chances to obtain fulfilling jobs).
Computing facilities are important. My department thankfully runs and maintains its own Apple computing lab (which I helped to set up and administer) with local servers and brand new machines that are excellent to work with, especially for photos and video. As for university-wide facilities, most students prefer to avoid the packed computer rooms if they can. Plus, not many of the bloated Win Vista public computer facilities on the Kent campus can match the speed of a decent low-cost laptop or netbook.
As for the library, the anthropology shelves are fairly comprehensive, but journal holdings range from good to appalling. I have borrowed less than 10 print books from the library this year - which I could have afforded for far less than my fees amount to - as most of my reading material is available online. But my tuition fees give me access to e-journals and online resources, a bargain compared to running into inflated pay walls. As an Open Access advocate, I hope that this will eventually become a non-problem. At present, there are a considerable number of ways to acquire many free, peer-reviewed journals online, with more on the horizon.
With Universities’ hold over computing facilities and academic literature being challenged by new availability, what allure will these old and archaic institutions have left? Why should research students continue investing in what we can buy for ourselves in PC World or procure freely on the web and with a lot less paperwork?
Put simply, computers and books are not why we should be embarking on academic research. These are accessories to learning, but they do not constitute learning.
The truly priceless asset of a university education – what we should be venturing to protect and nurture – is the academic environment. Departments, buildings and lecture halls are full of knowledge ready to be shared, full of enthusiastic researchers and sharpened thinking, full of collaborative spaces, new ideas, innovation, a sense of community and pride in collective efforts founded on individual autonomy and respect … or?
Take away our desks, close down our offices, replace privacy with open-plan zoos, remove our communal rest areas, put more distance between students and staff, eliminate our ability to share, learn and collaborate openly with our peers and all is lost. A university department should be lively and dynamic. We should see the friendly faces of our colleagues and students who feel happy, respected and comfortable, not the overworked faces of strangers sprinting along lifeless corridors from bookshelf to windowless corner before hopping on the bus home to work in peace. Research is a personal enterprise, one that needs space, time, and solitude. But it cannot truly thrive without the support of others.
We should be inducting new researchers into a pattern of working which values their autonomy and respects their contributions more than the pure monetary value of their office real estate. PhD students are an investment that universities cannot survive without. They will become the career academics who will need to choose whether or not to invest in others in the future. Do we really want to train a new generation to prefer empty desks over full ones and the "bottom line" over the greatest potential?
My department and my relationships within it have always been, for me, the justification for staying in higher education in the UK. But I am confident that I speak for other research students in saying that we would like to stop being made to feel like wastes of space.
Here is a brief email exchange between my department and myself this morning:
Dear Fran,
I have been asked to write to inform you that from September you will no longer be eligible for workspace within the school and you should vacate the workspace you are currently using by 31st July at the very latest.
You are still entitled to use the University's library and computing facilities.
Many thanks,
xxxx
Dear xxxx,
As you know, my extension year ends on 30 September 2010. I therefore do not understand why I (and other full-time research students) should need to vacate our workspaces on the 31st of July. What happened to the other two months between 31 July and 30 September?
As a side note, I have consistently been told that departmental space is scarce, which I have always appreciated. My desk is basic (nigh on shoddy) and in a room with 8 other students. It doesn't even have drawers to keep things in [edit: There are empty tracks where drawers used to be. I asked for replacements, to no avail]. I had no privacy all year to conference with my undergraduate students. I have had to deal with people moving my computer, unplugging it when it was still switched on, leaving coffee stains on my papers and keyboard and numerous other inconveniences due to the complete lack of respect for my workspace all year. We have been doubling up on spaces as it is. I therefore find it particularly appalling that we are not only herded into too small a space, but quickly discarded to make room for the next herd. I do not have a solution to the department's spatial woes, but as a fee-paying student and a regular, paid member of staff with multiple responsibilities in any given academic year (teaching, IT admin, research), I hope the department does not take my lack of sympathy personally.
