An LTE Conference?
I am conscious that we have quite a few conference papers soon happen in our doctoral community – for example:
— Achilleas’ recent papers including the one on MATE
— Magda’s recent pieces
— Eljee’s and Tanya’s late May QI2011 papers
— Lou’s and Achilleas’ Finnish papers in July
— Paul’s papers last year
— Mariam’s upcoming EuroCALL paper?
There will never be an ideal date for pulling these together in a re-run/preparatory run in-house a sit were, for our own community, and for others in the School of Education. But we may be able to start a series where we have 3 or 4 on the same half-day. For rexample, I am wondering if, to time with Magda’s visit in late May, we might have a re-run of one of her papers and Eljee and Tanya’s from QI and maybe one more. It would have to be very very late May I think, the cusp of May/June.
And thoughts about the idea? and about speakers for the 1st such event? and about the ideal date?
🙂
R
Staff have to use it – so that our institution to can keep track of our scholarly work and its impact etc (for the RAE, REF etc) – and I have to say that I find it useful as a repository of the listing of my work as well as potentially for the actual copies of it.
When I was completing my entries for a review in January, I saw that it even allows me, for better or worse, to include (some of) my musical compositions …. 🙂
So, I would recommend it to you all.
Maybe it can interface iwth the blog pages you all have? …. wishful thinking?
Has anyone been using eScholar via the University of Manchester? It’s basically an in house data repository site hosted by the uni and made available for every staff and student of the uni. Depending on copyright issues regarding open access, you can upload published work onto the site.
https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk
It’s a tool made available for all students as a further way of managing and disseminating our work. It looks to be a good tool to use and could be good for the LTE group when gathering our papers together?
Yes, it makes sense of course. And you’re right, it’s more practical to make full-version papers available via the blog.
Hi Magda
I hear you but papers at the different events you all have been/are presenting at are of differing lengths, and there are only so many productive audience hours in a June day in Manchester.
So, yes, via the blog all paper and/or powerpoints can be made available but I still think that this 2 papers per hour (including Q time) is realistic and it will mean that everyone will have to decide how to re-present their paper for this LTE audience …
I like the idea of here and there and back.
20 mins slots – this perhaps means having to be brutally concise and rather than presenting a paper, presenting the gist of it, so how about providing full versions of our papers in print, so that people can pick and choose what they might want to read in full after the event?
Magda
So, how is this sounding:
1. Fri 3rd June
2. say 10.00-16.00
3. say 20 min slots + Qs, i.e. 2 papers an hour
4. largely internal to LTE with a few other invitees
5. with nice poster (actual and virtual)
6. with effective online presence afterwards
I am also reminding us that Magdalena has offered a virtual paper but confess that someone with more technological know-how and enthusiasm would have to help make this possible ….
I am playing around with the idea of a working title for the day such as “From here to there …. and back again — Conference papers by the LTE doctoral community” which, I may deludely think suggests the idea of us leaving the Manchester home base (in some ways at least) of the doctoral community (i.e. the ‘here’) and presenting internationally (i.e. the ‘there’) and now returning to the Manchester home to re-present for our internal well-being what we have already presented elsewhere or will soon do so. But maybe this is not so clear ….
I may not be able to do 2nd June as I will probably be teaching (and having been absent for most of the previous 2 weeks in order to present at QI, might not be very popular with management if I wanted to reschedule more classes!) so I would like to vote for Friday 3rd June, if I may?
My vote would go for ‘simplicity’ – for me, this would be an internal LTE event with the odd invitee here and there, plus good posters and online presence (including, perhaps, some of the technological possibilities that eg Mariam suggested). In this way we get maximum feedback from within the group as well as some increased profile perhaps. The former is probably of most importance to the presenters, the latter is something I am thinking about with my strategic-thinking hat on.
BTW, did we agree the date? 2nd or 3rd of June?
BTW x2, do we have a list of presenters yet? Eljee, Lou, Achilleas, Magda, Tanya, Mariam – any more? (Paul B? Paul S? I do not wish to exclude any one so apologies if I have forgotten to namecheck you here 🙁
Meanwhile, I have alerted LTE staff to this upcoming event …
On the one hand, I am inclined to agree with Richard about keeping things simple. I also feel that this event should be more about obtaining feedback rather than creating impact. This, I think, would be consistent with the research-training nature of our PGR programmes. With this in mind, I would prefer a ‘closed’ event as it would maximise the quantity of feedback and perhaps encourage more candind comments.
That said, I am conscious of the need to increase the impact of our work and the visibility of our research community. I am wondering whether this important goal would be best attained concurrently with the previous one or in tandem. Would it be possible to have, say, a closed RAW-type workshop prior to the actual event, followed by an event open to other participants and a wider audience? Or could we present our research to a small audience as suggested by Richard and then disseminate it through a booklet of abstracts, posters, or perhaps even a website and webcasts? OK, this is not exactly keeping things simple, but…
I think ‘simple’ is often best. My basic idea of the event (as I was thinking as I suggested it) was as a means for us …
1. to share within our community what we are all doing outside it
2. to showcase, for ourselves (i.e. the full LTE group — tutors, PGRs, PGTs maybe …)
3. to place this body of ‘impact-worthy’ endeavour on the radar
4. to enable, possibly, us to share this showcasing more widely across the School.
