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Public Lectures?

Posted in Education, Maynooth on June 5, 2020 by telescoper

Taking a break from marking examinations and other assignments I was thinking about the next academic year. Although we’re planning to give as much teaching as possible in face-to-face form from September,  it is likely that we will have some material online. In fact I found the short video summaries I did last term were quite popular with students so I may well carry on doing them even if we were to return completely to normal as a supplement to the live experience.

Thinking about this a bit further I reckon I should put all such material on Youtube so that anyone who wants to access it can do so. I don’t think there will be a huge demand for them in the general public, but for me it’s more a point of principle. As my teaching is funded by the public purse, it seems reasonable to me that what I produce should all be in the public domain wherever possible. That obviously excludes some teaching activities (e.g. labs and tutorials) but I don’t see why I shouldn’t do it with lectures or other video content.

If you object on the grounds that students pay a €3000 `student contribution‘ to attend university in Ireland and would be annoyed if I gave away what they’re having to pay for, then I’d reply that that money is not supposed to cover tuition – just student services and examinations.

I know many of my colleagues disagree with this, so I thought I’d do another totally unscientific poll to see what others think. Not that it will change my mind….

 

 

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From May to September

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , , , , on May 28, 2020 by telescoper

So here we are, then. The final pair of examinations online timed assessments for students in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Maynooth University have just started and the students’ submissions will come in later this afternoon. By a curious coincidence the last two comprise a 3rd Year module on Special Relativity and a 4th year module on General Relativity, both of which happen at the same time (in the reference frame of the students).

I don’t want to jinx this afternoon’s proceedings but the switch to online assessments has gone much more smoothly than I imagined it would. I’ve been keeping an eye on all of them and there have been very few problems, and those that did arise were sorted out relatively easily. I’m immensely relieved by this, as I think I’ve been more nervous during these examinations than most of the students!

After this afternoon we will have to knuckle down and get these assessments marked in time for the round of Exam Board meetings. We have been allowed an extra week to do this because grading will be a slower process than usual, especially for the kind of mathematical work we do in the Department of Theoretical Physics. We’ll have to see how it goes but I’m confident we can get the results ready by 18th June, which is the date of our (virtual) Exam Board.

After the Exam Boards we would normally be thinking of relaxing a bit for the summer, and doing a bit of research, but there’s no sign of that being possible this year.

Among the urgent things to deal with are managing the `return to work’ of staff during the various phases of the Irish Government’s Roadmap. This document does not give much detail and there are serious issues to be solved before we can even start Phase 2 (due to commence June 8th) never mind finish Phase 5 and return to some semblance of normal working.

Iontas Lecture Theatre, Maynooth University

Slightly further off, but no less urgent is the matter of how to deal with the start of the next academic year, assuming the progress of the pandemic allows this to happen at all. One of the big uncertainties is how many potential students will defer their university study until next year, which makes it difficult to predict how many students we will have to cater for.

I have to say I’m very annoyed by recent reporting of this issue in the Irish Times, which includes this:

The fact that most lectures will take place online, along with changed economic conditions facing families and inability of students to secure summer work, may make it less attractive for many students to go to college in the coming year.

The second word fact (my emphasis) is the problem, as it describes something that is not a fact at all. A lot can happen between May and September, but we are currently planning on the basis that most of our lectures in Theoretical Physics will go ahead pretty much as normal. That may in the end turn out to be impossible, e.g. if there is a second wave of infection, but at the moment it is a reasonable scenario. And even if we do have to move some or all lectures online we will still have face-to-face teaching in the form of tutorials, exercise classes and computer laboratories.

A slightly less misleading article can be found in the same newspaper here.

A couple of weeks ago, Cambridge University announced that there would be no face-to-face lectures at all next academic year. I was amused to hear a representative of that institution on the radio sounding as if he was saying that “at Cambridge, lectures have very little to do with teaching”. I think what he meant was that tutorials and other teaching sessions would still go ahead so the loss of in-person lectures was not as important as it sounded. That may very well be true of Arts and Humanities subjects, but I was an undergraduate in Natural Sciences at Cambridge (many years ago) and I can tell you the vast majority of my tuition there was in the lecture theatre.