This complaint is not directed at you personally, but at the policy in place. I would therefore be very grateful if the powers that be could provide a more satisfactory explanation as to why my extension fees are now worth less than they were last month and why the School is so quick to want to wash their hands of me.
I wish to keep my current desk until my registration expires, or be provided with a decent alternative and secure space.
Kind regards,
Fran
I would normally not air such exchanges publicly, but I was inspired by a call to action from a fellow research student who, like myself, feels that PhD students too often put up with being ignored, let down, and treated like lesser academic citizens.
My concerns are also increasingly in response to the latest tide of fear flooding British HE which sees universities under fire to cut costs, save space and increase efficiency. While I was reading the above email in my student email account, over in my "staff" inbox (the fact that the two roles are incommensurate is telling in itself), I received a notice that the University is now accepting applications for "voluntary redundancy" settlements for positions that will remain permanently unfilled to help pay for more student enrollment:
The costs of the voluntary redundancy/early retirement will be recovered through permanent salary savings i.e. the post will not be replaced.
More students, less staff, less office space, more red tape, less time, less effort, less respect. Is this really where we want to go?
Can lowly PhD students make a difference, or are we as expendable as the email above implies?
In return for their rising tuition fees, students get access to a university library and computers and a well-established academic infrastructure (in addition to qualifications and hopefully chances to obtain fulfilling jobs).
Computing facilities are important. My department thankfully runs and maintains its own Apple computing lab (which I helped to set up and administer) with local servers and brand new machines that are excellent to work with, especially for photos and video. As for university-wide facilities, most students prefer to avoid the packed computer rooms if they can. Plus, not many of the bloated Win Vista public computer facilities on the Kent campus can match the speed of a decent low-cost laptop or netbook.
As for the library, the anthropology shelves are fairly comprehensive, but journal holdings range from good to appalling. I have borrowed less than 10 print books from the library this year - which I could have afforded for far less than my fees amount to - as most of my reading material is available online. But my tuition fees give me access to e-journals and online resources, a bargain compared to running into inflated pay walls. As an Open Access advocate, I hope that this will eventually become a non-problem. At present, there are a considerable number of ways to acquire many free, peer-reviewed journals online, with more on the horizon.
With Universities’ hold over computing facilities and academic literature being challenged by new availability, what allure will these old and archaic institutions have left? Why should research students continue investing in what we can buy for ourselves in PC World or procure freely on the web and with a lot less paperwork?
Put simply, computers and books are not why we should be embarking on academic research. These are accessories to learning, but they do not constitute learning.
The truly priceless asset of a university education – what we should be venturing to protect and nurture – is the academic environment. Departments, buildings and lecture halls are full of knowledge ready to be shared, full of enthusiastic researchers and sharpened thinking, full of collaborative spaces, new ideas, innovation, a sense of community and pride in collective efforts founded on individual autonomy and respect … or?
Take away our desks, close down our offices, replace privacy with open-plan zoos, remove our communal rest areas, put more distance between students and staff, eliminate our ability to share, learn and collaborate openly with our peers and all is lost. A university department should be lively and dynamic. We should see the friendly faces of our colleagues and students who feel happy, respected and comfortable, not the overworked faces of strangers sprinting along lifeless corridors from bookshelf to windowless corner before hopping on the bus home to work in peace. Research is a personal enterprise, one that needs space, time, and solitude. But it cannot truly thrive without the support of others.
We should be inducting new researchers into a pattern of working which values their autonomy and respects their contributions more than the pure monetary value of their office real estate. PhD students are an investment that universities cannot survive without. They will become the career academics who will need to choose whether or not to invest in others in the future. Do we really want to train a new generation to prefer empty desks over full ones and the "bottom line" over the greatest potential?
My department and my relationships within it have always been, for me, the justification for staying in higher education in the UK. But I am confident that I speak for other research students in saying that we would like to stop being made to feel like wastes of space.
