Eventyr

University Cuts

It was announced last week that the following cuts are proposed at the University:

• 115 planned staff redundancies total
• Losses in the schools of Life Sciences, Informatics, English, Engineering & Design, the Centre for Continuing Education, and History
• Redundancies or reduced staffing levels in the Library, IT Services, lab technicians, portering and catering.
• Closure of Unisex, the sexual health and drug/alcohol awareness service
• Redundancy for 11 out of 16 of the university’s student advisers
• Closure of the subsidised childcare service
• Closure of InQbate, a pioneering high-tech learning space
• A 5% cut in Union funding
• Further cuts planned in early 2010

- From 'All the details so far'

The official position is that these cuts are necessary, and are given alongside management claims that the the student experience will be improved (while somehow cutting services that students need and reducing lecturers) and that the university remains committed to research. Emails which say things like "In a number of schools we need to seek financial savings, which will mean reductions in staffing. However, in all cases we will be investing in developing new areas of research and teaching in these schools as a positive approach to the challenges we face" are not helping matters.

40% of academic staff (below professorial level) in Informatics alone are due to be cut. Somehow there are also plans to increase student numbers in the department. I admit to being baffled about who will be left to teach these students, or how it could possibly work.

The week that this all was announced it was noticed that all large meeting rooms at the university had been blocked out so they could not be used - the supposed reasons having since proved to be an 'administration error'... Alongside other incidents this has prompted some to become concerned about the possibility the management are trying to curb freedom of speech.

The drama continues.

In the meantime, this entire thing, while badly managed by upper management, has served to move several groups into action, and appears to be uniting people within departments and across the university in a way that is truly inspiring.

Links:

• THES Article
• UCU
• Stop the Cuts
• Facebook Informatics Stop the Cuts Group
• Facebook University Stop the Cuts Group
• Uni Management on Twitter (spoof)

Extending Deadlines

"By the next morning the Pirate Captain had hit a bit of a wall. He'd spend half the night on his major work, but it wasn't really coming together. It didn't help that every time he got to a tricky bit, he'd play a couple of hands of solitaire or waste half an hour trying on hats. He'd had the boat sailing in circles for a while now, to give himself more time to finish, and he really didn't know how much longer he could keep it up before Marx suspected something."
-- From 'The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists' by Gideon Defoe.

This resonated with me today, as I work on paperwork to extend the deadline for my PhD work, after a lot of time sailing in circles and too many games of solitaire.

However beautiful...

As mentioned in my last post I am now entering the major analysis phase of my research, a phase set to last me a full year.  I have over fifty hours of transcribed audio (interviews and meetings) which I now need to sit down and face.

• December is the narrative extraction phase.  In order to focus on narrative elements in the data, these structures first need to be extracted, broken down into component structures and tagged accordingly.  By extracting narrative structures it is possible to have a clear unit of analysis, as is preferred in qualitative analysis, and limiting an otherwise nebulous and unwieldy dataset.  As mentioned narrative in this instance is being recognised as a discursive element (whether told, recounted or hypothesised) around a causally-linked set of events (i.e. with a temporal structure), whether true, fictitious or partly told.  The data gathered supports a consideration of both types of narrative; the contrast is between stories told in interview (typically event narratives following Labovian structure) and those co-constructed in meetings (shared social stories co-constructed typically following a ‘small story’ structure).
• January to March is the open-coding phase.  This is (fingers-crossed) where some clear hypotheses can be developed and a taxonomy of stories collected will be developed.
• March to May and June to August are the two following analysis phases where hypotheses can be explored more deeply in the data, and some nice story network analysis can be conducted. (Informatics likes it when you can produce visualisations...)

The overall approach directly supports multiple-viewpoint analysis of the topics under investigation and allows for cross-comparison of stories told in interviews and meetings (i.e. under different interactional circumstances).  It also lends itself to a focus on the different types of narrative found in different circumstances, which may have an impact on our understanding of developer coordination in different meeting structures. 

It is a beautiful strategy and a big pile of work.  I have taken the decision to upgrade from my trusty N6 to NVIVO 7 which will be better for visualisations.  I look forward to learning this new software as well.

I look forward to being able to see this work take shape, such that I can see past the methodology to the results.  I have taken heed of my fortune cookie quote from HackDay:

    "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" (Winston Churchill)

Annual Review: My Challenge

Good: Dissemination
Bad: Clarity

That’s the long and short of it.  I’m doing well, we think, but my lack of clarity about my research aim at this stage is still very worrying.  For us all.

Teaching research methods means I am doubly aware of what a horrific state my research is in.  How can I have a full data set and no hypothesis?  What about hunches? What would be the shape of my thesis?

[Intro]
[Literature]
Magical gap which somehow forms:
  [Methodology]
  [Exp 1]
  [Exp 2]
[Conclusions]

Is this the time to re-read all of phd comics to find where I am in the process?

Review which papers have shaped my thinking?

Write an abstract for my research?

Sketch out thesis shape?

Clearly I need to plan for a conference paper which will capture the story of analysis.  I need to break down the next year of analysis; without a testable hypothesis I will need to consider my approach carefully. Analyse a part of the data, or analyse the full data set on a partial axis or theme?  What would such themes be?  Do they entail having already done a partial analysis?  I need to break this down.  If someone wanted to replicate my approach what instructions might I leave?

Ugh.

The following faux-abstract is the sticking point:

“Are agile processes reflected in their social aspect?  A study of developers’ stories in a company applying agile software development practices.  Through their narratives we consider:

• Do agile practices shape stories?
• Do these stories show communication of reflection, willingness to change, other core values?
• How do we interpret programmer narratives?
• Etc.”

Digital Change

The Open University has made its last broadcast, marking the end of an era.
Some 36 years after the first programme, the "televarsity" is moving to media like DVDs and the internet.
But it is less the programmes' educational content and more the 1970s fashions and stilted delivery of presenters that many people will miss.
End of an era for Open University

Positive Time

I am exhausted and possibly ill. 

I have no free time.

I am triple-booked up to my eyeballs.

And yet I am loving every second.

This time things are different, as I am so excited by the many things I am getting to do for my research that I just don't want to stop.

For anyone who may be interested in my research related notes and mumblings, as I meander my way through issues around programmer communication in agile software development, then that can be found over there.

Funding

I've decided that funding is like buses.  You wait for what feels like years for one and then two lots turn up at once...

Typical.

This year should be fascinating.

Eventyr is Go

Right, have finally re-setup my research website (y'know the one that was lost in the ''big crash'').

If I'm quiet here it is probably because I am being talkative there (busy being a full-time student, etc.)...

Research Proposal

So, within the first 9 months, or so, of registration I need to be ready to submit a Research Proposal for the DPhil.

Given what I have read from other proposals the structure is generally as follows:

Introduction
     Research Questions*
Literature Review
     (Split into themes eg field, theory, methodology, application)
Pilot Study*
     Aims
     Methodology
     Categorisation
     Method
     Analysis
     Findings
Project proposal
     Research goal
     Methodology
     Scope
Proposed Studies
     Project Schedule (and chart/table etc.)
Conclusion
Exposure*
Future Work*
Bibliography

(* = Nice if I can add but not necessary)

The length seems to vary from 8,000 to 14,000 on average.

I'd best get cracking.

Getting back into poverty

Registered for Sussex today.

I'll be down £1000 a term, but up a full-time PhD.

That means it's time to start rebuilding eventyr.co.uk and brushing the dust from my books.

One month to go.