Publications

Lecturer jobs require a publication record but I don't have a publication record, yet alone such a record in A* and B* rated journals. How do I get a publication record when I no longer am a research student and don't have a research job?

For the time being, I'm pootling around having fun as a user experience developer on a new OU network for learning, SocialLearn. Sadly, this is not a research associate position and doesn't officially provide the experience or skills that a lecturer needs.

I could:

1. make a participant study of relationships between users and contractors who are developing the web site. That builds on the business research I've done for my PhD
   
2. research the user experience - that builds on research studies in a different field

When I finish

When I finish, I'll get out to the new big wild field and have to market myself for work. Here's advice on marketing yourself from a new OUBS blogger, Terry.

Ridiculous UKBA

I asked my post grad Chinese colleague if she'd got her visa back. Yes!

BUT

it's only extended until the end of January.

Her viva is in February - so soon she'll have to apply to extend it again . They've taken months and months to renew it - what was the point? It's ridiculous.

If the people at UKBA are so overworked that they don't have the time to process it, why do they want more turn-over?

Frustrating day

Yesterday Estates came and pulled the plug on my computer. For Health and Safety reasons, they were meant to provide me with an extension cable and close the socket hatch that was open beneath the foot of my desk. I'd left my computer on while I photocopied something; they arrived, and pulled all the plugs out. I walked in, found two men under my desk. I thought:

"Oh! My computer's off."

and wandered off to do something else. When I got it working again, I was relieved to find my two most important databases, Endnote and Nvivo, were still okay. But this morning when I switched on, it had lost all my personal settings:

• no signature file,
• no Firefox add-ons,
• no history,
• no bookmarks,
• no network directories and
• no printers.

So sending an email meant manually adding contact details, printing wasn't immediately possible.

Thank goodness for the OUBS cheerful techie, who not only sorted it around lunch time muttering imprecations on Estate's head as this is not the first time they've done this, but also commented that he could make my machine work much more quickly and when was I going to be out so that he could clean it up?

I'm out tomorrow - and forgot to get my train ticket for the meeting. I left the office early to get it. So having planned to proof read a transcript and code another, I've only proof read about 5 minutes of a transcript. Frustrating.

Between submission and viva

Our Chinese student who has recently submitted her thesis can't go home. The Home Office has her passport, has had it since April, and not returned it. Although student and the research office and all the Open University officials have contacted the Home Office, still she doesn't have her visa and passport back. She can't go home and get back into the UK for her viva without it, but neither can she work here because she hasn't got a work visa. It's such a shame because these free months are the time when she should be able to go home for a break. But if she can't get back in to take the viva, then she won't get her PhD after her years of hard work.

It's sad and frustrating.