Filed under:
academia,
academic,
anthropology,
anthropology. postgraduate,
cost,
finance,
higher education,
money,
PhD,
UK,
university
On June 17th, I attended the PGRA 2010 Conference at Canterbury Christ Church University (PowerPoint after the jump; see previous posts for details on the paper I presented). The 9th annual postgraduate research conference sought to bring together researchers from different disciplines to discuss their experiences united under the theme, “The Adventure of Research: Is Research Enough of an Adventure?” The openness of the topic meant for an invigoratingly diverse series of panels devoted to all aspects of postgraduate research. Graduate students and organizers Baptiste Moniez and Tammy Dempster of CCCU did a very commendable job in constructing a brilliant full-day conference packed with information and discussion.
Some background notes: I have been at the University of Kent, which sits on a sprawling green campus atop a hill on the outskirts of the city of Canterbury, since 2002. The city’s other major educational establishment, Canterbury Christ Church University, has its main, compact campus closer to the city center in addition to newly acquired premises around Canterbury. It is natural that there remains some level of competition between Kent and CCCU in Canterbury. They may share a city, but, from my experience, they are much like two different worlds. I might even go as far as to suggest that the University of Kent peers down from its lofty hilltop at the city center university with some level of snobbery. In 8 years, this was sadly my first time at an event on the CCCU campus.
One notable feeling that I took away from the conference was a genuine sense of researcher community – especially across departments – that I have rarely witnessed at Kent. Perhaps this is because CCCU is considerably smaller, with fewer departments overall, so that the research students are likely to work in close proximity and with similar members of staff. There was an impressive and cohesive sense of a graduate/postgraduate entity. Kent’s recent addition of an American-style Grad School has some catching up to do. I also got the impression that, despite challenges along the way, everyone at CCCU really enjoyed their work, their colleagues and had strong relationships with members of staff. Many of the students had returned to higher education from various walks of life or from the sheer desire to “start anew”, which makes for refreshing perspectives sourced by lifelong learning.
In addition to the friendly atmosphere of the conference, it was also carefully planned. There were three sessions in the day, with three to four parallel panels per session and three presenters per panel, grouped into themes. So, for each hour, attendees could choose 3 of a possible 12 presentations to view. Unfortunately, this meant that you had to miss more than you actually saw, but that is the trade-off for other benefits of a single-day conference with plenty of presenters. Most of the attendees were from CCCU (hence the comfortable, “local” feel), but others were from Kent (like myself), Brighton and Brazil.
It was a relaxed day and the contributors and other attendees were genuinely interested to share each other's research and life stories. As one person in a morning session commented, some presentations were like “therapy for PhD students”, whereas others (including mine) were about more specific research projects, how they had developed and what they had learned. The most useful aspect for me was hearing from researchers in other disciplines. I also believe that the conference theme “The Adventure of Research” made for particularly engaging contributions.
I missed the earliest panels, but arrived in time for the second and third sessions. Here’s a brief synopsis of highlights from my day.
The first panel I attended consisted of three presentations offering interesting analogies for the PhD process: comparing it to a journey on a ship (Baptiste Moniez, CCCU), a roller coaster (Paul Hudson, CCCU), and various fairy tales (Maria Lehane, CCCU). Each of these presentations was an informative and very personal look at the doctoral research journey from the unique perspectives of three different fields, including two mature students. I could empathize with both the sailing and rollercoaster analogies, although it tends to be my life around the PhD that is full of turbulent seas and winding tracks, while the research process, bureaucracy, student requirements and supervision have been relatively straightforward and even unproblematic. Maybe I’m the odd one out, but I’ve never felt overwhelmed by the pragmatics and practicalities of doing a PhD. It is life and financial matters that get in the way and threaten to sink the ship. Nevertheless, it is always reassuring to speak with other research students about what are usually quite similar experiences. Commiserating on one’s personal failures is a necessary task for a researchers pursuing academic careers.
