Writing with Learning and Thinking

My thesis

2009-04-22T09:09:00.002+01:00

I am glad that my thesis has been in the White Rose Etheses Online now.

Finding your passion

2009-02-23T19:58:00.002Z

Those speeches were one/two years ago, but Randy Pausch's ideas are everlasting. Randy Pausch was a computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. I adore him as a good computing scientist and an excellent educator. I like his speeches very much, for example, the sentence below,

"But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

Here is his last lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams in both English and Chinese.

Interesting sources

2009-02-05T21:09:00.001Z

I haven’t blogged for quite a while because firstly, my job is something new and not very relevant to the original purpose of this blog; secondly, I am still thinking a direction of this blog.

New sources:

Google it...

2008-12-29T19:46:00.002Z

As I moved to a new city, I started to discover it. I like to lounge about the city when I finish my work, and see it's differences and similarities. I also like to ask questions about locations on local forums. However, I got some responses recently, like 'Google it, find the answer yourself'.

Yes, Google can help me find a place, seek for some information I want, however, I suddenly feel that Google is a good searching tool for getting information easily rather than a Q&A tool for exchanging life experiences on the forum. If everybody is good at searching information by Google, do they need to ask questions on a forum?

I suppose some people may say 'Google it first. If yu can not find an answer, going to forum and ask.'

A silly idea: Someday, we might not talk to each other any more or often because we all get information from the Internet or Google it. Just using the online huge information database...

Call for Papers and Special (Invited) Issues

2008-12-29T10:33:00.002Z

JCIT: Journal of Convergence Information Technology focuses on thetheories/technologies/architecture and its applications on the variousaspects of advances in convergence and hybrid Information Technology.

Christmas greetings

2008-12-24T17:55:00.004Z

Hi my friends,

Thank you for all the support and encouragement you have given to me all year long. It is a pleasure to be able to work with you and have lots of good memories in 2008.

Have a blessed and peaceful Christmas holiday. Happy New Year!

Boundless blessings to you all. Miss you all.

Jin

Viva day and viva questions

2008-12-04T23:08:00.000Z

It’s the early morning 9:15am, a normal winter morning. I had my viva. 12:00pm, I was pleased to get the result.

It was lucky that I got much better from the flu and got cough relief before the viva. It was nice to see a best of luck card on my desk before the viva. It was nice to see many of my colleagues in the common room waiting for me and to get their full-hearted hugs when I finished the viva. It was nice to get friends’ blessings from far distance. It was nice to celebrate with you all.

Thanks a lot to many people who help me and are with me during the three years. What I can do now is to share my viva preparation list. Here is a long list of viva questions that I collected and prepared. I hope it’s useful for you. Best of luck for you all too!

Two pieces of news

2008-12-02T17:49:00.001Z

The Learning Technologies Group at Oxford University Computing Services announced its eighth annual one-day conference on educational technologies: Shock of the Old 2009. It calls theoretical or position papers on new academic literacy in areas such as modelling, collaborative working, computer gaming, mash-ups, co-creation and open content.

The nomination for the annual Edublogs Awards of 2008 has been shortlisted.

Connectivism, a new learning theory?

2008-11-30T14:26:00.001Z

I was thinking the terms in learning theories. The researchers named them by different emphases, such as reflective, experiential, informal, virtual, active, inquiry-based and so on. Some of them have certain similar ideas and key points. Also, I com across this article “Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age” written by George Siemens. I agree with him that learning theories have been developing from three dimensions: behavioursim, cognitivism and constructivism. However, for me, the view of ‘connectivism’ is more similar to the dimension of so-called ‘social/realist constructivism’ or ‘collaborative constructivism’. It is another term that stresses the ‘connective’ element in learning.

Juliet Corbin’s view of grounded theory

2008-11-24T15:15:00.001Z

I know that Juliet Corbin has finished the 3rd version of “Basics of Qualitative Research”.

In the literature, arguments between Glaserian and Straussian are continuing. I come across this article “Interview with Juliet M Corbin” wrote by Danny D. Meetoo. Through the interview, we may know a bit about Juliet Corbin, her work with Anselm Strauss, their view of ground theory and Barney Glaser’s view of grounded theory.

News

2008-11-19T10:02:00.002Z

I read an article “Give thanks for academic sleuths” this morning. There is an interesting statement that “Academic researchers play the critical role of financial watchdog.”

In addition, conference news for who are interested in:

International Conference on Academic Libraries
The 8th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies (ECRM 2009)

Conference news

2008-11-09T13:30:00.001Z

The 4th International Conference on Interactive Mobile and Computer Aided Learning (IMCL2009). More details.

Also have a look Journal of Worlds Research if you are interested in it.

Conference news

2008-11-07T10:33:00.000Z

The 16th International Conference of the Association for Learning Technology, ALT Conference 2009 “In dreams begins responsibility: choices, evidence, and change”, Manchester, UK, 8-10 September 2009.

The ALT Conference 2008 review is here.

Reading for meaning

2008-11-05T09:50:00.000Z

If you like reading, you will always find interesting and useful sources for your reading. I came across the National Academies Press website; it provides some free online books.

Yesterday, I attended a study skills session run by the university ELTC. A research student should already have those skills, however, I went there to see what I do know and I don’t know, or only sketchy knowledge.

One and half hour session was very quick. Some interesting data about how much we can remember are below and what I remember now is the SQ3R method: Skim, Question, Read, Recall, and Review.

20% of what you read
30% of what you hear
40% of what you see
50% of what you say
60% of what you do
90% of what you read, hear, see, say and do!

Online research Methods workshop

2008-11-01T19:41:00.002Z

Yesterday I attended a workshop “An introduction to Online Research Methods” run by the University of Leicester.

I felt it’s very useful as it made me reassure what I had known, the online questionnaire method I used when I did my master dissertation project, ethic issues, and also I became aware of key online research issues and learned new ideas about online research methods by practising some useful online tools. This training helps researchers to choose a suitable method if they plan to do online research.

The online questionnaire tool BOS system hosted at the University of Bristol. It is very easy to use. I tried putting an URL in a question, but it does not support HTML, so the user cannot directly click the link. Actually, I tried it, because a few years ago, I used a free online survey service my3q. I wanted the user to go to another online questionnaire to test their personality first, then they told me their personality type and finished my questionnaire. At that time, it did not provide URL function by HTML, now it seems that the function is still a problem. It’s not a big issue, but sometimes, you feel inconvenience.

This questionnaire service has been used by many universities. But, University of Sheffield is not on the list.

The virtual interview (synchronous focus group) is very interesting and impressive. I felt that one to one online interview will be much easier. By this exercise, I felt that the interviewer has to (1) typing very fast (2) always focus on the question he/she wants to ask (3) control the pace (4) interrupt if the discussion has gone somewhere. The software we tried was through University of Leicester, university licence is about £400.

Many useful resources can be found through TRI-ORM website. In addition, one keen attendant suggested a book, it seems called “Interpret Inquiry” (need to confirm).

Library services

2008-10-30T12:01:00.001Z

I felt it is not good of the library service that I experienced this morning in the Information Commons. I borrowed a book a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t read it page by page because I needed it for the case of checking back the quotations or techniques from this book. Yesterday, I found a chapter missed in this book as I needed to read a page in that chapter. Why people stole this chapter? Why did not anyone report it? Why the librarian did not repair it?

This morning, I went to IC to report it before I went to the class at 9 o’clock. An officer from help desk told me that “you only need to return it through the return machine, we will repair it later”. I doubted that how could they know this book is lack of a chapter in the big trolley which is full of books. I asked her “are you sure, you remember this book? Please repair it before lend out.” She repeated what she said. It seems that I did not necessarily report.

Because of hurrying forward to the class, I did not ask more detail. However, I still don’t feel it’s good. I am not a librarian. I don’t know that how can they find out which book misses some pages or is damaged inside. Do they check every returned book before put it on the shelf?

A picture for our research life

2008-10-23T19:17:00.001+01:00

In the office, a picture from the news “a naughty colt stuck her head in a tree hole” makes all of us laugh because it quite vividly describes our research life. Like the small horse, we are curious to know what happened in the observed area, we are questioning and discovering. But we never know what will happen; risks are there. And always we need someone helps us out…

Also, I got the book evaluation SAGE 2008. It might be a reading list…

Online Information Conference

2008-10-15T14:31:00.002+01:00

I got this news: Online Information Conference 2008, covering a full range of online content and information management solutions, publishing and libraries, web search, conducting in-depth research and web 2.0 in information industry. I spot some names that I know from the Loughborough University and my university. The head of my department will give her speech in Track 3: Information Professionals Surviving and Thriving in the New Age on 3 December.

It is not cheap for students to attend, but there is interesting information on the website such as, new products, the free download podcasts and presentations of last year.

The magic square

2008-10-13T21:19:00.004+01:00

I read this chapter “Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning” (Brown et al. 1996) by chance. They give an example of Schoenfeld’s teaching of problem solving. Here is the interesting magic square problem: “Can you place the digits 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, 9 in the box below, so that the sum of the digits along each row, each column, and each diagonal is the same? The completed box is called a magic square.” (Brown et al. 1996: 42) You may already know the answer. If you don't, may have a fun with it or check the answer.

OCLC and Chronicle

2008-10-10T19:02:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, Robin Murray, the vice president of Global Product Management, OCLC was invited to make a presentation about OCLC in my department. It’s a wonderful idea to make the libraries in the world visible and connected, isn’t it? I quickly browsed their website and found some membership reports are quite interesting.

Today, through my Google Alert, I come across an article written by Marie Kingview on the Chronicle of Higher Education. Although it’s mainly US based, it covers many interesting topics, such as Nonacademic Careers for Ph.D.’s.

A funny thing is: I feel that I am in an even worse situation than Marie Kingview. She asked herself, “Why do I have the awful feeling that the only person who is going to read my dissertation is my mom?” Actually, I feel that I even don't have my parents to read my thesis as it’s in English.

Searching information

2008-10-07T17:50:00.001+01:00

Information searching skills are crucial for students in Information Science subject. Actually, it is important for everyone, especially people who use digital information often. For example, today is my typical information searching day.

I got an email from the library which said that my ordered book on interlibrary loan cannot be traced because it is not available at British Library. Thus, I searched the book through COPAC again, printed out the source of reference and asked for a librarian’s help.

I helped two sessions of information searching skills today (mainly about how to use Google). Each time, I felt that I learned something new. As the lecturer said, do what you want the search engine to do rather than it wants to do.

I also came across a webpage which provides some searching tools. I want to recommend trying the tools, such as Highbeam (I run a random search ‘grounded theory’ on it and got many interesting articles of grounded theory research study) and zoominfo (useful for getting business information and competitive intelligence research).

We search information every day. We actually use information searching techniques every day. The skills help us to get the information we want by specifying searching conditions as well as save time on not browsing irrelevant information.

Generation X

2008-10-06T17:03:00.004+01:00

I wrote something about Generation X before. Recently, I found a book randomly, «Developing Information Leaders: harnessing the talents of Generation X» written by Marisa Urgo (2000) in the library. Actually, not only as I expected to know more about ‘Generation X’, but also the book tells me a whole picture of information professionals, in particular, librarianship and information managers. There are some interesting statements below. I didn’t think these are Generation Xers’ issues, but thought it may be common in all generations follows Baby Boomers.

