No one turned up to last week's lunchtime edition of my google workshop and only 2 turned up to the following evening session. This week 3 came on Wednesday to the deep web workshop I run and another 3 came to the evening edition yesterday.

For those that come to the workshops (which are part of a series run by myself and other colleagues on everything from referencing to getting the most out of journals) they're really useful and they seem to get a lot out of them. At least my feedback forms would suggest to.

But questions are being asked about the value of doing this for such low numbers. (I said that the 20 I had coming last time was a blip as a Polish teacher turned up with an international class en masse both weeks running!)

A new bus timetable introduced in the new year now also means that my last bus home leaves at 18:55 instead of 19:45 which is incredibly frustrating. Just about anything after normal hours at work will now cost a $20 cab fare.

And continuing the crime themed week, I visited our mock courtroom today.

This is a new suite of rooms that's replaced our old refectory which is a bit of a shame as it was a great place to eat cheaply when necessary.

Anyway, it was designed for the law students of course, but my digital forensics masters students had use of it for three hours to be 'expert witnesses' in a trial involving a defendent accused of having child pornography on his computer.

Before I knew what the actual crime involved I'd said that sounded interesting and could I come and watch the proceedings... but the academic telling me about it could go one better. They didn't actually have a judge so could I sit at the front and ask questions as appropriate and referee the prosecution and defence counsels? Certainly, sounded daunting but interesting.

Fortunately, there was no requirement to review any of the 'evidence' and in fact I wasn't judging a trial in any case, it was in effect the same quarter of an hour over and over again as each of the dozen students in the class did their expert witness stint on the witness stand. Two academics were the lawyers for and against and went through the same set of questions.

So it revolved around their qualifications as a witness, what processes/tools/software they'd used to analyse the hard drive in question and what they'd found etc. If they used any heavy duty jargon I could interrupt and ask them to explain to the jury what that meant - and I loved the way the student would then address the 12 chairs of the imaginary jury for a moment or two!

I wasn't certain before I started that it wouldn't be deadly dull, but in fact it was interesting in any number of ways.
I was intrigued by the deference and respect I got just because of where I was sitting.
The poor students found the whole set up much more real and nerve wracking than they expected and so were much more nervous. In fairness they almost all did pretty credible jobs without too much incomprehensibility.
The two academics got more and more into it until I really was refereeing them towards the end with their objections and deliberate attempts to lead the witness or confuse them etc.
Given that all the students were working to the same scenario and hard drive that they'd dissected, it was astonishing how varied your view of the case/testimony/witnesses actions you could get depending on their responses to the questions.
And there was absolutely no chance to fall asleep or do the crossword as you really had to pay attention if you wanted to not only follow the witness but to follow the way the questions were being asked to ensure fairplay.

All in all, a really fascinating experience.

Just taken part in a bit of research. Such opportunities occasionally come up and it's always interesting to see what's going on in various parts of the university.

This one was looking at how to get the best recall from a witness of a crime. I had to watch a video for a couple of minutes and rather than be tested on what I remembered, had to fill in as many lines as I cared to with a fact or observation and then mark on a percentage scale how reliable I thought the memory of it was.

I understand this was being compared with other subjects who were asked to recall what they could in a more narrative fashion.

Just to really stretch the memory, in between the video and the recollection of it, I had to listen to two very short stories and then write down what I recalled of *them*.

The researcher gave me his 'form' (with sets of blank lines and percentage scales) running to about 20 pages. "Use as many as you like - you won't fill it all." I came pretty close though with just a page left by the end. On the other hand I'd started on negative comments such as 'it wasn't raining' (or snowing!) and could have done those forever, so I decided I'd extracted what I could from the sieve of my memory.

I'll look forward to seeing the published results but won't ever get to find out how accurate - or otherwise - I was. Pity.

Scary session this morning as the science librarian had arranged for me to do a 90 minutes session to a group of his "prof doc" students (PhDs with a bit more teaching and a bit less research I think he explained) on 'new technologies in information dissemination'.

I think a computing academic has run the session before but for some reason it's devolved to me now. I'd complain that it ought to be the science librarian teaching his own students except that as I come bottom of our league table on number of teaching hours [1], I'll take anything I can get. Plus it was an interesting topic I've not done before.

Although I was very uncertain what the group would be like, how the session would 'work', how the session would go down, in actual fact they seemed very appreciative of it and found it quite useful. Even the first section I did on Twitter just to get the controversial out of the way!


[1] If I've not mentioned this before, it comes up in my appraisal each year. It's not for want of touting my services and abilities about the faculty at any opportunity.