Immediately after lunch (the free food was excellent, and not just because it was free), was my turn to present. The response was very positive, and I got the impression that my internet research was both a new subject and a new approach for many listeners, which made it extra enjoyable for me. It is a challenge to present discipline-specific methods and topics to an open audience, but it was well-received. The follow-up questions opened up an interesting dialogue about popular media impressions of the internet, how/why to study technology users and non-users, theoretical concerns behind the “real” and the “virtual” dichotomy, and doing anthropological fieldwork.
After my presentation was Fanny Chan (University of Kent) who discussed her research from the very early stages of her PhD in Marketing/Business. Since anthropologists generally find it unfathomable to consider the marketability and earning potential of their research, listening to business students is like entering a world of mystery and wonder. This presentation focused on television advertising in Hong Kong and the UK, both of which have only recently jumped on the product placement bandwagon as pioneered by the mavericks of televised capitalism over in the USA.
The response from the conference audience to this was fascinating. Virtually all the comments came from the perspective that product placement is wrong and research to encourage its spread borders on sinister. Why do we generally find product placement so repugnant, and new legislation allowing it to take place on TV so off-putting?
Maybe because I’m American and my entertainment background was not shaped by ad-free programming and the BBC (save PBS), I’m perplexed by the uproar. To allow product placement in 2009 does not seem like a radical thing to do. At this point, most people are so used to ads on the internet which enable them to acquire free (and sometimes better-than-paid) services. Acknowledging that money makes the world go ‘round, we develop our own built-in visual filters to skim over things like product placement. While I find it fairly easy to ignore in most American programs, the short clip that Fanny showed from a local HK program was strikingly different. Actors emphatically waved around branded soft drink bottles and rustled a brightly-colored bag of snacks while ecstatically munching on its contents. Are there culture-specific thresholds for this kind of advertising?
Suren Raghavan (Politics/IR, University of Kent) closed the session with his presentation on Sri Lankan politics, religion and violence. Interestingly, he spoke of Political Anthropology – not the “anthropology of politics” as I have come to know it, but as the “politics of anthropology” – and its ramifications for the people who are represented in anthropological work. In face of some of the inadvertent (sometimes negative) impacts that anthropologists can have on the people and places they encounter, Suren calls for re-evaluating the received wisdom from oriental anthropology with regard to Sri Lanka. In particularly, he seemed to emphasize that anthropologists in this area have not adequately perceived the “contexts” of localized politics and have thereby unwittingly fed into ongoing conflicts. Instead, he argues, more attention should be paid to primordial identities. Suren admits that several of his assertions were made to provoke the audience; namely, that violence, religion and nationalism are essentially “in the blood” of all Sri Lankans and that Sri Lanka is in a “pre-modern” state of being, not ready for liberal ideals and certainly not able, at this stage, to “progress”, hence the inherently violent nature of its people.
Religion and nationalism are two of the most dangerous byproducts of humanity. Primordialist, religious, ethno-nationalist, yet also informed and persuasive, academics are therefore a frightening prospect. I had to press Suren on the fact that he did not do justice to “his people” (often using the label “we” and “us” to describe his data) in making primordialist claims. He relied heavily on Anthony Smith and dismissed all suggestions of the constructed nature of identity, projecting the idea of nation back in time as an explanatory factor. Suren was a good sport in the face of my criticisms, but I worry about the applications of these perspectives on local politics, of which he is no doubt an expert and in an ideal position to make essential contributions to Sri Lankan issues. Taking a fatalist approach to inevitable violence and an evolutionary approach to social development seems destined to perpetuate the products of what he attributes to a new version of Buddhism that promotes war and delays peace in Sri Lanka. However, I am sure that his perceptions of all sides of these issues run deeper than could be condensed into a short presentation.
Between sessions and after the close of the day, conference attendees had plenty of time to continue their discussions. An after-conference drink might have been nice, too, but I suppose for those who arrived at 9:00, the day was long enough. I met several interesting research students, none of whom were anthropologists. I like my anthro colleagues, but sometimes a change of outlook is refreshing. The research students from Christ Church were engaged, friendly and inviting. I’m not sure I’ve previously used any of these words to describe their equivalents at my own University in the same city. How does that happen? Perhaps CCCU and Kent students should meet half way up the hill from time to time and next year’s conference could be two-day joint venture.