“Who is Generation X? They are loosely defined as the cohort born between 1965 and 1980. This is not just an American cohort. Their characteristics are shared around the world, and the most important of these is the experience of growing up at the dawn of the information revolution. (p.2) “Generation Xers are the first generation born and raised in an information-centred society. It would be easy to say that they are a product of the information revolution, but I do not believe that individuals are so permanently shaped by outside forces.” (p.106)
“Generation Xers want a bargain with their employers, an even exchange of expertise and skills for a good working environment and opportunities to learn and grow.” (p.3)
Wired magazine publishes a column called Jargon Watch, which describes some new terms in ever-changing digital world. It is a good way of updating information professionals/librarians. (p.64)
Build relationships: “The old employer/employee relationship demanded loyalty in exchange for security, but the worker was also expected to check their personal lives at the door.” (p.68) “… Generation Xers do not exhibit the institutional loyalty that was once so important to libraries, especially large public and academic libraries. Reputation and status are not as important to them as personal and professional advantages, and of course, salary. More important, reputation will not attract young talent to a library. There needs to be something more.” (p.91)
“Generation Xers looks work as a lifestyle; they especially keen on the work-life balance.” (p.89)
“Libraries are not necessarily places where staff learn and are motivated to learn. On the contrary, libraries can be places where skills stagnate because learning is not considered a priority.” (p.122)
“… Generation Xers do not seem to be too concerned about the continuity of identity. Their issues are personal. They are more concerned with tangible rewards and even greater opportunities to learn, grow and even make money.” (p.146)
“Generation Xers consider themselves ‘self-navigators’. They believe that it is up to me to create my own well being.” (p.164)
“It is important to note that not every library offers their employees flexibility, challenge, and a sense of purpose. Generation Xers are not staying in library jobs because they are library jobs, they are remaining in the profession because their jobs have these characteristics.” (p.165)

An open academic network

2008-10-01T18:10:00.001+01:00

I came across Academia.edu website which creates a 'tree' of university/department where people are affiliated with. It’s a good idea of building academic network and I think it needs better development to help display the ‘tree’.

I searched ‘University of Sheffield’ and found two departments and ‘Information Studies’ is not there. Therefore, I added it. However, it provides categories: Faculty, post-doc and graduate students. I feel it’s difficult for me to choose one and add myself in, so there is no my name. I also searched ‘Loughborough University’ and found that ‘Information Science’ is already there and some academic people’s names are there.

Viva preparation

2008-09-30T21:04:00.002+01:00

I want to read the book «How to survive your Viva: Defending a Thesis in an Oral Examination» by Rowena Murray. Unfortunately, it’s not in the library. I got a few online resources.

Maybe I shouldn’t think too much. What I need to do is to believe that I will get the degree successfully and read through my thesis …

Growing up is about learning, knowing yourself

2008-09-28T17:30:00.005+01:00

I have many things need to be done. But also I need a break, I watched Ugly Betty Season 3 Episode 1. I haven’t really watched every episode, but heard that this is a new one. A friend told me that she dislikes this comedy as it’s not her type of humour, and it doesn’t really reflect the reality. Movie is movie. I watched it because I feel that Betty is brave, self-confidence and a dreamer with her feet on the ground. I pretty like the dialogue between Betty and her father in this episode.

Betty: “…Everything happened to me today. It’s like I totally regressed. I acted like a child… You’re right, dad, I was being naïve, I thought I grew up on this trip, but obviously I haven’t.”

Father: “…Can’t you see? You do it now. Growing up isn’t about making the right decision; it’s about dealing with the decision you made, and picking yourself up. Not easy…You can do it. Right now, these things, these moments, this is growing up.”

Learning and teaching developments

2008-09-26T16:27:00.000+01:00

It’s interesting to see Job interview 2.0. This kind of interview question was popular 5 years ago in China. Probably nowadays, using some riddles becomes more common, therefore it is given a fashion name, interview 2.0. Also, it is nice to listen to this podcast of supporting academic staff’s work.

Sometimes, I was thinking what are the purposes of higher education? Making students learn themselves and the world better, have a sustainable developing career in their life, be wellbeing, become wise, build confidence about their values whatever they do, or gain survival skills?

Anyway, it was nice to help the introduction session for new BSc students at the department yesterday. I quite enjoyed the activities, especially the description of a range of jobs in Information Science area. It offers a general picture of the subject for undergraduates and makes them have awareness about how the degree (what they will learn) links to their future career. Meanwhile, the group task of presenting a good team member also helps them reflect on how to work collaboratively.

Exciting?

2008-09-18T15:54:00.004+01:00

Many people asked me if I am exciting when I see the completed thesis. Actually, now I am not as exciting as the moment of getting the agreement of submission from my supervisors. It is good to see the thesis is ready. I took a picture to remember: 3 years 2 months and 18 days (1166 days from the day I registered to today).

It’s interesting that when I look at the thesis, I suddenly remember a question in a recent interview: How do you guarantee the quality of your thesis? I think I didn’t answer it thoroughly on that day. Better I put down my answer as follows. You may have your answers.

Academic reference books (e.g., How to get a PhD and the University’s regulations for theses)
University training courses (e.g., I mentioned this in my previous entry)
Consulting recently submitted theses in my department as examples
My supervisors have supervised many doctoral students successfully; they are important sources
Opening my research to wider audiences (e.g., published articles). It helps me assure the research
When I have built self-confidence of my research and I feel clear about what I have studied.

In addition, the picture in my profile was taken in August 1998. Now, it is September 2008. I cannot imagine 10 years are past now. It’s a chance to look back and consider what I have done over the last 10 years…

Two blogs

2008-09-13T11:12:00.001+01:00

This blog created by Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins presents geographical theories and practice. A map generated according to the Worldmapper cartograms of social and economic statistics by Prof. Danny Dorling was shown on the University of Sheffield homepage.

On Intute: Social Sciences blog, Paul Ayres talked about Where are the UK academic bloggers?

English writing

2008-09-09T18:14:00.001+01:00

There are some UK and U.S. spelling problems in my thesis writing. I feel it is necessary to put the typical ones on my blog:

UK spelling vs. U.S. spelling:
analyse vs. analyze
behaviour vs. behavior
centre vs. center
colour vs. color
conceptualise vs. conceptualize
dialogue vs. dialog
emphasise vs. emphasize
favourite vs. favorite
practise (v.) vs. practice
programme vs. program
rigour vs. rigor
travelling vs. traveling

Also, some sources online help to check.
http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwesl/egw/jones/differences.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/us/?view=uk
http://www.tysto.com/articles05/q1/20050324uk-us.shtml

Two recent research studies on blogs

2008-08-27T17:53:00.001+01:00

Baumer, E. et al. (2008). “Exploring the role of the reader in the activity of blogging”. In: Proceedings of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, 5-10 April 2008. Florence, Italy [Online]. ACM. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1357228

Schmidt, J. (2007). Blogging practices: An analytical framework. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 13. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/schmidt.html

2008-08-26T10:25:00.001+01:00

One of my colleagues asked me how I presented findings of a qualitative study. As I used grounded theory, I follow the suggestions by Glaser, Strauss and Corbin.

I think he just wanted to assure his own writing. I suggested him to read:

Wolcott, H.F (2001). Writing up qualitative research. 2nd ed.London: Sage.
Holliday, A. (2002). Doing and writing qualitative research. London: Sage.

Also, I remember a skill that I used when I created the structure of my thesis. We know that Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Conclusions are almost in every thesis. Besides these, what shall we cover in the thesis? Didn’t look at any of my writing, found a quiet place, I asked myself “tell people your research using a few sentences in two minutes”, then I had to organise my thoughts and speak out some key points to indicate my research. I wrote these points on a paper. Then they become a draft of chapters in my thesis, such as methodology, finding 1, finding 2, finding 3, contribution to the existing literature, implications of the research, limitations and further studies. Afterwards, I used the same skill, asking myself “tell people about your finding 1 in two minutes”, I organised my thoughts, focused on one aspect and spoke out several key points to explain this aspect. Then I wrote down them. These become sections of this chapter. Then I did similarly for each of these aspects. This is how my thesis structure initially generated. I feel it is helpful for me and it works well because it denotes all the significant points in the research.

Therefore, I suggested him to try it. Hope it is a good way to clarify your thoughts and check the work you have done.

Physically addicted or mentally addicted

2008-08-23T12:11:00.000+01:00

I used the phase “physically addicted” in my thesis as I assumed the younger generation (or ‘digital natives’) is addicted to be online or in a virtual world. They do not control their online behaviours. They physically are online everyday and sit in front of computer. It becomes a habit or daily routine, neither self-aware nor self-tolerate. However, when I searched its meaning online, I felt that it is not a suitable phrase. Then I was thinking to use “mentally addicted” to indicate this meaning, because what I want to describe is not as abnormal or severe or awful as symptoms they identified. It isn’t like a medical matter of drugs, smoking, etc.

This sense of addition of being online or using the Internet is in a scope of acceptation, but it might become worse if there isn’t self-awareness in the long term. A few days ago, I felt that I should use a more appropriate term. Maybe ‘Internet addiction’ or ‘virtual addition’ is proper.

Today’s event, Information literacy and its usages

2008-08-13T22:11:00.001+01:00

I haven’t updated my blog for a while because first, I am busy with preparing my thesis submission and doing a final checking; second, I use my other time to watch Olympic Games, being moved by the spirits of the athletes.

It’s good to attend today’s Centre for Information Literacy Research: summer event and see a good example of using PhD research findings in practice, for instance, teaching and further research studies.

Meanwhile, there is an academic ranking of world universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

A few sources

2008-07-31T15:01:00.001+01:00

A conference source: CAL’09 – Learning in Digital Worlds
An interesting entry: The Influence Spectrum: From Blogging to Academic Research
Academic Library 2.0
Adult learning theories for health Librarians

IADIS Multi Conference

2008-07-25T16:45:00.004+01:00

Just come back from the IADIS Multi Conference – ICT, Society and Human Beings 2008 in Amsterdam.

I think this year, it had less attendances and more different voices than last year. I enjoyed the presentations by Prof. Gunilla Bradley and Prof. Margaret Tan. The discussions about privacy, social capital, social interaction, government, different countries and how to using online social resources were interesting.

Luckily, all my friends attended my presentation and I got two questions. I felt that the one who asked me question (suggested me to use networking analysis software) didn’t really understand my empirical study.

However, I had a couple of busy and good days in Holland. It’s a very beautiful country.

A day to remember

2008-07-18T22:04:00.009+01:00

I had an interview today. It’s mainly about Semantic Web (Web 3.0) technologies. I enjoyed the discussion about Web 3.0 even though I feel pretty down now. Two points I particularly put here for warning myself:

(1) Answer questions – Avoiding Chinese way, need to focus and straightforward.
(2) Sensitive insight – link yours to others, and the implications

Anyway, I list some resources about Web 3.0.

Web 3.0 on Wikipedia

A keen discussion about Web 3.0

Berners-Lee, T. Hendler, J. and Ora Lassila, O. (2001). The Semantic Web. Scientific American.

Hoel, T. (2007). Towards a Semantic Infrastructure for Learning, Education and Training

Shadbolt, N., Hall, W. & Berners-Lee, T. (2006). The Semantic Web Revisited. IEEE Intelligent Systems.

Web 3.0 examples:

Leiki is an example of using Web 3.0 technologies to develop software products.

Google map:

Google web translation:

Adapt yourself to it or find a suitable way for yourself?

2008-07-16T10:45:00.002+01:00

I found an interesting thing that is relevant to different learning styles between me and my colleagues.

The example is about using EndNote. I think most doctorial students know that we need to manage a large amount of references and use them a lot in our writing. The university, supervisor or department often introduce one or two tools to us. In my department, most of us use EndNote.

One day, a new colleague asked me, how he could import references from a Word document to EndNote. He didn’t use any tool to manage reference but just put them into a Word document. Now he found it’s inconvenient. He wanted to use EndNote. As I know, it’s easy to export references from EndNote into a Word document, from a database into EndNote, from a specific format file into EndNote, but not from a Word document to EndNote. Therefore, I suggested him to check FAQ on the EndNote web site or ask them if they have any solution. He didn’t want to type all references into EndNote again. Yes. It’s a repeated job.