Neither is it the case that Oxford and Cambridge are the only UK universities to have tutorials or small group tuition, but I digress…

My point is that, while I can’t promise that it will be business as usual from September 2020, it’s quite wrong to give potential students the impression that it would be a waste of their time starting this academic year. I can assure any students reading this of the fact that we’re doing everything we can to give them as good an experience as possible.

You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers!

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One down, Thirteen to go..

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , on May 17, 2020 by telescoper

As I mentioned in a recent post, Saturday saw the first of our new-fangled examinations online timed assessments in the Department of Theoretical Physics at Maynooth University. Despite all the planning I was quite nervous as the time for that test approached and it wasn’t even one of my examinations on that occasion!

Happily the event went ahead without any significant technical hitches and all students who took the paper managed to upload answers.

The type of mathematical problems we set in the Department of Theoretical Physics means that students will work out their answers by hand on paper which then requires scanning and converting to a PDF. That’s not very hard to do but it’s not as easy as writing an essay on a laptop then uploading a document file which is what some subjects involve.

In this sense, I think we ask a bit more of our students than many other Departments, and I very much appreciate the effort they have made to master an unfamiliar system. That goes for the staff too – this is all new for all of us!

I thought that anything significant was going to go wrong it would do so in the first one, so the fact that nothing broke not only brings relief but also builds confidence for the thirteen further examinations we have over the next two weeks.

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Phase 1 Approaches

Posted in Biographical, Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags on May 16, 2020 by telescoper

Yesterday (Friday 15th May) the Government of Ireland announced that Phase 1 of the Roadmap for relaxation of its Covid-19 restrictions would commence as planned on Monday 18th May.

This won’t make a huge difference to those people working in third level institutions because it means that anyone who can work from home should continue to do so. As you can see in the graphic above, though, some (limited) access to buildings will be available to allow staff access “to facilitate remote learning”.

Here at Maynooth University our teaching term is over and we’re into the examination period, so there is no actual teaching going on. There are exams, however, and some staff (including myself) will be going onto campus to oversee these, including sitting by their office phones in case of emergency. It is a great relief that we can do this during the examination period as things would have been far more complicated otherwise, especially for those of us who don’t have full internet access at home.

Access for this purpose will be strictly limited and in general the campus is not open. The rules for those coming into campus are quite strict. These are excerpts from the instructions sent out by the University last night:

  • Everyone who can work effectively from home should continue to do so, and non-essential travel should not be undertaken.
  • The campus is not open, and there is no general access, but you may access your office in limited circumstances if you cannot otherwise prepare for or deliver remote teaching and assessment. Approval from your Head of Department is required in all instances.
  • Always observe physical distancing of 2m and ensure thorough hand hygiene. These are key individual responsibilities to minimise the spread of the virus.
  • Employees should wash their hands when they arrive and leave.
  • Essential access will be limited to an individual’s office, provided it is not shared. If you work in a shared office, you should co-ordinate with your colleagues to make sure that you are not there at the same time.
  • There will be no general access to any shared facilities, except toilets. Toilets will be cleaned every evening, but it is the responsibility of every individual to ensure personal hand hygiene on leaving the toilets.
  • Anyone who does require access to their office should make their way directly to their office and avoid congregating in groups. Once the essential work is complete, you should leave the campus directly.

A more general ‘return-to-work’ will start in Phase 2 (in three weeks’ time) but several things related to health and safety will need to be organised before that. In the meantime I expect the Department of Theoretical Physics will continue to be empty apart from occasional visits by myself and one or two other members of staff.

Anyway, we need to take life one phase at a time. My main priority on Monday will be trying to remember where my office is, as I haven’t been there for nine weeks!

P. S. Schools in Ireland will not reopen until the start of the new school year, in August.

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How to Solve Physics Problems

Posted in Cute Problems, Education, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff, YouTube with tags , , on May 14, 2020 by telescoper

Since the examination period here at Maynooth University begins tomorrow I thought I would use the opportunity provided by my brand new YouTube channel to present a video version of a post I did a few years ago about how to solve Physics problems. These are intended for the type of problems students might encounter at high school or undergraduate level either in examinations or in homework. I’ve tried to keep the advice as general as possible though so hopefully students in other fields might find this useful too.