Number 4 was the one I thought was a ‘possibility’ and I think Eljee’s message summarising the pros and cons of doing this. I like the middle way she suggests. For sure, I think it should be an Event (with a capital E, i.e. worth turning up for, worth putting on our best performance personas etc), but it should also be purposeful for us (after all it is our event).
So, my Q would be: are 1-3 above a useful starting point? the papers will be eclectic in focus, origins, status, etc and this diversity will need some stage-manatging in general and by each speaker, but it also means there will already be probably enough of a range of perspectives on display without worrying about doing a major recruitment drive (and with it bring into play other people’s agenda for such an event) ….
I agree with Mariam – having a focus for the day would be really helpful. Some of the things I’m thinking about…
Are we disseminating our research to each other or more to a wider audience? This affects who comes to the conference (in person and online streams).
Also some of us will have already presented our conference papers while others are about to do so. How will this affect the focus of the day?
Ah more questions…:-S
Hi everyone
I’m again late in joining the discussion thread 🙁
I would like to take part, though I’m afraid i won’t be in Manchester again until late August-beginning of September at least…
I will be doing a paper in mid-April for a local URUTESOL conference. I could do that – or something else – virtually, but even just following the event without contributing would be great!
.. I think once we agree on the exact purpose/scope of the conference, nature of contributions, number of participants, duration of each presentation, we will be able to decide on a) whether to open it to a wider audience, b) who the speaker(s) will be, c) whether to keep the title of the conference as it is, and d) where/when/how to publicize it.
Also, whether we choose to keep it to ourselves or open it to others, maybe we can have a webcast for the entire event to allow others to follow it. I was recently invited to watch a lecture live from Arizona through this website:
http://www.stickam.com
http://www.stickam.com/help/newToStickam.do
We don’t necessarily have to use this particular one.. but maybe consider live streaming as a way of disseminating research.
Invite only SoE PGRs? Not sure about numbers here, so this idea might be invalid if numbers too large or too small…
Magda
Another question to consider – do we keep this conference as a meeting amongst ourselves or do we open it up to a wider audience?
There are pros and cons to each. Looking at the first option, keeping it to a close knit group can allow us to go further into our discussions given that we’ve all met (online and face-to-face) and have an kind of existing rapport. A drawback would be that no one else apart from ourselves would hear about our work.
The second option would allow us to disseminate our research to a wider audience, which would be great to raise an awareness of what’s going on in the LTE research wise. A drawback would be that the audience would potentially be too diverse/big to fully engage in a meaningful discussion.
Another option could be a middle ground, where the conference would be open to invitation, where it’s not fully public but we could invite people who would be interested in the day?
Any thoughts?
2-3 June is fine by me too. Thanks for organizing this event.
2-3 June best for me too.
Ignore my previous comments. The 2nd/3rd is looking pretty good.
So, yes, 2nd/3rd June would be great for me.
Magda
Hi, just got back from town – I was thinking of the very end of May beg. of June, i.e the week starting 30.05 until 3.06, so i could fly out on the 4th.
Any good?
Magda
That’s fine. Let’s see what others say.
Magda?
Eljee?
Lou?
Tanya?
Mariam?
I think June 2-3 would be my best chance, but I am not sure I can commit at this time. I will be able to give you a more definite answer by the end of the week.
That’s all understandable Achilleas. Having run two seminar–type events here in the last year which you could not make, I just wanted to give maximum space to you and Magda to see if it were possible this time around. So, if I have understood correctly, you are suggesting a third option, i.e. just before yuo go to Finland. or did you mean that the suggested Thu 2nd or Fri 3rd would work for you in this possible scheme of things?
I tend to agree with Richard that an early June event would be most beneficial, in terms of developing confidence and providing early feedback before the main conferences.
Personally, I am presenting at two conferences in Greece (May 7 and May 15), and then there are the conferences in Finland (June 6-9) and Aston (July 6), so all these dates and 2-3 days before and after them are difficult. I am conscious that I am already putting a strain on my finances to be frank. However, it might be possible to combine Finland with a visit to Manchester: i.e. arrive in Manchester for our event, then fly to Finland and back to Greece.
There are, I think two options:
1) To aim for early June, eg Thu 2nd or Fri 3rd — i.e. after QI and before Lou and Achilleas’ trip to Finland. The advantages of this slot are that lpo would get a practice run with us before she flies out and it might fit better wth magda Rostron’s visit dates, but it might cut short Eljee’s trip home. And Achilleas?
2) To aim to have this event after the Finland trip, e.g. the dates Eljee suggests.
Magda, Achilleas, as the potentially visiting partucipants, your input wuold be helpful here.
R
How about after all the conferences are done, the week starting the 13th June? That way everyone will be back, presented and recovered from jet lag?
My mistake, exact dates for Finalnd?
It’s 6-9 June. Both Lou and I have been provisionally scheduled for Wednesday 8 June.
Actually, the conference in Finland is in early June; you may be confusing this with the conference at Aston, which is in July. Julian’s a keynote speaker there, and I am presenting a paper as well.