Yesterday, he told me that he found a way to solve it. He created his own reference database using Microsoft ACCESS and decided to mange the reference through Microsoft EXCEL and ACCESS. According to his preference and situation, it’s easy and saves his time.

This made me remember another colleague who had graduated already. He didn’t use any reference management software, rather purely used Microsoft Word to mange all his references. He also felt that EndNote is not easy to use. I assumed that he met the problem of re-inputting all references into EndNote because of the impossibility to import data from Microsoft Word into EndNote.

Here, I don’t want to say the problem of EndNote, but the way of solving the problem. It’s a reflection of our learning style. I touched EndNote in 2004, my supervisor suggested me to use it for my Master dissertation. I used to adopt Microsoft Word, since then I started using EndNote. I remember that I did re-input about 40 references. It wasn’t a lot comparing a doctorial student’s reference resources. If I have problems of using EndNote, I will search solutions online or ask experienced people to help me sort out. So far, it’s basically enough for my demand. Thus, you can see, my way is to try it, to fit in with it and to search different ways to help myself fit it. However, these two colleagues, they do not bother the tools. They didn’t change and try to fit it, rather, they looked for a way which is suitable for their individual tastes. If we observe, there are many interesting examples like this.

new sources

2008-07-12T10:43:00.001+01:00

Webology covers many peer-reviewed web2.0 relevant articles. My previous colleague Dr. Yazadan Mansourian have already had a few articles there.

The Top 100 Liberal Arts Professor Blogs lists 1oo useful blogs.

Recent unexpectedly findings

2008-07-09T15:57:00.003+01:00

Google has developed many useful tools, such as Google Apps and this introduction from UBC tells us a new application Google Lively. I feel Google Docs is very useful for research students who want to share and manage their research work (e.g., conference presentation, publications) on the web. Google Lively just gives me a feeling that in the future people who are online will have to have a virtual identity and create their imaginations online.

“Research Blogging helps you locate and share academic blog posts about peer-reviewed research”. It is quite good for new research students to set up their projects and engage in a wider open review and discussion.

Again, a blog entry about “why do people blog”.

A blog about social software and Web 2.0 by Peter Bihr.

A list of science blogs by Wouter Gerritsma.

A reflection on today’s research project management workshop

2008-07-01T21:46:00.005+01:00

I had attended Alan Rousseau’s "creative” training a year ago. Today, I attended his “Project Management Skills” workshop. His training helps us to realise the common pitfalls of fail projects and learn about ourselves I think. He provided a model of project manage. Centred on this model, we did two practical exercises to learn project management techniques.

I do not provide his model here because I think that’s related to the copyright. There are many useful suggestions in today’s training. What I’m putting here are those points I feel important and those things I learned rather than forget soon.

He listed some important suggestions about “What does ‘Quality’ look like in a PhD thesis” by concluding thesis examiners’ views, including 9 aspects: presentation, Integration and coherence, Originality and Creativity, Review of relevant literature, Statement of the research problem, Methods, Analysis and Discussion of outcomes. It was adapted from Richard Winter, Morwenna Griffiths, Kath Green (2000). The ‘academic’ qualities of practice: What are the criteria for a practice-based PhD? Studies in Higher Education. 25(1), pp.25-37.
Negotiate at the beginning with your supervisor (or someone that manage the project). The aim is to clarify, to identify the aim before start to plan, and to be on the right direction.
Refine your focus after planning and don’t be limited to your plan. (a quotation from someone “when fact changes, I change my mind”).
Define project goals through 6 criteria and 3 questions
Be clear what is an assumption, what is a fact. Ask yourself that what assumptions have you taken?
Don’t plan it until you feel confident about it.
See your supervisors as resources, ask your supervisor “what’s the matter” when they suggested you to do something.
Efficient vs. Effective (think about what did you do about your research, efficient or effective?)
Efficient is “do things right”
Effective is “do right thing”
Think about why you need to do the project at the beginning and clear the 4 roles in a project: users, sponsors, suppliers and project manager. As a research student, you’re supplier as well as project manager. As a project manager, you need to delivery quality, planning, coordinating, and communication.
Using the matrix of “likely” and “Impact” to manage project risk.

(The picture is my group work of the first exercise - Word project. It failure lies in an unclear objective “quantity rather than quality”)

My experience as a student in Chinese and British HE

2008-06-29T00:40:00.004+01:00

Link to learning, one question I met often is what are differences between Chinese higher education (HE) and UK HE? In LTEA conference, a similar question, does Chinese use Inquiry-based learning?

I felt that I might need to write something about my own experience through comparing the HE in these two countries. But apparently, my personal experience involved in HE in China was during 1993-2000 and in the UK is during 2003-2008. It’s unfair to compare the educational system in ten years ago China and today’s UK and it has a strong culture context as well. I am not a teacher. What I’m writing here is a view from a learner. I want to list my humble ideas of the key differences based on a reflection on my personal experience. I got benefits from both educational systems as well as had negative experience of both systems. I don’t judge it’s bad or good here because I do believe things are always changing, improving and my experience doesn’t represent a serious research result.

C (HE in China) – U(HE in the UK)
(1) the relationships between teachers and students (undergraduates)

C- Teachers are highly respected by students. There are two examples of Chinese education ideas. According to Han Yu’s (768-824) idea, a teacher is the person who gives all he knows to students, tells them the way to live, and answers students’ questions. Also Confucius (551-479BCE) said, for one day as my teachers, forever I respect them as my parents. Students therefore see a teacher as the one who is wise, knowledgeable and learned. It’s very rude to call a teacher’s name directly.

U- Teachers are facilitator. A teacher is a person who is knowledgeable and helps students to learn. Students do not respect a teacher as their parents but a teacher or a friend. There is an equal sense. Therefore, it’s normal that students call a teacher’s name directly.

(2) the relationship between supervisors and students (postgraduates)

C- A supervisor is a boss and a person who directs students. A lot of research is industry project based. Students do research for the boss most of time and need to report their work to supervisors regularly. Supervisors and students have good relationships. Most of supervisors invite their students to their home for a dinner or meet together in restaurant during big festival time. In general, a student’s achievement reflects the achievement and abilities of his/her supervisor. Therefore, if a student got fail, then it directly affected the supervisor’s fame and further recruiting students.

U- Supervisors are people who give students advices and suggestions. They are likely to meet students on a regular basis and check the student’s progress. The student is expected to have their own research opinions and interests. Supervisors and students have good relationships and the relationship is like colleagues and friends. Not so many supervisors will invite students to go to their home or together for a meal; they prefer to talk with students in a relaxed place, such as cafe. It seems that a student’s achievement/failure does not affect their supervisor’s fame so much. It’s mainly the student’s responsibility.

(3) students’ behaviours (in the classroom and campus)

C- In general, the university has certain regulations to guide students’ behaviours, such as do not wear high-heel shoes, sunglass, hat, and flip-flops in classroom; do not dye hair red, green or bright colour. Do not leave the classroom when the teacher is talking or without their permission. When the teacher walks into the classroom, all students have to stand up and say “good morning” or “good afternoon” to the teacher. When teacher asks a student question, the student needs to stand up and answer. In addition, I rarely see students sit on stairs, a corridor or the ground in the classroom building.

U- Students are very free, wear what they want and even have their breakfast in the classroom when the teacher is talking. Students don’t stand up when they answer questions and they do not stand up when a teacher comes into the classroom.

(4) the visibility of student’s examination results

C- It is open to everyone, the student’s name, registration number, subject and score. So I know my classmates’ results and they know mine. If it’s an excellent/worst essay, it might be presented in the class as an example. I didn’t feel it’s something very private as from primary school to university, my examination results were visible to people. My results of each semester were often directly sent to my parents by the university.

U- It’s private. Only the student and the teacher know the results.

(5) the style of teaching

C- seminar-style; mainly individual coursework; often the teacher is talking from the beginning to the end of the class; sometimes they call a student’s name to answer a question.

U- workshop-style; many group works; more discussion in classroom between peers as well as the teacher and students; more interactions.

(6) negotiation of assignment

C- It’s not often that a student negotiates the submission or results of an assignment with the teacher.

U- It’s normal that a student negotiates the submission or results of an assignment with the teacher.

(7) reference and bibliography style in writing

C- Emphases copyrights, but not highly stress the bibliography and reference styles.

U- Highly emphases copyrights, bibliography, reference styles and the origin of a source.

(8) textbook and reading list

C- In general, textbook fees are included in the tuition fee. Textbooks will be selected and bought by the teacher and issued to every student in the first session of a module. The teacher will suggest some important and relevant books/articles to students; but they won’t check if the students read them or not. Students often focus on those textbooks and notes they made in the class.

U- Often the teacher will suggest some books or a reading list to students in each session. They do not focus on one or two books. In general, students have handouts from the class or resources online that they can access to. Students need to read a wide range of books and articles.

(9) roll-call

C- In general, the teacher checks who does not turn up in the class and calls the roll at the beginning of a class session.

U- The teacher does not check who is missing so often.

(10) class time and arrangement

C- Class sessions are arranged at 8:00-12:00am; 2:00-5:00pm; 7:00-9:00pm. Students have two hours noon break. Each lesson is about 50 minutes and 10-20minutes break between two lessons. Students often study by themselves in scheduled time or free time such as evening time in library or any classroom that is available. In general, a class building is close at 10:00pm. There was no out of hour training at that time.

U- Class sessions are often arranged at 9:00am-4:00pm. There is no particular lunch break; some classes are at 12:00-2:00pm. There is no evening sessions and most classrooms are not available after 6:00pm and students who use the room in the class building need to apply out of hour training. Students often study by themselves in library or their own accommodation.

(11) students’ accommodation

C- Arranged by the university and it’s not one person per room, but a few (2-8) students shared one room. Female and male students are arranged in different buildings separately. Students from different faculties are often arranged in different buildings or different floors. Normally female students are free to go into male students’ accommodations, whereas male students need to get permission from the officer who is in charge of the female’s accommodation to go into a female student’s accommodation. Students who lived in one room always built good and long relationships. They are like sisters or brothers.

U- Booked by students before they arrive at the university. Often in one building, there are female and male students unless the student has the requirements to have same gender students in the same flat. One student per room or a few (2-8) share one flat or a house.

(12) library services

C- Seldom that a library opens 24 hours; not enough books, journals and international journals; limited accessibility; very limited online databases and sources; lack of experienced academic librarians to help students (I do feel there are lots of functions and services that Chinese libraries need to develop)

U- More accessible to diverse sources; flexible services; professional librarians; lack updated books and journals.

(13) examination

C- The university does not have invigilation team. Often teachers invigilate students that they teach or students from the same faculty. Students need to prepare everything that they need in the exam by themselves.

U- The university exam office often provides good exam invigilation team to support and help students attend exams smoothly. They provide many services, such as drink, pens, tissues, etc.

(14) career development

C- Seldom part-time jobs or placement chances for students. Students have practical work opportunities when they are in the final year or do dissertation.

U- Encourage students to do part-time job/voluntary work, placement job. Students have many practical work opportunities.

(15) curriculum

C- To all undergraduate students, Sports, Politics, English are compulsory courses. Many courses are compulsory and a few are optional.

U- Students are more flexible to choose what they are interested in and they are able to change modules easily when they feel the course is not suitable for them.

(16) social activities in universities

C- Students often have social activities in the campus. They go dancing at weekend nights, engage in sports, go to English corner to practice English and meet people, go to cinema, play Karaoke, outings, societies based on interests, cook and chat over tea, engage in sports meetings (every year once, every class will be involved), etc.

U- drink, societies based on interests, sports, outings, people often meet in a café or bar, quiz night, weekend “give it a go” trip, cinema. The university does not hold a sport meeting every year.

