Birkbeck has already adjusted its draft Code of Practice for REF2021 to state that it will not submit any staff made compulsorily redundant (although we do not have any compulsory redundancies anyway). https://eve.gd/2019/01/31/BBK-ref/

Alternative headline for that recent Science piece: "few journals currently working under outcome of plan that aims to transform how journals work".

Today has been an eight-hours-straight-dealing-with-emails-and-admin day and I am somewhat shattered.

"We will be calling on all institutions to reject this policy and make clear their own position so staff are fully informed about the values of the institutions that employ them". Institutions need to get this in their own codes of practice, now. https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/9920/Allowing-REF-submission-of-redundant-staffs-research-is-a-breach-of-faith-says-UCU

But how do you get around the fact that this will mean divulging sensitive HR data to non-HR staff?

There is a difficult HR issue here. It's about not "sensitive information about staff employment [and redundancy] with those responsible for selecting outputs". But so problematic. https://x.com/martin_eve/status/1090892821492649984

This is a terrible policy alteration if the intent is to create a good environment in which research can be conducted. https://x.com/CHavergalTHE/status/1090882548039856128

UK higher education funding bodies publish final guidance and criteria for REF 2021 https://www.ref.ac.uk/news/uk-higher-education-funding-bodies-publish-final-guidance-and-criteria-for-ref-2021/

I've got some pretty good evidence forthcoming that reviewers review for it anyway, too. https://t.co/HxiKdSnecA

Please let me get home.

Stop. "Guinness Time".

Thought about being productive on the flight, then thought, nah, I'll do the crossword instead. Not too bad. A bit rusty. Can't see why 6 down is Elysium.

This bin lorry's neon display signalled that it is available to hire in order to convey valentine's wishes to one's paramour. Because nothing says "I love you" like it being lit up on the side of a filthy garbage truck.

Heathrow -> Belfast https://youtu.be/d5vGjCoQM1s

Please use the microphone. Don't ask if it's OK if you don't because it isn't & it's embarrassing to make me say so. Also, it isn't there to make your life easier as a speaker. It's there for people, like me, who cannot hear you without it. https://x.com/DocPhoenix/status/1089915785877901312

UAE's gender equality awards won entirely by men https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jan/28/uae-mocked-for-gender-equality-awards-won-entirely-by-men

T&Fexit https://t.co/L8SCHzIigF

Yeah, had a sweepstake going on this for a while. https://x.com/JG_THE/status/1089852227349471232

Moog Symposium at the University of Surrey, featuring The Grid. Looks a great event. https://www.surrey.ac.uk/events/20181123-moog-symposium

Yes, this is my dread every time someone comes in and says "it's OK! I've just got a mild bug". Oh great, another month of illness if I catch it with likely secondary bacterial infections etc. https://x.com/emilylinka/status/1088935647820296197

This morning's marking soundtrack is Secret Squirrels vol. 3

These are anonymously released disco re-edits. It's blatantly Peza, though. :P

I am awake far too early and it's looking as though it's going to have to be marking-o-clock.

Yes, I know. Apologies. Of course, what I actually wrote is openly available on my site. https://x.com/blangry/status/1088865870217203712

(That's me) https://x.com/ResFortnight/status/1088796481790902272

I think it's really interesting that Cambridge University Press's green OA policy for journals is _less than zero_ embargo for the humanities (on acceptance!) but 6 month embargo for natural sciences. Implies something about business models and fears? https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/open-access-policies/open-access-journals/green-open-access-policy-for-journals

The old tech support acronym PICNIC (Problem in Chair, Not in Computer) has a whole new resonance when dealing with academic Profs.

Today's reading is Richard Powers's The Overstory

Pleased to say I'll be speaking in the closing plenary of UKSG on Plan S https://www.uksg.org/sites/default/files/2019-01/UKSG%20Programme%202019_v6%20%28002%29.pdf

If you're in Belfast, I am running this workshop on starting a new (open access) journal next Tuesday http://www.qub.ac.uk/graduate-school/events/290118StartinganOpenAccessJournal.html

... including such classic lines as "you'll be running it for the rest of your life" and "welcome to a world of pain".

