Daily Blog? No Way-ly!

Many people seem to think that blogs must be updated daily. I'm sure many of the best ones are but I'm equally sure that some of the best ones aren't!

Unlike some compulsive bloggers I have a family to take care of, a job to attend to, and a social life (of sorts) to enjoy.

So I have no intentions of updating the blog daily (not this one anyway) although there well be times when I do so.

Interestingly as someone who delivers a module on the social implications of (new) technology I am all too aware of people who have been "career disadvantaged" (sacked!) because of email or blog entries. So if I had anything really scurrilous to say I wouldn't do it under an email account or blog with my name on it...

Sad Sign? Demise of Witty emails?

I was talking to a colleague today who was told off for sending a witty email to lots of people. While clearing out old emails from last year I also came across a series of mails from another academic colleague who had been told off for sending a witty email about something deemed inappropriate/insensitive or whatever.

These were not racist, sexist or otherwise obviously abusist, but they did poke fun at the present situation that many universities find themselves in. Hauling people over the coals for witty emails will not stop the wit - merely drive it off email.

That might tick a box but it hardly tackles the root causes of such emails in the first place does it... and are some people hyper sensitive to certain things because hey know they are vulnerable?

Timetables - One Working Day to go

Well we now have one more working day (Wednesday August 9 th)before (in theory) the timetables are signed off for next year on Thursday (August 10 th).

Absolutely NO CHANGES will be allowed after Thursday is the message that I got but I'm still waiting for the second attempt at a timmetable for my first year module HMNS10061 Computing and Social Research for the Human services degree. The first attempt really suffered because none of the I classes were in computing resource rooms. Not that the proposed timetable for the rest of the modules on that particular degree was much better.

So tomorrow I expect to get the final version of the timetable for this module (Not!) and I will then be signed off on Thursday. I'm a little puzzled as to why NTU (or whatever particular project team) chose this date for the final sign-off as next Thursday we have the "A" level results in England and the start of the clearing frenzy. Surely better to wait a couple weeks and see what slow recruiting courses manage to pick up in that first week of clearing? After all you might then want to increase or decrease the number of seminar groups you have based upon the final expected numbers?

Or am I missing something?