(17) military training

C- Almost every freshman needs to attend a military training in the first month of their freshman year. The soldiers train students as soldiers. Students wear military uniform and learn shooting, target practice, walk in goose-steps, sing warsongs and behave like a real soldier. Students like those trainers, soldiers and regard them as brothers. The training is unforgettable experience.

U- Not in a general university

(18) individual and the collective

C- A student does not have a strong feeling of individual. There is a sense that a student is always related him/herself to a class or the collective. The class, the flat, the subject or the collective is the core of a unit.

U- Students are very independent. There is a sense that a student is an individual and the individual is the core of a unit.

(NB. There is an article from the Higher Education Careers Services Unit (HECSU), you may be interested in reading.)

The third day of LTEA 2008

2008-06-28T00:34:00.003+01:00

Prof. Philippa Levy’s inquiry technologies session calls our attention to the statement of “digital natives” and “the role of technologies in designing inquiry-based learning”. She mentioned “phoebe pedagogic planner”, “London Pedagogy Planner” and talked about the usefulness of LAMS in inquiry-based learning. The use of technology is related to learning styles, disciplines and levels.

Dr George Allan’s workshop “the basics of inquiry-based learning” is interesting and helpful. His explanation of the approach (IAE-Interpreting, Analysis, and Explanation) to motive students to make inquiries in learning is very practical.

In Prof Angela Brew’s speech, she talked about an integrated model of teaching and research (Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching: Beyond the Divide. London PalgraveMacmillan).

There is a global conference “Enquiry Based Learning: The Future is now”, 21-25 June 2010, Sheffield Hallam University, Centre For Promoting Learner Autonomy, United Kingdom. Further information emailing cpla@shu.ac.uk

Although I have been in Sheffield about 3 years, it’s the first time to visit the Peak District.

(the picture is the door on Queen Mary’s Brower, Chatsworth House)

Inquiry today’s inquiry-based learning sessions

2008-06-26T21:33:00.004+01:00

It’s a rainy day. Reflections on what I got today.

I feel that inquiry-based learning has a premise that it’s student-centred firstly. We see these concepts “student as producer”, “student as designer”, “student as action researcher”, “student as scholar”, “lifelong learner” and so on. Secondly, inquiry-based learning is directly related to self-authenticity as we see those terms “self-directed”, “self-reflection”, “self-evaluation”, “engagement”, “self-perception”, etc.

Multiple technologies (Web 2.0 technologies, e.g., Wikis, Blogs, Blackboard VLE, online journal, Skype, MSN messenger, video conference, webcam, film) have been designed and applied into practice. It seems that blogs and mobiles were not mentioned too much comparing to the use of Wiki and Blackboard by educators to trace students’ contributions to groupwork, collaboration or learning process and to evaluate students’ reflections and development.

Dr. David Hodge mentioned a few learning theories and books in the keynote speech; an important one is “The Learning Paradigm College” written by Robert B. Barr and John Tagg. I googled an article. Through Dr. Hodge’s talking, I see a further and deeper view. It calls my attention on the relationship between ‘age issue’, ‘learning’ and ‘creativity’. It makes me think again that knowledge is not certain, the view of knowledge is it is social construction and contextual. The outcome of learning may fail, but learning is never failed. Learning reflects that the student become see him/herself as a member of a larger community of something (e.g., culture, subject, discipline, etc). To me, it brings a series of questions: is it a learner’s attitude to him/herself in the world; is it a learner’s belief of him/herself in the world; is it a position that the learner locates him/herself, or is it self-identity?

Here is an interesting question from the session “Cultural Academy: a new approach to learning”:

“Who I am” and “who I am not” by thinking of your culture. Triggered another question “Who I am” and “who I am not” by thinking of your discipline/subject.

LTEA Conference 2008: Inquiry in a Networked World

2008-06-25T18:59:00.003+01:00

I attend the 3rd Learning Through Enquiry Alliance (LTEA) Summer Conference hold at the University of Sheffield.

As a student also a jobseeker for a new career, I am quite interested in engaging in the collaborations of inquiring “inquiry-based learning”. A bit pity that I don’t have experience of designing modules as well as many issues/questions that may meet in teaching. That’s why I attend it, to learn what I don’t know and find out what I did know.

The discussions about the concept of “inquiry-based learning” is on the wiki.

I learned how to make decisions of using IT in EBL and designing modules. Actually, I feel it would be better if separated each case into a single session because all the module cases are so interesting. Also, I wonder how much time the staff will spend on using IT during running the module and how do they handle the issue that students do not like the specific technology.

Two questions I was asking myself during the sessions:
Q1: What did I learn 10 years ago in class? How much do I still remember?
My answer: most of them may already return to my teachers, but also a lot of them have become a part of my skills/knowledge.
Q2: How do we promote students’ will or passion of learning?
An answer off the top of my head: to find out what their interests and preferences/styles are first…

Reflective thinking of blogging by bloggers

2008-06-20T10:52:00.007+01:00

In the long run, I want to see what the blog brings to me by being a blogger and have a solid statement about my own experience of using blogs. That’s why I haven’t stopped this blog; just sometimes I feel that my ideas run dry or I have no useful information to post, then I don’t update it at all.

“The little professor” is an example of blogs by people in academia. There are many useful links about library, literature, history on this blog.

Is it easy to maintain a blog by an academic? There may be an answer by Arunn. Blogs allow the blogger to not only purely contribute on providing academic-related information and ideas, but also self-expression (or say, self-indulgent?). I come across a series of blogs starting the “New Kid on the Hallway”. Without regard to the validity of these sources, the bloggers’ reflective thinking about their feelings of blogging to an extent supports my own study findings.

I quoted a few statements from the blogs:

“…yes, makes it blogging-as-therapy, but in the spirit of the political being personal and vice versa, it's therapy that the academic profession needs as much as I do. It's not therapy because I'm somehow singularly ill-adjusted; it's therapy because, I firmly believe, many academic settings are hostile to women (and men who wish to challenge traditional gender roles) and there is a fundamental problem with maintaining a balance between the personal and the professional in academia. … As I've said, I don't plan on giving it up, but I also want it to continue to be something of which I'm proud, so there may be periods of neglect when I don't feel like I have something of substance to say.” (from entry: If I'm a blogger, there must be navel-gazing)

“… I found a way to keep blogging. Because I realized it mattered to me… I suppose the reason that I haven't is that this medium has really allowed me to figure out who I am as a writer, and it's allowed me to situate myself as an academic in a way that scholarly writing doesn't…. I've never wanted to blog as a means to enhancing my professional standing or as a means to any sort of material success. That's why this blog doesn't bear my name, and that's why I don't do ads on the blog, although I probably could make some (small change) money if I did. No, I started the blog because I wanted not to write in a vacuum. … I'm under no illusions that this is an Important Blog That Does Important Things. It's not. Sometimes it's insightful, sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes it's just crap. But whatever it is, I do feel like it does good stuff, for me, and I hope for you…. a blog really can grow with a person. …blogging isn't for everyone.” (from entry: Blogging Angst, Reassigned Time by Dr. Crazy)

“I am perhaps being hard on myself*...it's true that I've blogged here for support and company and - dare I say it - friendship. That's been important at some crucial times. But I feel as if I'm expecting people to respond to me, demanding something of them somehow, and that makes me uncomfortable…. I suppose all of this is brought into relief, in a sense, because right now I'm going through something on a personal level that I can't imagine blogging about. Though I know it would make some fascinating reading, there's no way I am going to put it out there on a blog. That recognition has made me question why I've put other things out there in the past, and whether it's been for purely narcissistic reasons...Am I reluctant to put the new thing out there because it doesn't necessarily demand sympathy but shows me in a much more complex and possibly harsher way?” (from entry:Post-blogiversary thoughts, Clashing hats by Hilaire)

Useful sources

2008-06-18T15:31:00.002+01:00

SEOmoz 2008 Web 2.0 Awards provides a shortlist of 174 web 2.0 websites in 41 categories.

Two new books:

Academic Library Blogs: 231 Examples by Walt Crawford
Web-Based Learning Through Educational Informatics: Information Science Meets Educational Computing by Prof. Ford Nigel

Reading literature in a GT study

2008-06-16T12:04:00.004+01:00

I reread Glaser’s book «Theoretical Sensitivity: Advances in the Methodology of Grounded Theory» and found Glaser’s (1978: 139) following statement of reading literature in Grounded theory theoretical writing. Linking back to my early post “Literature review in grounded theory” (31 January 2008), it can be seen that Glaser did not say that an analyst’s preemption of a studied area is matter. He suggested that reading literature is a part of the ‘discover’ process and the literature is selected and used in relation to the ‘comparative analysis’ method.

“Reading: We have said that during data collection, coding, memos, and sorting of memos, the analyst should read in other fields so as not to preempt his thoughts regarding the significant variables in the substantive area under research. The analyst should continue this rule throughout the initial draft, if his sorting has not reached a firm integration. This maximizes on another dimension the emergence of his theory.

But when he starts reworking his draft he should make a concerted effort to cover as much literature as possible in the same area in which he is writing his theory. Now the job is to compare his work to others and weave it into its place in the pertinent theoretical and substantive literature. It also sensitizes the analyst to reworking his theory to the best advantage, as he studies how others are theorizing in the field. As noted above, integrative placement of ideas by supplementing, extending, and transcending others’ work is the issue, not their preemption of his ideas.” (Glaser, 1978: 139)

For Saturday

2008-06-14T16:32:00.006+01:00

It's a sunny day. I passed by the Ponderosa Park and caught the Peace in the Park carnival.

I come across J.K. Rowling’s commencement speech at Harvard: The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination. It's worth listening when I am about to graduate.

Then, I come across this article "Blog smog: A look at life on the web". It's a bit out of date, but the sources listed there are interesting.

Read blogs and inquiry

2008-06-10T11:29:00.001+01:00

Sometimes you don’t know why the author created a blog and contributes to it, and sometime it is difficult to find out their intentions on the blog too. But, you feel it is interesting, the information is worthy of reading. Then you start reading the blog and even don’t think who wrote it and what the purpose of the blog is. I assume most people like this. I may be wrong as I don’t have any statistical data about it. Are there many people read a blog and ask questions, such as who are the authors? where are they from? who are their target audiences? Do they write for a group of people or for readers widely?

For example, Scatterplot is a blog that I come across today. I don’t know any of the authors. I read the entries and comments. It’s interesting and very useful for me to some extent.

News about a conference

2008-06-09T13:18:00.000+01:00

There is a conference source: Valuing Higher Education: SRHE Annual Conference 2008 and Postgraduate and Newer Researchers Conference 2008. (9-11 December, Liverpool, UK)

Scripts about blogs in a movie

2008-06-09T13:14:00.003+01:00

Recently, I am obsessed by a feeling of ignorance. The more I read and study, the stronger I feel that I know a little and I am able to do a little, to work in fewer and fewer areas. Is it what learning tells me about?

On the weekend, I watched a movie “Sydney White and the Seven Dorks”, which is said that it’s based on the “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” fairy tale. I learned some new words from the movie. Here are a few interesting scripts from the movie:

- “Does anyone know another word for ‘douchebaggery’? I don’t want to use it a third time.”
- “Gurkin, no one reads your whiny blog anyway.”
- “Peoplespunisher.com is not about being read. It’s about being written.”

It sounds that it’s important to have a space to write no matter whether people read it or not. Does it mean the blogger has amazing creativity or is self-appreciation?

A resource about writing

2008-06-05T18:23:00.000+01:00

You may be interested in the writing handbook on Capella University's Online Writing Centre

How to explain my research findings?

2008-06-01T17:33:00.003+01:00

In a short conversation, I got the questions from one of my colleagues, “What’re findings of your study?”, “How do they facilitate learning?”, “Do your findings answer your research questions?”