Some background notes: I have been at the University of Kent, which sits on a sprawling green campus atop a hill on the outskirts of the city of Canterbury, since 2002. The city’s other major educational establishment, Canterbury Christ Church University, has its main, compact campus closer to the city center in addition to newly acquired premises around Canterbury. It is natural that there remains some level of competition between Kent and CCCU in Canterbury. They may share a city, but, from my experience, they are much like two different worlds. I might even go as far as to suggest that the University of Kent peers down from its lofty hilltop at the city center university with some level of snobbery. In 8 years, this was sadly my first time at an event on the CCCU campus.
One notable feeling that I took away from the conference was a genuine sense of researcher community – especially across departments – that I have rarely witnessed at Kent. Perhaps this is because CCCU is considerably smaller, with fewer departments overall, so that the research students are likely to work in close proximity and with similar members of staff. There was an impressive and cohesive sense of a graduate/postgraduate entity. Kent’s recent addition of an American-style Grad School has some catching up to do. I also got the impression that, despite challenges along the way, everyone at CCCU really enjoyed their work, their colleagues and had strong relationships with members of staff. Many of the students had returned to higher education from various walks of life or from the sheer desire to “start anew”, which makes for refreshing perspectives sourced by lifelong learning.
In addition to the friendly atmosphere of the conference, it was also carefully planned. There were three sessions in the day, with three to four parallel panels per session and three presenters per panel, grouped into themes. So, for each hour, attendees could choose 3 of a possible 12 presentations to view. Unfortunately, this meant that you had to miss more than you actually saw, but that is the trade-off for other benefits of a single-day conference with plenty of presenters. Most of the attendees were from CCCU (hence the comfortable, “local” feel), but others were from Kent (like myself), Brighton and Brazil.
It was a relaxed day and the contributors and other attendees were genuinely interested to share each other's research and life stories. As one person in a morning session commented, some presentations were like “therapy for PhD students”, whereas others (including mine) were about more specific research projects, how they had developed and what they had learned. The most useful aspect for me was hearing from researchers in other disciplines. I also believe that the conference theme “The Adventure of Research” made for particularly engaging contributions.
I missed the earliest panels, but arrived in time for the second and third sessions. Here’s a brief synopsis of highlights from my day.
The first panel I attended consisted of three presentations offering interesting analogies for the PhD process: comparing it to a journey on a ship (Baptiste Moniez, CCCU), a roller coaster (Paul Hudson, CCCU), and various fairy tales (Maria Lehane, CCCU). Each of these presentations was an informative and very personal look at the doctoral research journey from the unique perspectives of three different fields, including two mature students. I could empathize with both the sailing and rollercoaster analogies, although it tends to be my life around the PhD that is full of turbulent seas and winding tracks, while the research process, bureaucracy, student requirements and supervision have been relatively straightforward and even unproblematic. Maybe I’m the odd one out, but I’ve never felt overwhelmed by the pragmatics and practicalities of doing a PhD. It is life and financial matters that get in the way and threaten to sink the ship. Nevertheless, it is always reassuring to speak with other research students about what are usually quite similar experiences. Commiserating on one’s personal failures is a necessary task for a researchers pursuing academic careers.
Immediately after lunch (the free food was excellent, and not just because it was free), was my turn to present. The response was very positive, and I got the impression that my internet research was both a new subject and a new approach for many listeners, which made it extra enjoyable for me. It is a challenge to present discipline-specific methods and topics to an open audience, but it was well-received. The follow-up questions opened up an interesting dialogue about popular media impressions of the internet, how/why to study technology users and non-users, theoretical concerns behind the “real” and the “virtual” dichotomy, and doing anthropological fieldwork.