(This does remind me of the time I was wearing a heart-rate monitor during a conference talk and the hospital asked "what were you doing at 2pm? Your heart rate suddenly hit 165bpm.") https://x.com/ericweiskott/status/890560437565227009

Infinite Jest is being published in Russian translation. I sent a Russian news agency a silly photo and some comments on reading the book https://calendar.fontanka.ru/articles/7655/

yes, interesting. The problem seems to be limited to specific jurisdictions. https://x.com/ignasi/status/1088370640107814912

A trend in the UK, too. https://t.co/1PbGjbcriC

Journey home reading Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward and listening to a fab mix by Future Bones
https://soundcloud.com/future-bones/low-down-and-dirty-part-2

Yeah. Can they get it through in time? Will we have the same government by tomorrow? Is a massive HE challenge what's wanted at the moment? https://x.com/joanna_marchant/status/1088094651893104643

I have added to my Plan S response letter: monographs, REF and Plan S, infrastructural support, "time of publication", "quality", repository requirements, publisher deposition, and pursuit of defamation suits for wrongful attribution under CC BY 4.0 https://eve.gd/2019/01/23/additional-points-in-my-plan-s-response/

I think the last of these is what many historians have said for years, but never phrased it in a way that was clear to me: if someone modifies your work, but attributes it to you, in a defamatory way, do you still have legal recourse if you waived moral rights under CC BY 4.0?

“This website generally fails to maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability” and “has been forced to pay damages in numerous high-profile cases” https://x.com/guardian/status/1088016377527578626

A friend sent me this passage - Alan Bennett writing about Stewart Lee - this morning and now I'm hoping for a future 45 minute segment on Goffman and Austin the next time I see SL.

Today's reading for me is Anna Burns's Milkman

It's almost as though the metrics for TEF are terrible or something. https://x.com/timeshighered/status/1087239622483238912

Today's shoreline

Current article with the headline: "poetry sales soar as political millennials search for clarity". The article may have some worth - I haven't had time to read it yet - but the headline is odd. I've never found any clarity in poetry. Beauty & shock & interest, perhaps.

Quick informal poll for humanities academics: if you need digital/OCR copies of works for funded projects, would you be interested if there was a service to provide a quote for this for your application? Or do you already know of such services?

Could @ImpossibleFoods please, please, please get their stuff out in the UK? It would almost certainly get me to 100% vegetarianism. (I've got a long way towards this from the dedicated carnivore I was years ago...)

America does Brass Eye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNQ6_1GCVVA

'Government sources insisted her overriding priority was to prevent a historic split in the Tory party.' Like the hokey cokey, this is what it's all about. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/20/theresa-may-cross-party-consensus-brexit-backstop-tory-split

Birkbeck by night, 2019-01-18.

Erik Olin Wright - Clarifying my final weeks https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/erikolinwright/journal/view/id/5c425a8fec10033749f6d10c

Today's fun music find: Function 304​.​8 by The Shunt Voltage https://theshuntvoltage.bandcamp.com/album/function-3048

I still think Zotero in Google Docs is the best thing ever.

Today's reading is the only way is The Essex Serpent.

Read @BobEaglestone's latest in one go on the train home. A persuasive case for literary studies that I hope will be read by many school leavers. Those not already dissuaded by our government's disastrous curricula interference and who still might find pleasure in literature.

Books were launched. @BobEaglestone

Rounding off the week by heading to the book launch of /THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY LITERARY FICTION/. @BobEaglestone

Watch as an audience of bewildered Americans view an episode of Vic & Bob’s ‘Shooting Stars’ https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/01/18/watch-audience-bewildered-americans-view-episode-vic-and-bobs-shooting-stars/

ERANU

UK patients stockpile drugs in fear of no-deal Brexit. Oh, I wonder why anyone would do this? It's not as though our government has a record of callous malice against the chronically sick and disabled alongside a complete incompetence or anything... https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/18/revealed-uk-patients-stockpile-drugs-in-fear-of-no-deal-brexit

I endorse this policy https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jan/18/tgi-thursday-major-uk-employer-mulls-four-day-week?CMP=share_btn_tw

"A trial of the new working week at the £26bn London-based biomedical research foundation could start as soon as this autumn, giving workers Fridays off to do whatever they want with no reduction in pay"

A marvellous review piece by my colleague Dr Joe Brooker on Colm Tóibín’s /Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know/. http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/english/2019/01/18/joseph-brooker-on-mad-bad-dangerous-to-know/

We also have an important new piece out at @openlibhums examining the dynamics of online counter-narratives against hate speech http://doi.org/10.16995/olh.406

In case anybody else out there is marking, I'm finding this newly minted disco funk quite helpful
http://fredberthet.bandcamp.com/track/b1-biomix-05

This is a fair enough critique; mea culpa. https://t.co/QF3m94vefk

Today is marking day. Some stunning work here. Really lifts the task beyond the routine when it's such a pleasure to read.

Actually, correct. Not "signed" but "Officials pledge support" https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07659-5 https://x.com/SzeplakiRita/status/1086014965486682113

I'll just note that I had a most generous and engaged response from the President of the RHS. We may agree to disagree on some points here, but I was grateful for the reply and hope this will help with the final document. https://x.com/martin_eve/status/1085919726151307264

An author today on @openlibhums and working with our ace editorial officer @helenksaunders: "This has been one of the best publishing experiences of my career".