I know these may be the questions in the viva. But I feel it’s very difficult for me to answer this kind of question in a normal conversation. If I answer ‘yes’, I may just tell people one or two key points in my mind, but not the whole story; if I answer ‘no’, I may say that I found/did nothing. I start to doubt myself, “Are you really clear of your study and your findings?”, “Do you really have a clear picture of your research?”

Writing is thinking. I hope I do have very clear answers when I finish my whole thesis. Now, it is hard because: one reason is that it is a grounded theory study, which is to present a process of generating a theory. It’s not like a quantitative research, answering like, ‘yes, I found A has relationship with B, B has high connection with C, A is no significant effect on C, etc, etc’. Another reason is that the findings are presented by a few of big concepts and their conceptualisation process, with linking together them by explaining certain relationships among them.

Ehmm, How can I use one sentence or a few sentences to explain my findings explicitly?

source

2008-05-24T18:20:00.000+01:00

An academic survey of bloggers and blog readers

Sources

2008-05-18T21:28:00.001+01:00

You may be interested in the social software, such as YouTube. This blog provides a study on it.

In addition, this is a conference source: SRHE Annual Conference 2008 in Liverpool.

Some interesting presentations from TED

2008-05-11T19:46:00.001+01:00

I come across this video which talked about creativity and education by Sir Ken Robinson. It’s humorous and thought-provoking. On TED website, there are a collection of interesting scientific presentations, which really bring fresh air, especially for me, to rethink the way of my own education and research. Also, it becomes a new source for my break.

A few interesting sources

2008-05-04T19:30:00.001+01:00

A piece of news: Research says blogging still booming

Ten digital trends to watch out for in 2008

Top Business Research Tips (1) (2)

A few interesting sources

2008-04-28T20:12:00.002+01:00

Come across this website AlleyDog.com, with some interesting quizzes.
Slides - The Evolution of Web 3.0
An article: Science 2.0 -- Is Open Access Science the Future? by M. Mitchell Waldrop

Today’s trip to Oldham Library & Lifelong Learning Centre

2008-04-23T20:25:00.022+01:00

I had a half day trip to Oldham Library & Lifelong Learning Centre (see some pictures below).

It is a nice and big public library and it’s the winner of the 2007 Prime Minister’s Better Public library Award. At the first sight, I felt the building is not as fashionable as Information Commons at the University of Sheffield, however, it do provides diverse services to communities and people live around. In particularly, “The building relies predominantly on natural ventilation and light, minimising energy consumption. Rainwater from the green roof is collected, treated, stored in tanks in the basement area and used to flush toilets throughout the building which significantly reduces mains water usage.”

Social search

2008-04-18T16:42:00.003+01:00

It is interesting to realise that the social search engine grows quietly. Typically, Facebook supports so-called social search service, which may compete with Google, a traditional search engine. I think it’s a part of Web 2.0 concept, but also someone may put it under Web 3.0. Some of my colleagues may already look into this new direction.

Also, there is an entry What is academic blogging about? by Daniel Lemire on his blog. Again, basically, some benefits of blogging.

Sources from two conference websites

2008-04-14T20:18:00.002+01:00

Some latest papers about blogs and social media on International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media 2008 website.
There are some interesting Slides and Videos on the 5th International Conference on Social Software - Blog talk 2008 website.

Two blog sources

2008-04-08T20:03:00.002+01:00

The Top 100 Academic Medical Blogs
Why Academics Should Blog... posted by Henry Jenkins. There is a source of master thesis about media studies at MIT.

Why do people read my blog?

2008-04-03T19:00:00.001+01:00

A bit tired, writing and writing. So I was thinking a question, ‘why do people read my blog?’ I found the visitor number increases everyday. Let me trust the visitor counter at the moment.

I presume it is because you

clicked a wrong link
are bored, and want to be entertained
know me, and are curious what I’m doing with my blog
are actually looking for information about me
are similar to me, are conducting a research into blogs phenomenon or a research student
want to find a piece of useful information
have different ideas from mine

Types of blogs

2008-03-29T21:39:00.000Z

There is no a consensus classification of blogs. We can classify them by author (e.g., single author or group authors), by coverage (e.g., individual or community), topic orientation (e.g., academic use or personal use), author’s position (e.g., private, cooperate, or organisational), presentation style (e.g., subject, non-focus, collectives, or news publishing), genre (e.g., music, politics, or fashion), blog services (moblog, online platform or computer stand-alone system) and so on. I would like to say, for me, an academic blog is those blogs that publish academic-relevant insights, events, news and sources.

There are two interesting sources.

The entry Expanding definitions of ‘blogs’ draws people’s attention of viewing the blog from a more flexible and wide view.
Matthew Cornell answered to your academic productivity questions.

Blog, academic blogs

2008-03-22T19:10:00.003Z

The weather is terrible, sunny, windy, rainy and snowing. Anyway, it’s a good reason for studying in the office.

This is an article written by Dale Kirby and Mary Cameron for the practice of blogging at an academic level. They noted the importance of the Blogosphere and said it is to read the ‘digital natives’.

Dr. Felix had put his thesis and a short article on his blog. This is his work in last year. His findings positively supported that using blogs as educational community helps classroom communication and promote increased learning for the Digital Age student.

Jennie published a study into “Where are the UK Librarian blogs?” on her blog. It’s useful for people who are interested in librarians and library services.

Meanwhile, this is an interesting entry about using blogs to do online business, written by Maki. It is not academic relevant but it makes me remember that there are some higher education students are trying it, driving visitor traffic to their blogs.

Two studies into blogs

2008-03-17T20:01:00.001Z

There are two interesting articles about why people blog.

One is Hsu and Lin’s (2008) paper “Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation”, published in Information & Management. Some statements from the article are notable:

“Many companies launch blogs as a marketing channel. Marketers should understand what drives people to share in the blog context. The findings highlighted the importance of altruism and individual reputation. Therefore publicly praising individual participant’s effort can enhance attitude toward blogging.”
“Generally, previous studies emphasized the importance of egoistic motives but contrary to expectations, out study showed that people actively participated in a blog to increase welfare of others; participating in blogs was not expected to produce direct reward. People participating in blogs were motivated intrinsically to contribute knowledge to others because they enjoy helping each others.”
“Community identification is important in blogging. Therefore, blog-hosting service providers should promote and encourage people to share their social lives and opinions or at least add comments. Reward systems, such as keeping a billboard of top 100 blogs, rewarding virtual points for participations, etc. can also be a positive motivator. The more information and comments posted and discussed, the longer people will stay in the blog. This will, in turn, establish a stronger sense of community identification among participants.”

Another one is Guadagno, Okdie and Eno’s (2007) article “Who blogs? Personality predictors of blogging”, published in Computers in Human Behavior. The findings are:

“… people who are high in openness to new experience and high in neuroticism are likely to be bloggers. Additionally, the neuroticism relationship was moderated by gender indicating that women who are high in neuroticism are more likely to be bloggers as compared to those low in neuroticism whereas there was no difference for men.”
“Blogging is both a form of self-expression as well as a form of online behavior so it stands to reason that creative individuals who are willing to try new things are likely to blog.”

Commercial awareness training

2008-03-12T17:24:00.001Z

I’m feeling like a bad loser in today’s commercial awareness workshop run by PricewaterhouseCoopers. I have very bad awareness of business and industry. Anyway, it’s my aim of attending this session, to know myself, to see my weakness… I concluded my lack of awareness by two reasons: (1) I’m not really interested in business and trade even though I use the products and see the brands in shops (2) I don’t really know the UK even though I live in the UK and speak English. I felt that academic and non-academic are two worlds. It seems that I had spent too much time on a piece of research and less care of the world.

The training was good. At least, I have a bit more awareness now. There was a quiz first, 20 questions about organisations, products, countries, and companies, etc. For example, “What is the name given to the key financial district of New York?” “Which UK-based building society is the largest in the world?” “Which country has the world’s highest inflation rate?” “This year the British Pound broke through the $2 mark, but when was the last time this happened?” To be honest, I only knew two of them.

Then, we read through 20mins business stories about certain topics and discussed the actions/behaviours of the companies, their advantages, disadvantages, impact on stockholders, future changes, effects and possible tendency and so on. Each group made a presentation on their topics. Most groups had one or two presenters; one group had all members to present.

Then it became a bit in hurry. They presented interview questions about commercial awareness and some tips. For example, “How do you keep up to date with what is going on in the business environment?” “Tell me about a particular business story you have read about recently.” “What would you do if you were the CEO of ‘X’?” and prepare: “know the company”, “know the industry” …

Theoretical saturation

2008-03-10T21:21:00.004Z

I was just asked a question about saturation in grounded theory by a colleague. The question was to check the position of “data saturation” in a grounded theory process map. I was not 100% sure of my answer. But I felt “data saturation” is not an appropriate term, also, I felt “saturation” is used to judge both a category and the theory. Thus, I said that the judgement of “saturation” should be put after axial coding.

Then I read through the bible - Strauss and Corbin’s book «Basics of Qualitative Research» quickly. I found that they used “category saturated” and “theoretical saturation”. In page 136, they noted, “A category is considered saturated when no new information seems to emerge during coding, that is, when no new properties, dimensions, conditions, actions/interactions, or consequences are seen in the data.” They put this description in the Axial Coding chapter.

Meanwhile, in page 212, there is a paragraph explained theoretical saturation. “A question that always arises is how long a researcher must continue to sample. The general rule when building theory is to gather data until each category is saturated (Glaser, 1978, pp.124-126; Glaser & Strauss, 1967, pp.61-62, 11-112). This means until (a) no new or relevant data seem to emerge regarding a category, (b) the category is well developed in terms of its properties and dimensions demonstrating variation, and (c) the relationships among categories are well established and validated. Theoretical saturation is of great importance. Unless a researcher gathers data until all categories are saturated, the theory will be unevenly developed and lacking density and precision.” They put this in the Theoretical Sampling chapter.

Therefore, from my understanding, it has category saturation and theoretical saturation. Category saturation means one category is saturated. Theoretical saturation means all categories are saturated. Category saturation is a criterion of theoretical sampling either at the late stage of Open Coding or in Axial Coding, strictly speaking, in Axial Coding. Theoretical saturation is a criterion of theoretical sampling in Selective Coding.

Hope I didn’t misinterpret the “saturation” in grounded theory.

A note for AHRC Research Workshop

2008-03-05T17:59:00.007Z

This is a joint research methodology activity-based workshop for research students from the Department of Information Science at Loughborough University and my department. I enjoy it as I take it as a chance of meeting people and sharing my ideas with peers. Also, to improve my skills. There are about 30 people attended.

Prof. R. Summers led an Ideawriting session. The trigger question is “What are the issues that associated with a doctoral research all over 3 years study?”. It’s a kind of brainstorming training. It reflects the issues we encountered, went through, sorted out or may face. It is also a kind of creative thinking.

Actually, I like the discussion triads led by Dr. Ana Vasconcelos. Through talking about three questions “why, what, how of your research”, I felt I can see my tasks in different roles of “subject, observer, and interviewer”. It’s a good exercise to organise and clarify my own mind and test my skills.

In addition, suggestions from fellows: (1) One colleague felt that it’s not what he expected about a focus topic on methodology. He was hoping it’s a chance to talk with more experienced people or experts. He felt it’s chance to meet more fellows but the issue is that we are all similarly inexperienced. If we want to share, we can talk in the office. He hoped to meet and talk with more experienced people/experts. They can provide ideas, suggestions. (2) Discuss methodology in detail or, focus on one particular approach, having some students present their work.

