Defence Against the Dark Arts Niamh Brennan Trinity
Defence Against the Dark Arts Niamh Brennan, Trinity College Dublin RSP Autumn School, 8 th November 2011
Key challenges facing higher education are unprecedented. The HE Financial Model appears unsustainable The educational needs and aspirations of too many students go unmet Investing in research, researchers & infrastructure is increasingly difficut “To do better with less. . . We must begin by transforming our own culture” - Diana Oblinger, Educause Review (Volume 46, Number 5, September/October 2011) Universities now
“A Conservative higher education minister (of an earlier generation) once got me in a corner and insisted: '"Surely you agree that at least 25% of the research done in universities is a complete waste of time? " I replied that no, I didn't agree but that, even if I did, we would never agree about which 25%” - Peter Scott, The Guardian, 5 September 2011(
“Somewhat in the manner of rating agencies that purport to assess a country's creditworthiness, there are various bodies that rank universities. Like opinion polls. . . their methods and results may differ. But they do tell us something about the performance of overpaid and underachieving academics” - James Downey, Irish Independent, October 8 th 2011
‘The forces of Darkness are gathering. . . ’
• • Understand the challenges Locate – or grow – the data Paint the Picture Communicate
http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=fx 2 z. Lgdk. Jpk
Defence Against the Dark Arts • • • Statistics on Research Rankings Bibliometrics Research Evaluation Data visualisation
Tools 1. Research Information System (& components) - Institutional repository - Statistics & reporting tools (Google Analytics, IR & RIS reporting tools – Apex etc. ) 2. Publicly available information: - HESA/HEIDI, Benchmarking in UK - Euro. Stat, OECD reports, Consultancy Reports (Key Perspectives, RIN, Ithaca, Thomson Reuters Special Reports, Elsevier, THE, TR Science Watch. . . ) 3. Subscribed resources & commissioned data: - Thomson Reuters (Wo. S, ESI, In. Cites, Thomson Innovation) - Elsevier (Scival, Strata, Scopus. Etc), - Research Professional (Research, Research Benchmarks) 4. Additional Data Refinement & Visualisation tools: - Excel or Open Office equivalent - Google Fusion - Needlebase - Google Refine - Many Eyes - Tableau Public - Picture Number - Many more. . .
What’s the Story? Examples. . .
Inspiration • • • Number. Picture Target. Map Many Eyes Guardian & New York Times Open Data Strange Maps Floating Sheep Infosthetics Visualizar Bestiario www. thestory. ie
The 3 unforgivable curses http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=k G 4 XLZUAot 4&feature=related
Crucius
Imperius
Avada Kedavera
- Slides: 26