A busy month, which included a lot of fun moments. I had a lovely time at the talk with Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry. The tickets for the talk were a lovely Mother’s Day present from the-child-formerly-known-as-the-teen. I also accompanied the kiddo to golf, and had a walk around backstage at a theatre, in London. Another great moment was when I caught up with a former business school friend, who was in London, all the way from the US, to run the London marathon. She is amazing!
Research
The misinformation grant application that we submitted last month was rejected, because the awarding body felt that there wasn’t a good fit. We suspected that our idea was a bit fringe for this funder. So, it wasn’t a complete disappointment. Plus, we did hone the idea during the process of preparing this application, which will put us in a better position for the next one. But, of course, it’s still a bit frustrating, especially as much of the work for this application was done in the evenings and on weekends (and weekend evenings), to work around the schedule of one of the applicants who is a neurologist.
The experiment that I mentioned last month (I mentioned developing them, getting ethics clearance and doing the pre-testing) have now taken place. Our research assistant is now in the process of cleaning the data and doing some analysis. Though, sadly, he is leaving the team, so I had to organise a new recruitment cycle. We are also starting to put together the final workshop, which is taking place at Aston Business School, on June 10th. Join us, if you are interested in exploring innovative, consumer focused ways to improve sustainability in UK manufacturing.
Another highlight this month, on the research front, was developing and submitting a(nother) grant application related to the evaluation of digital interventions for the social good. Oh, and I also submitted the ethics clearance application for this work, which is likely to be tricky because it involves two review boards.
Finally, Ben Keegan and I presented our ongoing work about the Metaverse, at the Digital Data workshop.
Writing
The paper about decentralised social media that I mentioned last month was accepted. Yay. And it is now online. I will write a summary, here on the blog, soon.
I also contributed to a paper related to the washing machines project.
Teaching
I did not get the Sussex Education Award that I had been nominated for. But, as I said last month, being nominated with the comment I push students “to achieve greatness” and “try harder” is great, already!
Teaching is now done, until September. Yay. Though, that means that marking will swiftly follow. For one of the MSc assessments, students are expected to use generative AI to answer one of the questions, and then critique it using what we learned in class, and I am keen to see how well they do on that.
I also marked the videos that the undergraduate students submitted for their research projects. Moreover, I continue to have meetings with these students, as they enter the final stage of this module.
Other notable tasks on the teaching front included moderating assessment briefs and marking for other modules; and reviewing applications for new teaching programmes, as part of my role as an expert reviewer for the Portuguese body for assessment and accreditation of higher education degrees.
Service
This month, I started on my new role as Deputy Director of the South-East Network for Social Sciences (SeNSS). I do worry, sometimes, about the amount of work ahead – but I have joined a great team, and I do believe in the mission. It will be ok.
On the other hand, hay fever is well and truly here. Argh…
I hope you had a great April.
Ana Canhoto 