At the end of the session, I quickly scribbled down what I was aware/ learned this afternoon:

Don’t forget to take a more general/outsider view to see my research
Improving my communication skills
There is a chance that someone will come across my blog (I hope more and more doctoral students to blog their own academic interests, experience or concerns; the presentation, the sharing, the writing may be helpful for someone somewhere).
It seems that there are more students from Sheffield are adopting grounded theory.
A challenge question encountered, “In your opinion, can knowledge be shared?”
Another challenge question encountered, “Can you explain what grounded theory is?”
The third challenge question, “Do you think you get evidence to prove grounded theory is a good methodology in your research?”
The fourth challenge question, “Your career? What’re you going to do after your study?”
Open-minded and critical thinking
Even though I’m in final year, I’m still struggling in the water, but not on the bank yet. ;-)

I put a picture of the Loughborough University (taken in July 2004) to welcome colleagues from there.

A note for ‘teamworking skills’

2008-03-04T17:20:00.007Z

Again, another session I attended today (run by Accenture). It’s interesting to work with people from different subjects and different stage of their life.

One question I never really think about is the differences between “Group” and “Team”. Also, the two exercises are fascinating. I enjoy it. I suppose those who were/are looking for a job may already encounter this kind of practice. I give today’s exercises. First one, your team needs to go to a desert island, only choose 5 items from 20 items to bring with. Second one, using drinking straws (about 40), sellotape to build a platform that can support a bottom of water (75cl).

Good teamworking has the following elements:

common goal
trust and openness
creative and innovative
sense of belonging
independently
proactive leadership
diversity
conflict resolution
appropriate feedback

I think, in any kind of team, as a member, we need to find the ‘fit’ ‘role’. It fits the person and also the person fits it. From my current project, I felt that I have been trained a lot on working independently, self management, and time management. But in my part-time jobs, I haven’t been trained formally as a member who works in a team. It seems so natural to work in a team. I guess the employer thought I should already have those skills when I applied the job. Hmm… indeed, there is always something you can improve; learning is lifelong.

A note for ‘learn to lead’

2008-03-03T17:34:00.003Z

I attended a workshop of leadership skills run by TeachFrist. I felt that it’s necessary to put a list for myself. I never really intent on leading anyone or think of being a leader, but always I try to see if anything I am not good at, I don’t know, I can learn more. I like to attend those skills training sessions. I’m sure there are lots of similar tips online.

Be involved in more social actives and build networking
Know your own personality (Sometimes, I felt it’s so hard to change when I grow older…)
It’s a journey
Ambition: using 10 minutes to reflect on what you want to be in the 5 or 10 years. (Badly, when I did this, I found it was completely dry, Future? I believe it’s always good whatever I contribute…)
How to motive people (1. care and know them; 2. be honest to them; 3. open your plan to them, let them know the target; 4. make people feel their contribution adds value; 5. make them believe in the value).

They also provided Steve Job’s speech in 2005, I blogged it before, very inspiriting one, I like it.

A few sources for today

2008-02-24T21:32:00.004Z

Here is an example of using social power - individual contribution to sharing information…

John Flood, a professor of law and sociology in the UK and Germany. His blog is useful for students broadly.

It is interesting to see this entry, The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives. New programs, many of them I don't know.

A pretty good suggestion of finishing thesis, How to complete your PhD (or any large project): Hard and soft deadlines, and the Martini Method. Writing 1000 words per day is hard for me… I’m a slow snail. :-(

getCITED is a free academic database, a new one for me to try out.

News+ sources

2008-02-19T17:43:00.003Z

First, say congratulations to my colleague, Zapopan, who is a Dr. and an associate professor in Mexico now. Make the thesis done; make the dream true…

Also, there are some reflective presentations of blog use.

The Importance of Self-Education: Part III - Learn by Blogging by Gideon Addington
Three Research Articles That Changed My View on Blogging by Anne Helmond
open-access is the future: boycott locked-down academic journals by Danah Boyd (btw, Zapopan is also an advocator of open-access).

Plural/singular form of ‘reference’

2008-02-15T19:54:00.001Z

I always have some English problems in my writing, very shamed to say. In the supervision meeting, my supervisor corrected one of the plural/singular mistakes again. “It is ‘References’ rather than ‘reference’”, he said. Then he told me an interesting joke, which makes me will not make the same mistake again, I think. The joke is like this:

If God taught students, there would be only one reference, which is the bible… (I hope I didn’t mis-transfer it…) But I was thinking, if the bible was God’s thesis, what God would make reference to? Anyway, it is not a plural/singular issue any more.

Unfortunately, it’s not intentional

2008-02-14T22:11:00.001Z

Don’t know from where I got the saying, “Humans cannot know what will happen to them in this life or the next.” This is actually a proper sentence to express my feeling now. It’s definitely not relevant to the valentine, but my data analysis.

The relationships, the emergent categories and the cores cannot be estimated/planned/created by myself until I finish each comparison between the codes, categories, and relationships; until I have a clear idea of each of them, until the whole picture has been portrayed little by little…

A “good” code

2008-02-09T13:12:00.000Z

Because of subjective, coding in grounded theory is not easy. For me, each time when I looked back the data, I changed some codes, or say, concepts. Sometimes, I thought of the codes, categories, and relationships on the textual level, the conceptual level and the abstract level at the same time. This made the conceptualisation confusing in a way. I felt I lost my direction in part of my concepts… Maybe after I read and read, change and change, read and read, change and change until I have no more new senses.

Well, go back the fundamental step - open coding or label raw data. Even though coding is subjective, I feel it needs certain criteria of naming a code. There are 5 elements of a “good” thematic code suggested by Boyatzis (1998:31) as follow. It helps us in some way.

A label (i.e., a name)
A definition of what the theme concerns (i.e., the characteristic or issue constituting the theme)
A description of how to know when the theme occurs (i.e., indicators on how to “flag” the theme)
A description of any qualifications or exclusions to the identification of the theme
Examples, both positive and negative, to eliminate possible confusion when looking for the theme,

Literature review in grounded theory

2008-01-31T14:41:00.000Z

Recently, colleagues told me that they were working a paper about grounded theory (GT). They would say something bad about GT. Actually, it’s so normal that people have different opinions and GT has been debated more than thirty years.

I’m not an exponent of GT or Glaserian or Straussian. I hope I understand grounded theory rather than just use it for my research. Therefore, I feel that it is useful to write something about applying literature review in GT although it has been criticised for ignoring existing theories and failure to integrate the emergent theory with existing knowledge.

To clarify, I quote some original ideas here. We can have a look Glaser and Strauss, Strauss and Corbin, Glaser’s opinions of using literature review in a grounded theory study.

In the original book by Glaser and Strauss, 1967, chapter VII, they mentioned the benefits of using existent materials in sociological research and also its disadvantages. They did not say they reject literature review purely. Rather, they said, “… we shall detail some procedures for using various qualitative sources, alone and in combination, to generate theory effectively through comparative analysis” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 163). “Perhaps we should warn that the discovery of a cache can actually restrict the development of a researcher’s theorizing… this kind of ownership can yield great depth of substantive knowledge but add little to social theory”(Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 168). “…if his purpose is explicitly the generating of theory, the absolute accuracy of his library informants is, as we have said, not crucial. He can even be less concerned if he intends to use field materials for further verification” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 181). “…in a conscious attempt to focus sociologists’ attention upon the central issue – not which source is ideally most important, but on the need for assessing realistically which may be best used, alone or in combination , in a particular study” (Glaser and Strauss, 1967: 183).

In the book by Strauss and Corbin, 1998, chapter 4, page 48-53, they talked about how to use nontechnical literature. “To begin with, let us assure our readers that there is no need to review all of the literature in the field beforehand, as is frequently done by analysts using other research approaches. It is impossible to know prior to the investigation what the salient problems will be or what theoretical concepts will emerge. … It is not unusual for students to become enamored with a previous study (or studies) either before or during their own investigations, so much so that they are nearly paralyzed in an analytic sense. It is not until they are able to let go and put trust in their abilities to generate knowledge that they finally are able to make discoveries of their own” (Strauss and Corbin, 1998: 49). They listed 9 points of using the technical literature, and they are applicable for nontechnical literature as well. They suggested that the existing materials can be used as data or for making comparisons.

Glaser and Strauss contributed to GT separately since the first edition in 1990 of Strauss and Corbin’s book Basics of Qualitative Research and Glaser’s book Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis published in 1992. Later, Glaser published a series of publications to elaborate his view of GT. I cited his expression in a recent article “Remodeling Grounded Theory”. He stated, “Instead, GT methodology treats the literature as another source of data to be integrated into the constant comparative analysis process once the core category, its properties and related categories have emerged and the basic conceptual development is well underway. The pre study literature review of QDA is a waste of time and a derailing of relevance for the GT Study”.

From my point of view, it is clear to see that Glaser and Strauss originally emphasised the importance of generating theory based on empirical data rather than went to library to collect materials. Their arguments of using literature were relevant to the traditional research methodology used in the late 1960s. Both Strauss and Corbin and Glaser did not say doing GT without literature review. They suggested that literature review at the beginning is not the most crucial work in a study, but supplement, and literature can be used as data or sources for comparative analysis.

Also, there are a few articles that help us to understand the role of literature review, “Exploring the influences and use of the literature during a grounded theory” (Heath, 2006); “Grounded theory research: literature reviewing and reflexivity” (McGhee et al., 2007), and “The use of literature in grounded theory” (Hickey, 1997).

Roughly view about ‘experiential’, ‘self-directed’ and ‘transformative’ learning

2008-01-26T11:21:00.000Z

In the book section “The spiritual and human learning” Wickett, R.E.Y. (2005). In: Jarvis, Peter and Parker, Stella (eds). Human learning: an holistic approach. London: Routledge. pp.157-167. Wickett (2005:158) mentioned, “the three theories that have gained prominence in recent decades with respect to the learning of adults are referred to as experiential learning, self-directed learning, and transformative learning”. Although I don’t have time to do more research on each of the three theories, I roughly had a look at the differences.

Experiential learning puts ‘experience’ in a central place. It is developed based on insights into understanding how adults learn and develop. Kolb’s learning cycle is the well known example and Kolb et al. (2001) in their article “Experiential learning theory: previous research and new directions” give the explicit definition of experiential learning.

Self-direct learning, also called Autodidacticism, puts self-direction or learner-control in the key place in lifelong education. Self-direct learning “tends to occur in the privacy of people’s homes, workplaces or communities... It is entirely the prerogative and responsibility of the individual learner” said by Candy (2004: 49-50). According to Fischer and Scharff (1998: 2), “Self-directed learning is critical when learning becomes an integral part of life - driven by our desire and need to understand something or to get something done, instead of merely solving a problem given in a classroom setting. A lifelong learning perspective implies that schools and universities need to prepare learners to engage in self-directed learning processes because this is what they will have to do in their professional and private lives outsides of the classroom”.

Transformative learning focuses on transformation of perspective in adult and continuing education. By the description in Wikipedia, came out of Jack Mezirow’s earlier theory of perspective transformation. Here, quoting Mezirow’s (1981: 6-7) original expression, “Through extensive interviews, it became apparent that movement through the existential challenges of adulthood involves a process of negotiating an irregular succession of transformations in “meaning perspective”. This term refers to the structure of psycho-cultural assumptions within which new experience is assimilated and transformed by one’s past experience…. Perspective transformation is the emancipatory process of becoming critically aware of how and why the structure of psycho-cultural assumptions has come to constrain the way we see ourselves and our relationships, reconstituting this structure to permit a more inclusive and discriminating integration of experience and acting upon these new understandings. It is the learning process by which adults come to recognize their culturally induced dependency roles and relationships and the reasons for them and take action to overcome them”.

Actually for me, human learning is complex; it includes all experience, self-direct and also meaning construction and transformation, and other key forms. It is the specific phenomenon the researcher observed and the researcher him/herself perspectives direct the learning theory that they focus on, or say, they feel useful to help understand human learning.