My comments on the interim Royal Historical Society response to Plan S. There are some worrying factual inaccuracies in this document, particularly around green OA and gold OA business models. https://eve.gd/2019/01/17/comments-on-the-interim-royal-historical-society-response-to-plan-s/ @Brodie_Waddell @petersuber

The latest book out in the series that I edit with @CheyetteBryan! The first of 2019.

Petition to change the National Anthem to "Yakety Sax" (AKA The Benny Hill Theme) https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/237514/sponsors/new?token=i30l6skuAbRvrxr1sa6J&fbclid=IwAR2VP0fE1LizpZpQMKDEt1Y8Ui_KRuDt7vOmwzWmx_1BQOxWOhWlUS8nCfk

Some good stuff in here, including "Provide financial support for no-fee OA journals, as coalition members are already willing to do for fee-based (APC-based) OA journals." https://x.com/mitlibraries/status/1085646272017518592

It's hard to see what could happen now re. Brexit except a no deal exit. I can't see the HoC having enough unity to repeal or extend Article 50 and without action, we just crash out. Really, really terrible.

This winter seems to have been brought to you by the ridiculous virus that never gives up. Just when you think it has gone: WHAM, I'M BACK. Everyone I know seems to have it!

The Kairotic View of History in Thomas Pynchon's Novels https://orbit.openlibhums.org/article/doi/10.16995/orbit.589/

A generous £75,000 gift from Elizabeth and Daniel Peltz OBE will provide funding for several Masters degree scholarships in the School of Arts at @BirkbeckUoL http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/elizabeth-and-daniel-peltz-obe-fund-new-scholarships-in-the-school-of-arts

Parliamentary business this morning:

1) Prime Minster's Question Time
2) A debate on the problems caused by low level letterboxes
3) A debate on confidence in Her Majesty's Government

"The DUP has confirmed that it will vote for the government in the no-confidence motion". It's amazing what a billion quid can buy you.

As a member of the CHASE doctoral funding consortium, Birkbeck has sponsored industry placements. I just think it's a shame they're not called chasements.

Today's reading is another book on which I've cheated before and just read the introduction: Lauren Berlant's /Cruel Optimism/.

Oh yay! Glitterball included @BobSalmond's remix of my track, The Tunguska Event, in their 2018 tracks of the year! https://soundcloud.com/glitterballnyc/sets/glitterballnyc-our-top-tracks

We reject the majority of journal applications to OLH to flip because library support can't grow as quickly as we'd need. Also, as libraries budget for increases in percentages rather than absolute terms growth can be tricky. 15% of 1000 EUR is not the same as 15% of 100,000 EUR. https://x.com/anjaoberlaender/status/1084868408703889410

Following in the footsteps of linguistics journal Lingua, where the editors moved to @ubiquitypress and @openlibhums, the editorial board of the Elsevier-owned Journal of Informetrics has resigned and launched a rival OA journal http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/14/elsevier-journal-editors-resign-start-rival-open-access-journal?fbclid=IwAR0LmkKGNw5UqFEMZy0coBJHZa2x58eq0awKIaKjU9jy1UvpMWyfjQI_nF0

Successful journal flipping: TIB supports new journal Quantitative Science Studies https://blogs.tib.eu/wp/tib/2019/01/14/support-journal-flipping-qss/

"Universities should give offers after results day, says study"... Ok. But could you please help us out with some financial certainty then? You made us dependent on student recruitment to survive and we need to know we can pay our staff ASAP in the year... @GordonMarsden

Editorial board of Infometrics resigns at Elsevier to start a new open-access journal. Good work! https://www.scienceguide.nl/2019/01/editorial-board-of-informetrics-resigns-at-elsevier-and-starts-new-journal/

Today's reading is really properly getting down to @zara_dinnen's The Digital Banal rather than just the intro to which I've turned before :P

"Would you recommend this hospital to a friend?" / "If they will die otherwise, then yes" https://t.co/5ssejAoTCu

"I came on the recommendation of friends and family and, imagine my surprise, it turns out I can also get a train home from here!" https://x.com/martin_eve/status/1084371772659646464

Doing the customer feedback survey for St Pancras International Station. The question "what best describes your reason for visiting St Pancras International" has "recommendation from friend or family member" and "convenient location" but not "it's where my train runs from"...

"How do you keep up with what's happening at St Pancras International". "Follow us on Twitter" / "Follow us on Instagram". Who does this stuff and doesn't realise that people visit stations because trains run from them?

Spent a lot of this evening working on the new website for the British Association of Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS) and am pretty pleased with how it's turning out :)

Warming up for the evening by listening to @jon_fugler's latest mix https://www.mixcloud.com/jonif/xlntrpg-09012019/

Tonight I am off to another A Love from Outer Space extravaganza. Quite excited already!