After my presentation was Fanny Chan (University of Kent) who discussed her research from the very early stages of her PhD in Marketing/Business. Since anthropologists generally find it unfathomable to consider the marketability and earning potential of their research, listening to business students is like entering a world of mystery and wonder. This presentation focused on television advertising in Hong Kong and the UK, both of which have only recently jumped on the product placement bandwagon as pioneered by the mavericks of televised capitalism over in the USA.
The response from the conference audience to this was fascinating. Virtually all the comments came from the perspective that product placement is wrong and research to encourage its spread borders on sinister. Why do we generally find product placement so repugnant, and new legislation allowing it to take place on TV so off-putting?
Maybe because I’m American and my entertainment background was not shaped by ad-free programming and the BBC (save PBS), I’m perplexed by the uproar. To allow product placement in 2009 does not seem like a radical thing to do. At this point, most people are so used to ads on the internet which enable them to acquire free (and sometimes better-than-paid) services. Acknowledging that money makes the world go ‘round, we develop our own built-in visual filters to skim over things like product placement. While I find it fairly easy to ignore in most American programs, the short clip that Fanny showed from a local HK program was strikingly different. Actors emphatically waved around branded soft drink bottles and rustled a brightly-colored bag of snacks while ecstatically munching on its contents. Are there culture-specific thresholds for this kind of advertising?
Suren Raghavan (Politics/IR, University of Kent) closed the session with his presentation on Sri Lankan politics, religion and violence. Interestingly, he spoke of Political Anthropology – not the “anthropology of politics” as I have come to know it, but as the “politics of anthropology” – and its ramifications for the people who are represented in anthropological work. In face of some of the inadvertent (sometimes negative) impacts that anthropologists can have on the people and places they encounter, Suren calls for re-evaluating the received wisdom from oriental anthropology with regard to Sri Lanka. In particularly, he seemed to emphasize that anthropologists in this area have not adequately perceived the “contexts” of localized politics and have thereby unwittingly fed into ongoing conflicts. Instead, he argues, more attention should be paid to primordial identities. Suren admits that several of his assertions were made to provoke the audience; namely, that violence, religion and nationalism are essentially “in the blood” of all Sri Lankans and that Sri Lanka is in a “pre-modern” state of being, not ready for liberal ideals and certainly not able, at this stage, to “progress”, hence the inherently violent nature of its people.
Religion and nationalism are two of the most dangerous byproducts of humanity. Primordialist, religious, ethno-nationalist, yet also informed and persuasive, academics are therefore a frightening prospect. I had to press Suren on the fact that he did not do justice to “his people” (often using the label “we” and “us” to describe his data) in making primordialist claims. He relied heavily on Anthony Smith and dismissed all suggestions of the constructed nature of identity, projecting the idea of nation back in time as an explanatory factor. Suren was a good sport in the face of my criticisms, but I worry about the applications of these perspectives on local politics, of which he is no doubt an expert and in an ideal position to make essential contributions to Sri Lankan issues. Taking a fatalist approach to inevitable violence and an evolutionary approach to social development seems destined to perpetuate the products of what he attributes to a new version of Buddhism that promotes war and delays peace in Sri Lanka. However, I am sure that his perceptions of all sides of these issues run deeper than could be condensed into a short presentation.
Between sessions and after the close of the day, conference attendees had plenty of time to continue their discussions. An after-conference drink might have been nice, too, but I suppose for those who arrived at 9:00, the day was long enough. I met several interesting research students, none of whom were anthropologists. I like my anthro colleagues, but sometimes a change of outlook is refreshing. The research students from Christ Church were engaged, friendly and inviting. I’m not sure I’ve previously used any of these words to describe their equivalents at my own University in the same city. How does that happen? Perhaps CCCU and Kent students should meet half way up the hill from time to time and next year’s conference could be two-day joint venture.
Filed under:
academic,
anthropology. postgraduate,
Canterbury,
CCCU,
conference,
experience,
notes,
PGRA,
research,
review
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