On Civil Partnership

Today I am going to see a dear friend, and tomorrow I see her join with her new partner in a civil partnership. She’s asked me to do this reading:

The Art of a Civil Partnership – Anon

A good civil partnership must be created.

In a civil partnership, the little things are the big things….’

It’s never being too old to hold hands.

It’s remembering to say ‘I love you’ at least once each day

It’s never going to sleep angry.

It’s having a mutual sense of values and common objectives

It is standing together and facing the world

It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways

It’s having the capacity to forgive and forget

It’s giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow

It’s a common search for the good and the beautiful

It’s not only finding the right person

It is being the right partner.

As I rehearse these words, it strikes me that good partnerships are all about being civil! It often puzzles me that we do not extend the  courtesy we give to others to our nearest and dearest. Apparently couples that thrive, don’t allow arguments to escalate, and prioritise their relationship. That’s all I can remember of a book I bought when I got married called ‘Now That I am Married, Why isn’t Everything Perfect?’ It is a tribute to my husbands faith in our relationship back in 1996 that he put a sticker on that changed ‘isn’t’ to ‘is’! Today, I am just grateful for my own long term partnership, and wish everyone – including my lovely friend – the enduring happiness that I have had!

On Research Metrics

One of the many hats I wear at the moment is as Head of Research at Manchester Metropolitan University. As researchers, we are now routinely evaluated and measured within an inch of our lives (pun intended :-)) and research metrics are an important part of that. My view is that we desperately need to reclaim those metrics for ourselves, rather than having them imposed on us. We need to build a wide range of metrics for our own disciplines, and control those metrics. As we all know, what gets measured gets managed. HEFCE is launching a consultation on research metrics to be used in the next REF. At MMU, discussion is already under way on those metrics, and a view is certainly emerging that a) metrics can distort research behaviour and b) the HEFCE metrics do not represent all disciplines.

To be fair, HEFCE acknowledge in their consultation document that ‘gaming’ of the system can be a result of said metrics. They are also interested in the impact of Open Access on research metrics, as are we. The open access requirements of British grants councils in the form of the RCUK Policy on Open Access mean that most UK universities are on the road to OA. One of the positive consequences of having one’s research freely available for download is an increase in citations. So, what does this mean? Traditionally, citations have been a proxy for quality – but, if an academic has a terribly well cited article, is it just simply that they’ve had an interesting article freely available? Certainly, a chapter of mine on grounded theory experienced a massive jump in citations (thank you, Indiana University!) when it was made available as a reading on a research methods course. So, what happens in a world of open access? Do citations become more or less important in a world where you don’t have to pay for access? Of course, the challenge is that open access will not happen overnight. There might be an uneven playing field for a while, where UK academics might benefit from citations from countries that currently don’t have open access. For those interested in reading more, look no further than the fab LSE blog on the impact of social sciences – an excellent set of resources and viewpoints pertinent to the HEFCE review can be found here.

So, what is the future of research metrics? I think alternative research metrics, or altmetrics as they are popularly known, are the way forward. Still this doesn’t necessarily help our colleagues in humanities who need metrics for monographs, or colleagues in the arts. Personally, I think we do need to set up the criteria by which we are judged – or have others set those criteria for us!

 

Why this blog? Why view from the tops?

This blog is completely experimental, and comes from an overworked, somewhat idealistic, academic in the UK. For a long time, I’ve been looking for a space in which to be opinionated about absolutely everything! My views on politics, the HE sector in the UK, and my own domestic life, it goes without saying, are completely my own. And why from the tops? I live in am privileged to live in what I think is one of the most beautiful places in the world – the ‘tops’ – or moors – of Yorkshire!