‘Reflection’ and ‘thinking’

2008-01-21T11:01:00.000Z

‘Reflection’, for me, means thinking things carefully. Actually, sometimes I still confuse the use of ‘reflect’ and ‘reflection’ in the literature, especially, ‘reflective learning’. In Chinese, we have about ten terms or phases that can be used to express ‘think carefully’. Some of these terms have a common sense in everyday language, but some of them have different degrees and are used in certain context because the different purposes of ‘thinking carefully’.

On weekend, I read Jennifer A. Moon’s book «A handbook of reflective and experiential learning: theory and practice» (2004). I found a clear description:

We reflect usually in order to achieve an outcome, or for some purpose. We may, however, simply ‘be reflective’, and an outcome might then be unexpected. Reflection is an activity that we apply to more complex issues. We do not reflect on the route to the bus-stop, or on how to do a simple arithmetical sum where there is an obvious solution. We think it through or plan it. However, we might reflect on whether or not to complain about something when the complaint may generate difficult consequences. In addition, the content of reflection is largely what we know already. It is often a process of re-organizing knowledge and emotional orientations in order to achieve further insights. (p.82)

Opinions about Web N.N on the web

2008-01-18T14:34:00.001Z

I was writing something about social software and the most recent popular buzzword – Web2.0. I felt it is hard to define what Web1.0 is first, and then a definition of Web3.0 on an academic standpoint. From technological perspective or a web designer’s view, it is a bit easier. I had a few sources here in my previous entries and now I got some again, mostly about the definition of Web N.N. It can be seen most of the discussions are from technological perspectives.

Conceptualisation

2008-01-11T17:41:00.000Z

"Conceptual*” (e.g., conceptual, conceptualising, conceptualisation) is one of the most frequent mentioned terms in grounded theory. I always find it’s difficult for me to understand. The term is difficult for me, not because of its meaning, but because I don’t know how to conceptualise a theory. That’s why I preferred using “discover”, “built”, “form”, or “classify”. Actually, I didn’t check dictionary to see what it means literally.

Until very recently, I start to feel that I enable to use this term and accept to say I am conceptualising something. It starts to make sense for me because I realised my way of seeing it, or say, making meaning for myself (actually it is to understand grounded theory too) at early stage was like the diagram below. It was because I don’t call the final outcomes as concepts, but themes, key themes or core categories. This way of thinking made me feel that conceptualisation is a part of making sense of a concept.

But now it becomes this:
I don’t know if other new research students who use grounded theory methodology have the similar problem or not. I hope I don’t present it inappropriately. Also, I hope make it a bit clear to the argument about there are still not sufficient descriptions of the difference between concepts and categories in GT.

A survey results of econ bloggers

2008-01-06T19:30:00.000Z

This entry discusses about a survey of econ bloggers, which was conducted by Aaron Schiff. It is good to see the draft report: A Survey of Economics Bloggers. I had a quick look. There are some interesting findings: (1) many people indeed use their real names, (2) “spend about 50% of their time writing posts, 35% of their time reading and researching for posts, 10% of their time dealing with comments and emails, and 5% of their time on other tasks”, and (3) the motivations underlie, such as to educate the public or disseminate research.

An EndNote tip – citation page number in Word document

2008-01-05T11:37:00.000Z

I realised that I did a silly thing. When I wrote my thesis, I felt bothered by the Endnote and Word document. It didn’t do what I like, such as the source page number was gone. Thus, I gave a chapter to my supervisor without reference. Sounds very worse, :-( I told my supervisor, I would do it later. This morning, I took a bit time on dealing with it. I found the answer, which made the citation and reference very easy. However, I still feel it’s not very good to change the citation templates as sometimes I found the pages had gone after I added a new citation. Thus, I think directly add page number into suffix, it is better. Here is a tutorial provided by EndNote website and also this guide is very essential and useful too. About how to cite more than one source in text, the instruction can be found in this website.

Indeed, on this journey, I do not only undertake a study, but also need to learn many techniques, for example, applications of managing project/data and making diagram/model, hermeneutic, inquiry skills, communication skills, academic writing, presentation skills, literature sensitivity, CAQDAS and so on.

Differences between Glaserian and Straussian

2008-01-02T19:51:00.000Z

It is the first day in a new year that all of us can come into the building. Many staff and colleagues came, especially in my office. Everyone works hard. I faced an interesting question, so I’d better to blog it here.

One of my colleagues asked me a question about Grounded Theory (GT). Mostly like this:

What’s the difference between Glaser’s version and Strauss’s version? I read a lot of books, and in my point of view, I felt that they said the same thing about data analysis: (1) label data and create categories (2) find out the relationships between categories and (3) find out the core categories. The only difference lies Strauss named ‘open coding’, ‘axial coding’ and ‘selective coding’, but Glaser didn’t. Why do I have to decide whose approach I follow? I think they are same.

How can I respond the questions? I said,

“To some extent, yes, it is, like what you said. They are similar because they were the co-author of the Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967). But it really depends on what your standpoint and perspective are. If follow your logic, then there is no difference among the approaches in qualitative research, such as phenomenology, ethnography and grounded theory, because they all help the researcher to understand meaning, and they all cover collect data, code data, search for themes and then a theory emerges. Yet, there are indeed differences between Glaserian and Straussian in practice. It became clear that Glaser and Strauss contributed to Grounded Theory separately since the first edition in 1990 of Strauss and Corbin’s book Basics of Qualitative Research and Glaser’s book Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis published in 1992. Simply say, Glaser more stresses the emergence of theory by data conceptualisation, with less structured approach to ‘theoretical sensitivity’, whereas Strauss suggested more a structured approach to analysis through the constant comparative technique. I chose it not because of the arguments in the literature or more people use it, but because I felt it’s more understandable for me and I have a picture of how to use it in my research.”

After our conversion, I mulled it over. I felt that it’s necessary to present more:

First, provide a source here. Onions (2006) listed the main differences between Glaserian and Straussian in the article “Grounded theory application in reviewing knowledge management literature”. This may provide some evidences.

Second, Glaser argued Strauss’s approach is no longer GT, but “full conceptual description” and “forcing data” (Glaser 1992: 122). He also argued Charmaz’s “constructivist grounded theory is a misnomer” and “…she is caught by descriptive capture and is remodeling GT to QDA story talk, while neglecting the fundamental properties of abstraction analysis” (Glaser 2002). Kathy Charmaz is one of the world’s leading theorists and exponents of GT. Glaser has a strong standpoint of GT. Heath and Cowley (2004: 142) pointed out,

“Glaser (1978) had extended grounded theory beyond the original text (Glaser and Strauss 1967) to explain in more detail concepts such as theoretical sampling, theoretical coding and use of theoretical memos, but it was Strauss and Corbin (1990) who focused on developing the analytic techniques and providing guidance to novice researchers…. It is methodological rather than ontological and epistemological aspects that have been cited as the main source of divergence”.

These arguments should not limit us and also should not be a main reason of choosing one between Glaserian and Straussian. The original books are the most important sources, and our own understanding helps us make the decision.

Third, I know if talk bout grounded theory in detail, I will have to write a long article. We choose an approach which is appropriate or better, fits to our research questions and helps us to find out the answer. We need to know why we adopt it, because of its fit, its possibility, its demanding techniques, its differences from other methods, the researcher’s situations and so on. However, we are not doing a study into methodology and its philosophical origins. Therefore, this is also a reason why I didn’t expand the discussion.

Reference:

Charmaz, K. (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory: a practice guide through qualitative analysis. London: SAGE.
Glaser, B.G and Strauss, A.L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: strategies for qualitative research. New York: Sociology Press.
Glaser, B.G. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis. California: Sociology Press.
Glaser, B.G. (2002). Constructivist grounded theory?, Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research [On-line Journal], 3(3), http://www.qualitative-research.net/fqs-texte/3-02/3-02glaser-e.pdf
Heath, H. and Cowley, S. (2004). Developing a grounded theory approach: a comparison of Glaser and Strauss, International Journal of Nursing Studies. 41(2), 141-150.
Onions, P.E.W. (2006). Grounded theory application in reviewing knowledge management literature. http://www.lmu.ac.uk/research/postgradconf/papers/Patrick_Onions_paper.pdf
Strauss, A.L. and Corbin, J. (1990) Basics of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques. California: Sage.

A new year...

2008-01-02T10:03:00.000Z

A new year started… I looked back my previous entries and found this nice quotation. I’d like to use it again for my final year here…

“You can’t connect the dots looking forwards; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever…” (Steve Jobs, 'You've got to find what you love', 2005).

I want to recommend two books to new research students who are conducting or planning to conduct a qualitative study. «README FIRST for a User's Guide to Qualitative Methods» by Janice M. Morse and Lyn Richards, introduces three of the most commonly used methodological traditions (phenomenology, ethnography, and grounded theory) and also provides Nivio tutorials to help the researcher start their study. «Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: choosing among five traditions» by John W. Creswell. (Actually Prof. Creswell’s another book «Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches» is also very useful) I should have found the two books one year ago, and then I wouldn’t felt so baffling at that time. I think it’s not too late to read them. It’s still fairly timely for me to revisit the whole study.

Whishing you a very merry Christmas

2007-12-24T13:32:00.001Z

This is the third year that I have to move my things from the office to my bedroom to start a quiet week, concentrate on writing, without the Internet. In 2005, I focused on RTP coursework. In 2006, I rushed to finish a paper before the deadline. This year, I started to check and draw the whole picture of my data analysis... For most research students, Christmas break is also a good time for us to concentrate on something quietly.

There are two pieces of blog relevant sources:

Web 3.0 and medicine: Make way for the semantic web, a article written by Dean Giustini, BMJ 2007;335:1273-1274 (22 December).
China's Scientific & Academic Integrity Watch is a blog to expose the many frauds in China's scientific and academic communities. This entry discusses about the critiques from Professor Stephen Stearns of Yale. Plagiarism cases do not only happen in China. But it is awareness, from different perspective, to call people's attention. To some extent, I wouldn't argue that I became more aware of plagiarism and copyright issues after I came to the UK.

Some suggests about literature review

2007-12-21T17:22:00.000Z

The following suggests are selected from «Surviving Your Dissertation: A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process» (Rudestam, K.E. & Newton, R.R. 2001: 73-74). May be useful for you:

You’ll know when to stop your literature review when the articles you read become redundant and when the authors and articles that are cited become familiar to you.
Develop a system for organizing and cataloging what you read.
Reading the original writings of the theories you are studying, not just what someone else says about their theories. I have found that other people tend misinterpret original writings…Trust yourself before you trust others. Take you time to pinpoint those parts that aren’t completely clear to you, since those are usually higher level thoughts that you need to struggle to understand.
Bibliographies can be very useful in tracking down new sources.
It is much easier to record complete references for source materials when you initially read them than later on.

A book about Library 2.0

2007-12-21T13:18:00.000Z

This is an introduction of the book «Library 2.0 Initiatives in Academic Libraries» by Kathryn Greenhill.

Carl Rogers’s perspectives

2007-12-19T10:45:00.000Z

Occasionally I found that Carl Rogers’s perspective on educational psychology is interesting. I started to read his books. I read «The Carl Rogers Reader» (Kirschenbaum & Henderson 1990). Really appreciate his positive attitude to interpersonal relationships, especially some of his statements:

“In my relationships with persons I have found that it does not help, in the long run, to act as though I were something that I am not.” (p.18)
He described his marriage and two sentences I felt quite impressive. One is “Love is when each person is more concerned for the other than he is for himself” (He adapted from David Frost, p.36) and the other is, “So our growth together into a satisfying relationship for ourselves has constituted no guarantee for our children.” (p.37)
“I have come to feel that the only learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning” (p.302)
“I find that another way of learning for me is to state my own uncertainties, to try to clarify my puzzlements, and thus get closer to the meaning that my experience actually seems to have.” (p.303)

More writing up...less blogging

2007-12-14T11:01:00.001Z

I remember a fellow student said he was knackered, two years ago when I was new and he was writing up thesis at the department. I can see why he felt that. Now, sometimes, I feel so too.

