Looking back and looking ahead

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Research Students' Society!

It has been quite an eventful year for the RSS in many ways. We have seen positive change and progress in some areas, and red-taped frustration in others! On the whole I believe it has been a good year. Some highlights from 2009:

• Worked with IRO to conduct a large-scale survey of  research students' financial situations.
  
• Regained our affiliation with the UWS Students' Association.
• Gained representation on various committees, including URKTB and SRC.
• Confirmed "equal pay for work of equal value" rights for all research students employed at UWS.
• Worked with IRO to improve the research students' common room.

Our main hope for the year ahead is probably to see the results from the financial survey disseminated and acted-upon. We are also keen to ensure that the payment rights for research student employed by UWS are upheld.

Finally, we will be seeing a complete change of leadership in 2010 as our new Office Bearers take over. Lisa Garnham was elected to be our new President, and Grzegorz Majewski was elected to be our new Secretary. Best of luck to them both!

Please contribute for kitchen supplies

This is a quick reminder for all research students who make use of the kitchen facilities in the research students' room (F102a) on the Paisley campus. The shared tea + coffee, and items such as dish cloths and washing-up liquid, are not paid-for by the University. We need to buy them ourselves, so we would appreciate contributions towards the cost.

Thanks!

RSS elections coming soon

The Research Students' Society is organised by two 'Office Bearers': a President and a Secretary. Each year in December the society elects individuals to serve in these posts for the following year. Any research student at the University is eligible (although it usually helps to be based on the Paisley campus).

The elections for the 2010 Office Bearers will be taking place shortly, and research students are invited to nominate themselves. A vote will be taken at the quarterly RSS meeting on 18th December 2009. Anybody unable to attend the meeting is welcome to inform us of their vote via email in advance of the meeting.

Responsibilities of the positions generally include attending a few University meetings, organising social events, and liaising with staff and research students. Some of the major issues we have fought for in the past include studentship stipend level, and payment for research students who teach. We also have the great opportunity to help new research students as they adjust to PhD-life.

If this is something you would like to do, then please get in touch by Friday 11th December. Let us know who you are, and which position you would like to volunteer for. (You are welcome to volunteer for both, although you can only be elected to one of them.) You can email the current President here:

Peter.Bloomfield@uws.ac.uk

Details of the self-nominated individuals will be emailed out to the society on Monday 14th December, so that members can consider their voting options.

Upcoming presentations: Peter R. Bloomfield

This week, I will be presenting a complete overview of my PhD so far at a Computing Departmental Seminar in UWS:

Title: "Re-blending learner centred design: Integrating VLE and MUVE technology"
Date: Wednesday 25th November 2009
Time: 4pm-5pm
Venue: D126, Paisley Campus

Everyone is welcome to come along, whether you are from the School of Computing or not. The presentation won't involve any complicated maths or computer code, so technophobes are reasonably safe! :-)

Next week, I will be giving another presentation as part of the PhD evening talk series. I will be focusing on one particular aspect of my research. Once again, everybody is welcome to come along:

Title: "Discussion boards in a 3d environment"
Date: Wednesday 2nd December 2009
Time: 5pm-6pm
Venue: D126, Paisley Campus


--------
Any Research Student at UWS is welcome to notify us of upcoming presentations and publications, whether they are internal or external. We will do our best publicise your work on our blog. Contact the RSS President for more information.

What about other postgrads?

Are you a Postgraduate Taught (PgT) student here at UWS? If you are looking for a group which represents you during your time doing a Masters (or similar) qualification, then please contact the President of the Students' Association:

president@sauws.org.uk

PhD Evening Talks: "Wines with a little bit of POP"

Iain McLellan will be giving a talk this week on the topic of "Wines with a little bit of POP". Everyone is welcome to attend, whether you are a member of staff, a student, or an interested outsider. We will have the opportunity to 'decant' to a local pub afterwards for discussion of the subject-matter.

Date: Wednesday 18th November 2009
Time: 5pm
Venue: D126, Paisley campus

The PhD evening talks are organised by the UWS Research Students' Society. Attending these is a great opportunity to learn something new, and to find out what other research students are working on. And delivering a talk is a great experience, and useful practice for future research events. Please get in touch with us if you would like to be involved.


The subsequent talk will be on 2nd December: "Discussion boards in a 3d environment", by Peter R. Bloomfield. More details will follow nearer the time.

Workshop presentation by Peter R. Bloomfield

(After some consideration, I decided not to write about myself in the 3rd person for this...!)

I am a PhD student in the UWS School of Computing, and will be conducting a workshop session next week at the National Workshop on Learning in Immersive Worlds. The event is on Wednesday 11th November, and is organised by the Learning Innovation Applied Research Group of Coventry University.