This website is a virtual proof that I'm awesome https://matthewsillence.github.io/ I have been thinking a lot about games and their role in researcher development for some time. Initially, this came about through my previous work with colleagues at the University of Hertfordshire, when we used and expanded on a set of conversation cards to support engagement with equality, diversity and... Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2026-03-25-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2026-03-25-update/ The following text has been adapted from a short article produced for the Centre for Staff and Educational Development (CSED) in 2008: Keeping track of the structure of a thesis is not as simple as it first seems. After a year and a half of PhD research, the nature of... Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2024-08-19-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2024-08-19-update/ Over the years of teaching in higher education, I have tried different approaches to lesson plans. One of the reasons for experimenting is that, in the arts and humanities, in the UK at least, there is considerable flexibility in the way that individual teaching events are designed and executed. At... Tue, 29 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2023-08-29-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2023-08-29-update/ Having spent several months working with markdown (.md) format and files, I have relocated my blog to be hosted through GitHub pages. The domain matthewsillence.org will automatically redirect to this site, and the historic posts from matthewsillence.blogspot.com will be imported into the new site. Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2023-08-18-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2023-08-18-update/ This week’s announcement that Elon Musk has agreed a takeover deal with Twitter has prompted questions over the future of the social media platform. Personally, I find Twitter very helpful in my professional life, but I have reservations about Musk’s control of the platform. Decentralized, open-source alternatives, such as Mastodon, provide better models for... Thu, 28 Apr 2022 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2022-04-28-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2022-04-28-update/ The world has changed dramatically over the last few weeks, and universities have been transitioning to remote working to support their staff and students and ensure business continuity. However, the last ten days of the new normal has revealed just how dependent we are on the sophisticated IT infrastructures of... Tue, 31 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2020-03-31-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2020-03-31-update/ When I began my own research degree back in 2005, I purchased a copy of Patrick Dunleavy’s Authoring a PhD: How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Thesis or Dissertation (2003). It was one of the first books that I read during my PhD, and I still read it today.... Wed, 25 Sep 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-09-25-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-09-25-update/ Background This blog post is based on a workshop delivered at the Vitae Researcher Development International Conference 2018. It begins with a review of current initiatives at the University of East Anglia that provide continuing professional development for postgraduate research supervisors. Drawing on a blended model of supervisor CPD employed with... Thu, 29 Aug 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-08-29-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-08-29-update/ About three years ago I set up a number of e-mail alert subscriptions to Taylor and Francis online. These were for a range of titles in education, and I was interested in new publications on doctoral education. Chances are you do the same, with your own criteria. For a while, this... Tue, 16 Jul 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-07-16-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-07-16-update/ Over the last year, building on the excellent training from the Oxford Digital Humanities Summer School on data preparation, I have been working up a conference paper given a few years back for the Monumental Brass Society. A niche interest for historians, archaeologists and art historians, that is true, but I realised that... Tue, 02 Jul 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-07-02-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-07-02-update/ Last Friday (3 May 2019) was the final day of our Arts and Humanities in the Digital Age series, run by the Consortium for Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE). It marks the culmination of almost five months of training and independent project undertaken by a cohort of postgraduate research students... Wed, 08 May 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-05-08-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-05-08-update/ With the uncertainty over Brexit continuing, I will be deactivating my main website www.matthewsillence.eu on 30 April 2019. This is an unfortunate step, but the recent guidance from the .EU website recommends re-registration to continue using the domain in future. I have opted for the new domain www.matthewsillence.org, but this will only... Wed, 03 Apr 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-04-03-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-04-03-update/ There are a number of highlights of my year in working with postgraduate research students, and the Arts and Humanities in the Digital Age programme led by the Open University through the CHASE partnership is definitely on the list. Each year, a group of postgraduate research students from across the UK comes together to learn about... Wed, 16 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-01-16-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2019-01-16-update/ I am currently preparing the teaching materials for the MA in Higher Education Practice pilot module on postgraduate research supervision, that will begin this autumn at the University of East Anglia. In preparing the second session of the seminar series that forms the core of the module, I began by... Tue, 07 Aug 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-08-07-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-08-07-update/ Postgraduate research students and staff at the University of East Anglia were very fortunate to receive an amazing workshop on ArcGIS online and Story Maps with Dr Katy Appleton and Addy Pope (Esri UK). ArcGIS online is a lighter weight version of the popular spatial data platform, and using our institutional account, we worked through several... Fri, 13 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-13-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-13-update/ This is the final day. Our workshop participants have gone their separate ways or down to the pub for a final drink. It has been an exhilarating experience, and very challenging, but probably one of the most welcoming events that I have ever attended. One of the reasons for this... Fri, 06 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-06-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-06-update/ Today’s challenge was definitely one of bandwidth as there was a lot to take in! This morning involved working with both GitHub and Python. GitHub is something that I am planning to use, mostly for teaching materials in the digital humanities. Some of the feedback that we had from the Arts and Humanities... Thu, 05 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-05-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-05-update/ Today’s challenge was to tackle two tools in the cleaning of ‘dirty’ data: Open Refine and SQLite Studio. My initial reaction to Open Refine is its utility for speeding up tasks that academics and research students could easily spend days or weeks on; the kinds of cleaning tasks that are inevitably prone to... Wed, 04 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-04-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-04-update/ Another fantastic day a DHOXSS 2018. This morning’s session with Elizabeth Wickes stressed the importance of minimum viable curation - the idea of accessing data with the constraints of a real-world situation. In this case something that actually related very well to my line of work: the presentation of a... Tue, 03 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-03-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-03-update/ My first day at the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School, which has been intense but very productive. This morning’s introductory lecture by Dr Victoria Van Hyning on crowdsourcing initiatives and the rise of ‘citizen humanities’ really emphasised the combination of the digital tools and interfaces and human processing power for large-scale projects that... Mon, 02 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0400 https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-02-update/ https://matthewsillence.github.io/2018-07-02-update/