Monthly Archives: May 2017

Making the most of your conference money

Making the most of your conference money

For an academic, participating in conferences is important for lots of reasons: sharing research and having it critiqued, building networks, identifying collaboration opportunities, and staying up to date with advances in the field. For PhD students there are additional advantages: you can use conferences to make your name known outside your immediate geographical area, potentially […] … learn more→

Teaching students to survive a zombie apocalypse with psychology

Teaching students to survive a zombie apocalypse with psychology

Playing games is ubiquitous across all cultures and time periods – mainly because most people like playing games. Games involve rules, points, systems, as well as a theme or storyline and can be massively fun and engaging. And there is an increasing body of research that shows “gamification” – where other activities are designed to […] … learn more→

Kangaroo-icide on Campus

Kangaroo-icide on Campus

The kangaroo campus court system is doing a fine job of wrecking lives; it has way too much power, and is devoid of anything resembling the checks and balances system necessary to anything resembling justice. Instead, our campus courts are merely reinforcing the totalitarian infantilism that has become the trademark of many of our universities. […] … learn more→

Supervisors are morally obliged to publish with their PhD students

Supervisors are morally obliged to publish with their PhD students

Should PhD supervisors publish with their students? Should PhD students include their supervisors as co-authors on articles emanating from their PhD projects? To many academics, the answer seems, self-evidently, yes. But some – especially, in our experience, in the social sciences – remain adamantly unconvinced. We have worked in two universities where PhD supervisors publishing […] … learn more→

A part-time and distance PhD

A part-time and distance PhD

Earlier this month, I submitted my PhD in Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management at the University of New England Business School.  I did my PhD part-time, while I worked full-time in the IT sector, and I did my PhD through distance, so my project had a few challenges along the way.  I live in […] … learn more→

How internationalisation crushes national character

How internationalisation crushes national character

Last June, as I was leaving the polling station at which I had just voted in favour of the UK’s leaving the European Union, my eldest son was passing on his bicycle. He stopped to talk, but, on learning what I had done, he berated me, albeit jovially, mentioning in particular his difficulties in recruiting […] … learn more→