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Leaving Off

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on May 9, 2020 by telescoper

So yesterday the Government of Ireland announced that this year’s Leaving Certificate examinations will be cancelled. That decision seems to have surprised quite a few people but to me it looked inevitable once the Covid-19 Roadmap was published last Friday. If you recall these examinations would normally take place in June but this year had been initially been postponed to happen in late July and into August. Now they’re cancelled altogether.

Not many details are available about the scheme proposed to replace the examinations but it will be based on an assessment made by schoolteachers based on previous performance moderated in some way by the Department for Education & Skills, which has oversight of the process.

Most of the reaction I’ve seen on social media from students is that they’re delighted they won’t have to sit the examinations. Questions arise however about how fair the new system will be, especially given that it is being assembled at such short notice.

I note that the Government press release states that

Students will also retain the right to the sit the 2020 Leaving Certificate examinations at a date in the future when it is deemed safe for state examinations to be held.

The Leaving Certificate isn’t just about entry into Third Level Education but it does raise specific issues for that sector. One is how many students who would potentially enter Higher Education in September will defer until they can take the Leaving Certificate proper. If many do that then the implications for University finances in the short term are significant.

Another issue is that Universities have been planning on the basis that because of the delayed Leaving Certificate, newly enrolled students would not be arriving until November. Now it looks like they will come in September along with the returning students, so we now need a Plan B.

On the face of it, it seems good news that we will no longer have the staggered academic year required in Plan B to contend with. On the other hand, if institutions have to operate with strict social distancing measures in place when they reopen, as is likely, the increased number of students in September will make this even more difficult – especially since first-year classes are the usually larger ones. I can’t see any way of coping unless a significant part of our teaching is done remotely. Recorded lectures and virtual tutorials look set to be part of the “new normal” for some time.

The decision to cancel the Leaving Certificate raises other questions but I don’t want to get into a discussion of the rights and wrongs of that decision (in which it seems Ireland’s universities had very little influence) . All I will say – and I’m sure that I speak for all my colleagues at Maynooth University – is that we will do our utmost to operate the new admissions system in a way that is as fair as possible to potential students, and to deliver the best education we can with the resources available within whatever constraints we are under in September. Whatever we do won’t be perfect, but we’ll do our best.

Until then there is no need for students or staff to get even more stressed than we are already, so I hereby invoke the calming influence of Maynooth University Library Cat.

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The Riddle of the Leaving Certificate

Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth with tags , , , on May 3, 2020 by telescoper

I’ve been studying the ‘Roadmap‘ outlining the gradual relaxation of Covid-19 restrictions that, all being well. will begin on May 18th. There are five phases of this process, each lasting three weeks. At any point the process can be stopped or reversed if the data suggest things are going wrong.

It’s quite consistent with how I imagined it might work when I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago:

As a physicist I see the change being rather like an adiabatic process, carried out in quasi-static fashion, in a series of reversible steps…

Some measure of social distancing will remain even after the completion of all five phases, and will probably stay in place until a vaccine for Covid-19 is available.

I first noted this in Phase 1:

Which suggests that some staff may be allowed onto campus. At my University (Maynooth), however, teaching will have finished by May 8th. By May 18th the exam period will have started but it is not obvious that the above can be interpreted as allowing staff into their offices to mark examinations and project assessments. Speaking for myself I would find that useful. I suppose we will find out fairly soon what it means.

On the whole the Roadmap seems to me quite reasonable. It is rather broadbrush in character, which is understandable, though that does mean many details need to be worked out. There is however one very surprising omission which leads to a serious contradiction and is causing considerable confusion.

According to the Roadmap, Irish schools will not reopen until Phase Five, which commences on August 10th, just in time for the start of the 2020/2021 academic year.

On the other hand it has already been announced that the School Leaving Certificate examinations (which start in June in a normal year) would commence on July 29th. Moreover the Education Minister has previously indicated that these examinations would only happen after two weeks of classroom teaching for students who have been having only remote teaching during the Lockdown.

If schools are not to reopen until August 10th then it is not possible for the Leaving Certificate to start on July 29th. Even if the classroom teaching bit is scrapped there won’t be anywhere for students to sit the examinations!

There’s no mention of the Leaving Certificate in the Roadmap which suggests that the Government hasn’t thought it through yet. It seems to me virtually certain that a u-turn is coming up and the Leaving Certificate is going to be cancelled after all. Students will probably welcome this outcome but I’m not sure what it would mean for this year’s University admissions!

