By Any Other Nerd

Estimated Reading Time: 14 minutes The updates   are actually becoming a regular thing.  Who knew!?!??   Dissertation Droplets on a Web By the time this is posted, I will have completed 9 of my interviews.  That's pretty damn exciting as I need 20-24 and that I've been able to do 9 interviews this week is astounding.  I've got another 4 scheduled which will bring me through the half-way point.  Exciting but I'm still looking for more participants so please, if you can share, reshare, or reach out to folks to encourage them to participate in my research study , that would be immensely helpful! In terms of the interviews, they have been fascinating, intriguing, and giving me lots to work about and think about in terms of what is happening when scholars engaged on platforms like SciHub, LibGen, and the like.  That is to say that when it comes time to analyze the data, I'm highly optimistic about finding meaningful results given the conversations.   Of course, the inter

Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes The updates   continue...   Dissertation I'm still in pursuit of participants but currently have about 10 interviews scheduled and at least 2 in finalizing interview dates.  I need to get to 20 and would like to get to 24, so if you're reading this and can share about my study, please share away!  Information can be found here and if you reach out to me, I can even give you tweets, posts, and emails that have all the relevant requests of people.  By next week, I should have at least 6 interviews completed.  Not much updating beyond that.  Work Another solid week at work and one that makes me appreciative of the intentionality that is brought forward by my colleagues.  They celebrated my birthday with several rounds of happy birthday in the day.  My boss took me out for breakfast.  My partner came into work and she brought the most delicious cake--that both I and much of the rest of the staff also enjoyed. It was also great that she got to mee

Estimated Reading Time: 10.5 minutes So it's that time again. On my birthday each year, I do a share out about the year and think about what is ahead. This is apparently year #5 and you can see the others below. 38 39 40 41 42 Let's start with some of the miscellaneous details I've collected over the years here, shall we? Home :  Cranston, RI Relationship status :  Married (9+ years) Cats Owned :  2 (Bear and Pumpkin) Other Pets :  1 mud turtle (MJ, 36'ish years old) Degrees earned : 5 (3 masters, 1 bachelor, 1 associate) Degree working on :  PhD in Higher Education Credits Completed Toward Dissertation : 72 out of 72. Reading since Sept 2021 :  305 (Latest reads can always be found on  Goodreads ) Work : Director of Digital Pedagogy at College Unbound (full-time)  Adjunct Academic Partner at Southern New Hampshire University Teaching courses at  North Shore Community College Weight :  245 pounds Longest Distance Run This Year : 13.10 (5/1/2022) Fastest Pace This Year :

Estimated Reading Time: 7.5 minutes The updates   continue...   Dissertation It's been an exciting week, I got the go-ahead to begin my research study.  Years in the making and now it's starting to happen. More than any other point in this process, it's starting to feel REALLY real!  With the OK from my advisor on Monday, I started to share out the call for participants.  Of course, I did a blog post , as well as posts on  Twitter , Facebook , LinkedIn .  If you're reading this and know of any folks who do scholarly work of any sort--please send them my way.   So now, I start to find participants and interview them. I'm ready for the process and am just ecstatic to begin it.   Work It's cool to watch how folks self-organize and work together to make things work. I know this happens regularly, but working at an organization that is still building many of the structures of a higher education institution, I'm struck how often we find ourselves creating groups t

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes So after working for a number of years on my doctorate and working towards my dissertation , I'm happy to announce that my research study has been approved by UMASS Boston's IRB and my dissertation committee.   So now comes the fun part!  Finding folks interested in participating in the study!  You can learn more about  the study  here . Yet, there is a real challenge with my study in that I'm trying to reach scholars who are making use of certain networks (namely, SciHub, LibGen, ICanHazPDF, and r/Scholar).  Because engaging on these networks is often not discussed openly, it's really hard to find out who is using them and ask them to participate in this valuable study which explores their experience as scholars on such platforms. So if folks meet these criteria and are interested in contributing to a better understanding of research literature acquisition, please consider filling out  this consent form and intake survey : I (Lance Eat

Estimated Reading Time: 8.5 minutes Dare I say that I am actually consistently doing these updates ?   Dissertation A slow week with the dissertation; I was supposed to have a meeting but that will happen this week; after which, I will hopefully have to the go-ahead to start seeking out participants. Hoping by next week's update, I'll be sharing the call for participants and getting everything in place to start interviewing participants in the following week. Checked out this 80s class at the Mendon Drive-In Theater Work The intensity of the Moodle transition is slowing down and starting to have some space to think about next steps with Moodle, faculty support, and the semester as a whole. I'm also excited that I'm about 2 weeks away from a 2-week vacation at the end of September.   Still, I continue to have rich conversations and interactions with staff, faculty, and staff about what we do next at CU in terms of supporting teaching and learning with technology. While t