I was leading one of our weekly library staff training events this morning. On the pre-entry project I must go on about ad infinitum. (Both here and at work). The last such session I did was on the trip to the Czech Republic and the conference presenting a paper on the subject. That drew a full house of maybe 20 people.

This one, looking at the project itself - developments in 2009 and where it might go in 2010 - was evidently less inviting. Just 8 or so.

What was interesting was that at least one person still knew very little about the whole thing and how much in the way of thoughts about future directions and utility even a small group could develop very quickly.

An e-learning forum today debated whether we need the "e" in e-learning. Not sure it covered anything new, but I was twittering from the back with a computing academic which at least kept me engaged.

(I couldn't but help pointing out that actually e-learning needs two ees.)

It was interesting to note that not only were a couple of people I knew following the tweets, but someone I vaguely knew from having met once at a conference last year who took the trouble to thank me for the 'coverage' as it was useful. Presumably as an unemployed librarian with a job interview it's helpful to keep up with current concerns. But it reminded me that Twitter can actually be useful.

Odd sort of event today. Some of the museum and heritage students are filming their case studies about an invented public library. A couple of us from the library and someone from the public library have been invited to come and be the 'audience'.

We'd kind of understood we were just being invited to see what they did, how they did it and take an interest in the whole process. Turned out on arrival that we were expected to sit on seats under the glare of the lights and not only be a 'real' tv audience but to ask questions of the presenters at the end of each group's talk and slides.

Given that absolutely nothing hung on it from our point of view, it wasn't go to be broadcast any where at all, and it really mattered not a jot - it's amazing how intimidating big broadcast quality cameras, studio lights, floor managers, microphones and 'sets' can be. On the other hand, it was interesting to see a bit of behind the scenes television and if nothing else sitting under the lights was the first time I've been warm in days.

The students did pretty well with what was clearly a really nerve wracking experience for them and I shall be interested to see the DVD product. If anyone has any tips on how to *look* relaxed while just sitting there, I'd love to hear. I was suddenly aware of every facial expression, every movement of hand, arm, leg - I've a lot more sympathy for politicians having to sit in front of audiences like that.

University still shut but Library now open from 10-4.

As the buses have completely given up where I am (even though they're apparently fine in the city center) I'm still at home but feeling so rough that I'm not sure it wouldn't be a sick day even if I could get in. Still, I can do more from a laptop in bed than I can with distractions in the office so it's actually been quite productive.

University shut due to 'extremely hazardous' conditions. But unfortunately so are my children's and wife's school - so any dream of a peaceful day working from home shattered.

Then, as I follow email and Twitter, I find the Library is under pressure to open and is going to see what it can do with whatever staff can walk in from 12-3.

Hang on... what happened to the 'extremely hazardous' conditions for the rest of the university?

At least a 7 mile tramp in the snow isn't expected of me so I just feel mildly guilty about not being there.

Day of annual leave today. As well as a dental appointment I thought I'd attempt to get started on a sermon for the end of the month.

As it happens the Library along with the rest of the University was closed by 10.30 thanks to the exceptional snowfall. At least the leave meant I didn't have to feel guilty about trying to work from home as I was beginning to feel decidedly lousy.

Got the dentist just before lunch to find they were somewhat surprised to see me (although it was only a 200 yard walk for me) and they were all packing up to go home themselves. Still, at least I got seen before they gave up.

Somewhat stressed today by the once a year (well, I did it last year and it seems to be becoming a fixture), computing lecture that is entirely online to students all over the world. Primarily Africa and Asia it seems.

It wouldn't be so bad but they use their own (non-standard) virtual learning environment and chat space which I don't have regular access to, don't use but this one time, and found flaky last year.

What's more my login doesn't appear to be working and emailing people 8 hours ahead of my time zone never makes for quick communication.

But the lunchtime edition of the session went ok (logged in with the host lecturer's account in the end but that meant she couldn't be present directly - could only follow the chat logs a minute or so behind and then email me if there was something to clarify - not ideal).

It's a marathon session of typing for the best part of an hour, but I was able to cover the basics I needed to get through and respond to their questions. Even managed to chat for a few moments before the class started about where they were from and ended up playing is-there-a-student-here-from-a-country-I-haven't-visited? (No.) (Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong...)

There was a 'repeat' session at 6pm for those who couldn't make the first due to time zone differences but as no one turned up for that I was free to go home... which was a relief as by then the promised snow was falling and travelling home was beginning to look iffy.

Back to work after a break... is there *anyone* who finds that easy?

On the other hand after (probably) too much family, food and fun it's good to take a break from *that*.