http://rebeccamcclelland.com Welcome to my PhD blog Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:58:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It is difficult to believe that the web has become such an integral part of our society within the relatively short space of 5,000 days. Since its inception in 1991 we have become increasingly dependant on it and still the technology is snowballing at a colossal rate. If like me you ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/issues/predicting-the-next-5000-days-of-the-web/2008/11/03.html I have been developing a series of questionnaires for my PhD and it has proved to be more time consuming than I thought it would be. I have to devise a different set of questions for each group to be targeted, students, staff, web managers, industry etc. This has been a ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/general/questionnaire-design/2008/10/28.html Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has proposed legislation which would give the security services the power to amass a giant database of all emails and phone calls in the UK. Emotive topics like terrorism, murder, child abuse etc. have been bandied about to justify this initiative and while Smith defends the ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/issues/nanny-state/2008/10/17.html I had considered creating a flash timeline to illustrate some aspects of my research for my PhD but then I came across the 'Open History Timeline' which was created for 'A Decade of Web Design' international conference which took place in Amsterdam Jan 2005. The 'webdesign timeline' is still available ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/websites/design-timeline/2008/10/17.html Internet Archive was founded in 1996 in an attempt to off-set the transient nature of the web by archiving information for posterity. This system covers a range of titles including web, moving image, text, audio and software. The wealth of free information within each of these headings provides a great ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/websites/internet-wayback-machine/2008/10/06.html I have finished another block of Research Training which covered the following topics: 'Introduction to Project Management' 'Productive Academic Writing' 'Building your Career Skills' 'Knowledge Ownership 1&2' 'Getting Published' Obviously each speaker had a unique delivery but overall they were very interesting and informative although some were more entertaining than others. Academia doesn't necessarily have to ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/general/research-development-programme/2008/10/02.html Hurrah! My Confirmation of Status Viva came and went on the 26th of July. The format of this milestone was a fifteen minute presentation by yours truly, followed by an oral examination, all of which passed without any major faux pas. In retrospect it was an enjoyable, insightful experience and ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/general/confirmation-of-status-viva/2008/07/01.html "Why would a kid in the developing world need a laptop...take the word laptop and substitute the word education...eliminate poverty create peace and work on the environment" Nicholas Negroponte This is the sentiment which drives Professor Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC initiative, Negroponte, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab first launched his non-profit ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/issues/one-laptop-per-child/2008/06/07.html The ethos that shaped the internet and made it the success it is today is under threat. Tim Berners-Lee's gift of a free democratic World Wide Web provided a facility for personal and corporate interaction which promoted creativity, commercial enterprise and freedom of speech but all that could change in ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/issues/net-neutrality/2008/06/06.html Lawrence Lessig's final 'Free Culture' speech, which took place on January 31st 2008 in Stanford University, was a stirring 'call to arms' for the continuation of the Creative Commons movement he founded 10 years previously. Lessig has decided to shift the emphasis of his energetic input to what he perceives ... http://rebeccamcclelland.com/issues/free-culture/2008/06/05.html