Joanne and Morgan. Quite a story. https://theguyliner.com/impeccable/joanne-and-morgan/

Guinea pigs set up a total racket this morning, squeaking their heads off. We rushed in thinking something must be wrong. No. They just wanted the servants to bring their breakfast!

"I forced a bot to read 10,000 grant calls and then asked it to write its own. Here's the opening paragraph." https://x.com/martin_eve/status/1083769459012190212

Some of the neoliberal-ese language of grants advertised to me is just totally appalling but also incomprehensible. "This aims to strengthen cluster management excellence and facilitate exchanges and strategic partnering between clusters and specialised eco-systems". What?

Today I started @roopikarisam's New Digital Worlds. So far, verdict: a must read for anyone who ever thought digital humanities were under theorised but also for those comfortable in thinking that it's "all ok". That's everyone then. Beautifully written, too.

I just do not understand this culture where services can be deemed to be "vital" and people forced to work but they are paid "$0.00" for that work. Total disconnect between linguistic value ("vital") and any kind of real-world referent of value under capital. https://x.com/mateagold/status/1083551752681607168

Additional members appointed to REF Equality and Diversity Advisory Panel https://www.ref.ac.uk/news/additional-members-appointed-to-ref-equality-and-diversity-advisory-panel/

Francosphères, a journal published by the excellent @LivUniPress, is from this year 100% gold open access. Sponsored by the @openlibhums and our supporting libraries. No APCs/author charges at all. It can be done. https://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/loi/franc

Trust, standards, and the DDD tariff https://andrewmcgettigan.org/2019/01/10/trust-standards-the-ddd-tariff/

It puts the whole thing backwards. Instead of saying that highly flawed and selective schooling lets those from more backgrounds into highly selective universities, consider it the other way around and what the comprehensive university looks like and can do. https://t.co/rshHYoGi3B

(One of my family members failed the 11+ exam. She now has a Ph.D. in neurobiology from Cambridge. Writing children off at 11 is barbaric and doesn't work.)

Today I am heading to Egham to speak at Royal Holloway's Technē Congress. I always forget, but my word it's a trek to get there.

Hey! If you'd like a copy of my forthcoming SUP book, Close Reading with Computers, you can get 30% off until Sunday with the code WINTER18 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=30253

I love that the Janeway team, in true Trek fashion, doesn't have a "developers meeting", or a "programmers meeting". Oh no. It's the "engineering department meeting" :P

@ajrbyers

Today's (re)reading is Amy Hungerford's _Making Literature Now_.

... can you spot the cover design overlap? :)

I've just seen an article entitled "make your own distraction-free Twitter interface" and, although I haven't read the piece, I'm not sure the author actually knows what Twitter is.

I rarely have high hopes for HE ministers, but at least the latest seems, at this point, to be defending QR for research, which is absolutely vital https://www.ukri.org/news/chris-skidmore-research-england/

Mmm. Arrived today and on my "must read soon" list! @roopikarisam

Chronicle article comes in re. academic monographs with subtitle: "For most of us, success isn’t about the sales". Just as well.

Happy Sunday, all. My 2019 starts in earnest tomorrow! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQB_IsgQy0

Today's reading is Nicholas Thoburn's Anti-Book: On the Art and Politics of Radical Publishing.

Having a funky weekend

I was interested in learning the source! Cc @CheyetteBryan https://t.co/tpxZa3LKHX

Personally, I am massively looking forward to dying from acute corticosteroid withdrawal and adrenal failure. https://x.com/CheyetteBryan/status/1081145419856515073

Universities raise alarm over no-deal Brexit and EU student enrolment https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jan/04/universities-raise-alarm-over-no-deal-brexit-and-eu-student-enrolment

Today I'm seeking a sense of wonder in American novels with Lee Clark Mitchell

Do you know what's tedious? Being at a neurology appointment instead of at exciting sounding events in Chicago. Oh well, I'd guess it's warmer here!

It is, at least, just a routine appointment. And tedium is preferable in such appointments.

Today's reading is Pat Barker. Deep thoughts so far include: there is a lot of rape in this book.

The New Year's Day Dr Who Dalek that rebuilt itself from scrap clearly took lessons from the KLF.

Although it's a bit of a cheat as I started reading it last year, I'm kicking off 2019 by reading the brilliant and hilarious The Hollywood Meme by @iainrobertsmith

@iainrobertsmith I should note that there's a very serious analytical framework behind the book and how it de/re/centres Hollywood and the political implications of it all. But I just so love reading of the films Iain chooses to write about. They all sound fantastic and, as above, some hilarious.