Category: UCL Student Trustee

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COVID-19 Update

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In addition to my PhD endeavors and responsibilities within both the Knowledge Lab and Development Diversity Lab, I am also a UCL Student Trustee, Board of Governance member and Post Graduate Student Representative. As I actively stand for students throughout UCL (both on the ground in London and internationally at a distance), I want to use this space today in an effort to update my constituents on the following as it relates to academic matters, specifically:

  • Our student union (SU) officers have been diligently working with UCL administrators to carve out an Extraordinary Extenuating Circumstances (EEC) procedure. The union hopes that this information is robust enough to cover almost all circumstances, however, you are welcome to reply with your questions and comments at reps@ucl.ac.uk.
  • Similarly, the SU has created guidance detailing Illness and Unexpected Disruptions to Your Exam or Assessment information. While many Post-Graduate Research (PGR) students will not be affected by assessment, per se, there is important information related to illnesses that you may want to consider.

As was mentioned in a memo to UCL Academic Reps, Ashley Slanina-Davies (UCL Students’ Union Education Officer) offered that “we are meeting with UCL to represent the interests of students and raise student concerns every single hour of the day and if you have any concerns, have feedback from your peers to pass on or think there is something that can be improved with information being communicated, please do get in touch with me and the team at the Union.

 

Another day in paradise…

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NVivo Application ScreenAnother day of writing…

However today was focussed on utilising newly acquired interviewing skills and applying them in a practical method of transcription for my doctoral training modules.

Specifically, I elected to transcribe a Prince William conference keynote speech, and utilise newly acquired video/voice/transcription software to determine the efficiencies and efficacies of these application types. Thereafter, I downloaded and installed the latest version of NVivo in order to begin on-ramping much of the qualitative data captured. I am hoping to begin this process in two days’ time.

Once the practical work was out of the way, I spent the remainder of the day refining my upcoming DDL Lab PowerPoint presentation. I realised that I needed to edit more thoroughly my messaging from the perspective of someone having absolutely no knowledge of artificial intelligence, cognitive enhancement and neural networks.

After spending a good deal of time reworking the flow, my presentation is now considerably more refined, easier to digest and–I pray–compelling. I am eager to present this in less than a week.

As a UCL Student Trustee, I spent the evening reviewing both the National Student Survey Briefing and the latest updates to the UCLSU Trustee Reports and Governance Committee documents. Combined with myriad amendments, survey/recommendation reports and various pro forma, I feel I am in a considerably better prepared position to attend, participate and contribute to next week’s meetings.

Monday monday….

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Today is a writing, writing and “more” writing day!

After inhaling the magic of my morning coffee elixir, I began early today by creating, editing and publishing a brand-new website announcing my PhD Project Research (along with the first official project-centric blog post). Once completed, these pages (screen captures) became a component of my MPhil/PhD Upgrade Report’s “Appendices Section”.

In order to round out this Appendix, I completed authoring a Post-mortem Participant-Public-Information Survey. This particular document is to be completed by participants who complete the lived-experience PPI Study (e.g. either a focus group or questionnaire) that form the first phase of my three-part study.

And finally, after spending the afternoon programmatically coding the aforementioned questionnaire in the Gorilla Experiment Builder application, I ran preliminary tests on the actual “main section” of the PPI. Once test data collection was confirmed, secured and anonymised, I then captured screens for inclusion in the aforementioned Appendix.

Of course, there were about two dozen email relating to doctoral training modules, student government documents for upcoming Governance Meetings and several National Student Survey documents that needed my attention prior to convening next week’s UCL Trustee/Student Union Meetings.

Certainly, there’s never a dull moment as a PhD Student…distance learners included! Now I am off to get some exercise with our daughter and prepare—what will hopefully be—a lovely dinner for the family. The it’s back to (you guessed it) more literature research!