On the other hand I am informed by a reliable source that the Government is adamant that the Leaving Certificate will go ahead on 29th July as planned. The question is how?

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Maynooth’s Virtual Open Day

Posted in Covid-19, Education, Maynooth on April 24, 2020 by telescoper

A deserted St Joseph’s Square, resplendent in the spring sunshine.

Tomorrow is going to be interesting! Saturday 25th April was scheduled to be an Open Day at Maynooth University for undergraduate admissions which would normally have led to thousands of students visiting the Campus. Obviously current restrictions make that impossible but rather than cancel it the University has decided to proceed with a virtual Open Day.

Like other Heads, I put together a presentation and introductory video about the courses we offer, our research and other things about the Department. Our virtual visitors will be able to watch these videos as well as take virtual campus tours and talk to student ambassadors. Along with other Heads of Department I’ll also be online tomorrow from 10.30am to 3pm to answer questions from prospective students.

We have no idea how any of this will work which is why it will be so interesting. What we do know is that the Virtual Open Day has attracted interest in the national (eg here) and local (eg here) media in Ireland. Obviously I’m hoping it will go well, although it is pity our virtual visitors won’t be able to stroll around the lovely campus and see our teaching and research facilities.

Anyway, in the event of any potential students of Mathematical or Theoretical Physics reading this, do register and say hello (virtually) tomorrow!

Update: I’m told about 5,500 people attended the online event which is more than we would usually get.

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The Bandana Face Mask

Posted in Covid-19, Education with tags , , , on April 22, 2020 by telescoper

There is quite a controversy these days about whether or not to wear a face mask in public to help prevent the spread of Covid-19. The way you should think of this is not to protect yourself but to protect others from being infected by you. On the other hand there is a shortage of proper medical face masks which no sensible person would want to exacerbate.

Yesterday I saw this little video on YouTube that shows how to make a mask from a bandana and two elastic bands:

The instructions are so simple that I even managed to make one myself, though it’s not as neat as the one in the video.

The thing about all the folding is that it puts several layers in between your nose/mouth and the outside world. It’s important to use quite large elastic bands too, otherwise it will pull on your ears.

It’s quite comfortable so from now on I think I will wear one whenever it seems appropriate. The only disadvantage I’ve found so far is that it results in the audio quality on my video lectures being somewhat degraded…

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How Reliable Are University Rankings?

Posted in Bad Statistics, Education with tags , on April 21, 2020 by telescoper

I think most of you probably know the answer to this question already, but now there’s a detailed study on this topic. Here is the abstract of a paper on the arXiv on the subject

University or college rankings have almost become an industry of their own, published by US News \& World Report (USNWR) and similar organizations. Most of the rankings use a similar scheme: Rank universities in decreasing score order, where each score is computed using a set of attributes and their weights; the attributes can be objective or subjective while the weights are always subjective. This scheme is general enough to be applied to ranking objects other than universities. As shown in the related work, these rankings have important implications and also many issues. In this paper, we take a fresh look at this ranking scheme using the public College dataset; we both formally and experimentally show in multiple ways that this ranking scheme is not reliable and cannot be trusted as authoritative because it is too sensitive to weight changes and can easily be gamed. For example, we show how to derive reasonable weights programmatically to move multiple universities in our dataset to the top rank; moreover, this task takes a few seconds for over 600 universities on a personal laptop. Our mathematical formulation, methods, and results are applicable to ranking objects other than universities too. We conclude by making the case that all the data and methods used for rankings should be made open for validation and repeatability.

The italics are mine.

I have written many times about the worthlessness of University league tables (e.g. here).

Among the serious objections I have raised is that the way they are presented is fundamentally unscientific because they do not separate changes in data (assuming these are measurements of something interesting) from changes in methodology (e.g. weightings). There is an obvious and easy way to test for the size of the weighting effect, which is to construct a parallel set of league tables each year, with the current year’s input data but the previous year’s methodology, which would make it easy to isolate changes in methodology from changes in the performance indicators. No scientifically literate person would accept the result of this kind of study unless the systematic effects can be shown to be under control.

Yet purveyors of league table twaddle all refuse to perform this simple exercise. I myself asked the Times Higher to do this a few years ago and they categorically refused, thus proving that they are not at all interested in the reliability of the product they’re peddling.

Snake oil, anyone?

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