Writing, seriously, formally, is never easy, especially for international students. Move back and forth between chapters, sections, logs and data… search my ideas back to almost every past day …

Blogging here is a thing that I almost forget, but I’m kidding, I just do not have too much time on this kind of free, flexible and unserious writing, with a bit social fun …. I got a few interesting blogs…

Tthis is a list of Blawgs from ABA Journal Law News Now. It maybe useful for law students.

How to get PhD and save world from Chris Blattman’s blog. There are some suggestions to PhD students.

Web2.0 and Web 3.0 by Dean Giustini on UBC Academic Search – Google Scholar Blog.

How can I drive more traffic to my blog? may be good for people who maintain a business blog?

Word document and Endnote

2007-12-07T14:03:00.000Z

The solutions of the two often asked questions about Endnote and Word document can be found on Endnote website.

Why does the EndNote toolbar in Microsoft Word has disappeared?
Why are there strange stuff suddenly appeared in my document?

You can also find out solutions about other problems through this webpage.

Audit trail

2007-11-25T13:34:00.000Z

‘Audit trail’ is not a phrase that I learned initially from the literature, but from one of my part-time jobs last year. Simply speaking, the work task was to present all operational changes that made by a user. Technologically, it needed to create a library automatically to record the changes after each operation, such as edit, create, or delete. Next, to search all these changes in the library, and in a logical way present them onto the webpage which the user is viewing.

In the research, ‘audit trail’/‘inquiry trail’/‘confirmability audit’ has the similar meaning to the above mentioned ‘functionality’ in program development.

‘Audit trail’ is often used to establish the credibility, confirmability, consistency and dependendability of a qualitative study. It is composed of many forms depending on the research design. Wolf (2003) comments three parts of ‘audit trail’ in the article “Exploring the audit trail for qualitative investigations”: a record of the raw data, a record of data reduction and analysis products, and a record of data reconstruction and synthesis products. Lietz, Langer and Furman present their practical experience in the article “Establishing trustworthiness in qualitative research in social work” (2006). In Pickard’s book «Research Methods in Information», following Schatzman and Strauss’s suggestion, she highlights three forms of a researcher’s log: observational notes, theoretical notes and methodological notes (2007: 18-22, 214-216).

‘Audit trail’ is only one of the strategies that a researcher needs to use for establishing trustworthiness/rigor. Other strategies can be viewed from the discussions in the useful resources such as: Lincoln and Guba’s book «Naturalistic inquiry» (1985), Padgett’s book «Qualitative methods in social work research: challenges and rewards» (1998), Bowen’s article “Preparing a qualitative research-based dissertation: lessons learned” (2005), Kirk and Miller’s «Reliability and validity in qualitative research» (1986), Seale’s «The Quality of Qualitative Research» (1999) and Silverman’s «Interpreting qualitative data» (2001, 2006).

I might have reviewed books and articles which mention ‘audit trail’ in the past two years, however, I didn’t pay enough attention to it. When a colleague noted ‘audit trail’ and when I read literature about methodology, doing qualitative research, judging the quality of a research project, establishing rigor/trustworthiness of the research, the picture of ‘audit trail’ becomes clearer, and I realised what I have recorded, what I was fail to do, and what I need to cover…

Another book about ‘blog’

2007-11-23T17:31:00.000Z

I read the book «Blogging and RSS: a librarian’s guide» written by Michael P. Sauers (2006). He classifies three types of blogs: individual, subject and organizational. For me, actually, there are only two: individual-oriented and organizational-oriented, because either individual or organizational has different subject/topic-orientations.

It’s good to know why 2004 was a watershed year for blogs. He explains the impact of blogs on “traditional” media by noting several impactive events such as “John Kerry’s Choice of Vice-Presidential Running Mate”, “a report on CBS’ 60 Minutes II about a memo” and “Google bombing”.

Also, the author points out some major features of blogs: timely, opinionated, accessible, omnipresent, cheap, fast, and easy.

This book covers many blog sources from librarians and libraries, and also provides practical guide to blogging, such as RSS, Feeds, and aggregators. It is nice to see the following open-ended questions that the author asked a group of librarian bloggers and their insights:

Tell us a little about yourself.
Why do you blog?
What got you started blogging?
How would you describe your blog?
What do you see as blogging’s greatest strength?
What do you see as the greatest problem with blogs?
Why should someone start a blog and what advice would you give him or her?
What are your top five favorite blogs to read?

Although my research data were from interviews with students, we had different focuses and asked different questions, I did a brief comparison between my data and his. Good! It assured me.

A book about ‘blog’

2007-11-20T18:32:00.000Z

I started to read back literature about ‘blogs’. One of the only three books about blogs in the library that I can find is «We've Got Blog: How Weblogs are Changing Our Culture». I read it recently. It’s not like what I expected. Maybe I should have read it in 2004 rather than now. For me, this book actually is a collection of blog entries, a bit of out-of-date, some entries have not available any longer, and most of these entries convey positive voice of blogging. I expected to see more arguments. Nevertheless, perhaps there were already many critical voices online towards blogging, which formed this book to present its strengths. Why do we need to buy the book? Tom Coates asked this question through his blog and he provided the links of those entries collected in this book.

It draws our attention of the copyright issues on digital sources. For me, then, the most important part in the book became the Glossary and its format which makes people treat it as an academic and formal source.

Again, discussion about ‘Model’

2007-11-17T11:46:00.000Z

Following the little discussion about using the term ‘model’ in my research, on 14th November, I add a bit more source about ‘model’ and ‘theory’. It is from the book «Succeeding with your Doctorate» written by Jerry Wellington, Ann-Marie Bathmaker, Cheryl Hunt, Gary McCulloch, Pat Sikes (2005).

The authors suggest that “The role of theory is to provide generalisation, to give us powerful abstractions and to create the links and frameworks that can connect and interlink studies that would otherwise remain stand-alone and disconnected”. They point out that “theory can be approached in terms of models, or representations of reality” by giving an analogous example - “the ‘map’ of the London Underground train system”. This indicates the systematicness of a theory. Also, by an example of “wave model and particle model” in physical area, they demonstrate the “explanatory and predictive power” of a theory model. Then they use a case study example in social science to explain the key point of a model – its depth or sophistication. Models may be said as labels or classifications, “Labelling and classification are valuable; whether we always call them theory is more debatable”. With examples of “Hargreaves’s teacher culture” and “Vygotsky’s ZPD”, the authors conclude that what a ‘theorising’ thesis should present is the links between disparate studies and concepts can be transferred in different disciplines. “Do not raise questions that you do not intend to answer through your research” (pp.57-61).

Learn to relax

2007-11-16T16:11:00.000Z

It kept occurring in my dream – the books I read, the data, the model, and my thesis, etc. I awoke up at 12 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 5 o’clock and then 7 o’clock. I didn’t have a good sleep, I knew it is because the pressure from myself and maybe a bit from others. I knew it wasn’t like me, the person who is often a heavy sleeper, seldom with dreams, and awake up at a time regularly every morning. Am I not that “heavy sleeping piggy” any more?

“Maybe you are getting old”, the teacher, who I assisted for the morning class, suggested. I tried to keep my energy as usual, helped the students and then I went home, had a rest.

I knew that when I sleep, I should give up thinking my research and all the relevant thinking. So I tried another way before slept, I turned on the radio and listened a while, not fast-paced music! I searched for a radio station which was interesting. Then I caught an ending part of “‘Space: Why are we there?’ a dialogue with Professor of Space Science John Zarnecki” on Radio 3. It was actually a section of the Programmes from the 2007 Free Thinking Festival of Ideas. I like the idea that Prof. Zarnecki pointed out that there are four dimensions in his area: XYZ and time, but it maybe 5, 11 or more dimensions in other areas …

I had a better sleep comparing the day before yesterday.

Two issues in qualitative research

2007-11-14T20:41:00.001Z

The other day, I asked my supervisor a question about “‘model’ and ‘framework’, which should I use in my thesis?” My supervisor suggested me to use ‘model’ in terms of what I’m doing.

I am pleased to read David Silverman’s book «Interpreting Qualitative Data» (3rd ed.)(2006). I find more theoretical explanation here. Prof. Silverman points out that “Models provide an overall framework for how we look at reality. In short, they tell us what reality is like and the basic elements it contains (‘ontology’) and what is the nature and status of knowledge (‘epistemology’). In this sense, models roughly correspond to what are more grandly referred to as ‘paradigms’ (see Guba and Lincoln, 1994).” (p.13)

Also, I like the example that he gives to address “over-theorize” issue. Like the terms “phenomenology” and “hermeneutics”, I always struggle to understand them, indeed. He suggests “In my view, you do not need to understand these terms in order to carry out good qualitative research. Indeed, if you try to understand them, my guess is that you will not emerge from the library for many years! … If you have a simple approach that is working well for you, don’t try to dress up your work in fancy terms. Don’t over-theorize” (p.7).

Make up a missed interview show

2007-11-10T13:37:00.000Z

Luckily, I listened the Toby Foster’s bigger breakfast show again at noon. Congratulations! Adrian Sudbury. On the radio, I feel he is an optimistic person. Very appreciate his positive attitude. Indeed, that’s what life always tells us about. Baldy’s blog is another typical example of using blog successfully, benefiting to the author self as well as people who are going though diseases and difficulties.

I blogged the 2007 blog award news on 31/October. At that time I did not realise that some bloggers are so close to us. They are all making wonderful contributions to the society. They are not like some anti-blog people’s viewpoint, so “narcissistic/ egoism”, but real, helpful and putting efforts …

If went back our ancestors’ life, without the Internet and power…

2007-11-09T14:03:00.000Z

Yesterday, I was in the library, reading a paper McKenna, K.Y.A. and Bargh, J.A. (2000) “Plan 9 From Cyberspace: The Implications of the Internet for Personality and Social Psychology”. Suddenly, an electrical power cut and all the lights went out.

Then, in my office, we didn’t have the Internet access. Uproar started, “So what can we do without Internet?” “reading”, “writing thesis”, “a break”, “talking”, “have a walk” … Next, an electrical power cut. Actually, I thought it was good to think in the dark but a bit scary... Luckily, my accommodation was ok. I used computer without Internet…

Today, the Internet is still intermittent. It makes me remember Turkle’s book «Life on the screen» (1995), “… Now, playing with simulation encourages people to develop the skills of the more informal soft mastery because it is so easy to run ‘what if?’ scenarios and tinker with the outcome.” (p.52) I feel that it is difficult for us to work without the Internet, computer and electricity. Without them, the net generations will face the risk of social anxiety.

Sources - advantages and disadvantages of blogging

2007-11-07T18:33:00.000Z

This morning when I cooked breakfast, I listened radio; roughly heard that they were talking about blog in the Toby Foster’s bigger breakfast show. However, when I went online and listened the live radio again, it wasn’t there, a bit strange. What were they talking about? :-( Anyway, it's not very important. There are some interesting discussions as follows:

Adam Kotsko, a doctoral student at the Chicago Theological Seminary, called people’s attention “On Academic Blogging: A Diagnosis”. The comments are worthy of reading and there is the author's more recent article “A Skeptic’s Take on Academic Blogs”.

“Thoughtful blogging: how and why?”, a post in Matthew Sinclair’s blog, presents a review of blogosphere and his opinions of motivations of blogging.

Moreover, “Blogging about Science” is an entry written by saxifraga. The author analyses why and why not she reads blogs based on her own blogging experience.