Dr Rónán O’Beirne’s Weblog

Education; Technology; Digital Transformation; Information & Knowledge Management; Librarianship; Digital Leadership

“Research in the early years – a step-by-step guide / Pam Jarvis…[et al.] (2012) contains a chapter I co-authored with Pam Jarvis entitled “Reading for research: efficient use of your access to an academic library”. It was a fairly tricky challenge for me as I am less well experienced at writing for a narrow audience particularly at undergraduate level. It seems to be fine. The other obvious challenge was ensuring sources were up-to-date generally I steered clear of specifics but came down fairly stongly on suggesting a diverse range of finding aids. I also did a little rant about the importance of understanding precision and recall – and of course tackled social media. This is how the publishers describe the book:
This new text is the only resource out there to address the needs of today’s early years students/trainees and support them through every stage of the early years research process.  Research in the Early Years contains case study material in the form of four fictional students’ experiences, which run through the book. Readers follow these example students through their dissertation module as they address common problems, issues and pitfalls. Clear explanations and a step-by-step approach are balanced with sufficient depth and rigour to challenge those on undergraduate courses or following graduate programmes such as EYPS.

View from MacMillan building carpark Bradford College 08:45 17 Jan 2013

As summer temperatures soar in Melbourne I’m back here in a snow covered Yorkshire looking at the short days of winter. Incredibly busy on my return from Australia with much to do on the £50m new build at Bradford College – specifically for me the library facilities more about that in a later post. Also organised a call for research and received 18 successful projects which are all up and running. The Bradford College application for Taught Degree Awarding Powers enters into its next phase with a resubmission being put together for June.

I have also been directing the XCRI (eXchange of Course Related Information) JISC-funded project which ends its 18 months in March 2013. Spending a short time on a project to evaluate the successor to BeCTA’s Generator which is being piloted by LSIS.

On a more personal note I am applying for the Higher Education Academy’s National Teaching Fellowship Scheme which is due at the end of March. My doctorate studies at the University of Sheffield enter into their second stage with the commencement of my thesis – more about this is a later post.