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Beating the Ban

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags ban, blog, censorship, Maynooth University, Wordpress on September 18, 2024 by telescoper

Access to this blog is still blocked on Maynooth University campus. I was told that this was because of phishing activity, but IT Services are not replying to my requests for information about this alleged misconduct. If it were true I would have been subject to disciplinary action, and I haven’t because it is not true. I can only assume that it is a half-witted attempt at censorship.

I did originally think that the entire WordPress.com domain was blocked but I found that I could access the excellent blog by mathematician Terry Tao so it does appear I have been singled out for banning.

You can still read this blog off campus, but if you want to read it on Maynooth University campus, my posts are available in full federated form on Mastodon by following In the Dark on mastodon.social here.

That means you can read whole posts there rather than having to follow a link as on other social media (Threads, BlueSky, LinkedIn and Facebook).

Alternatively, you can receive posts via email here:

In the past I have used this blog, along with my other social media, to promote activities, courses, and job opportunities at Maynooth University. I will not be doing that until the ban is lifted. I have of course also posted items critical of the University management and will continue doing that.

UPDATE: By sheer coincidence (?), just a couple of hours after posting this item (from home), IT services contacted me and told me that this page has now been “reclassified as a blog” and is now accessible from campus (which is where I am writing this update). What it was classified as before is anyone’s guess, but access from campus has now been restored.

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More Thoughts of Retirement…

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags Academic Life, Maynooth University, pension, Retirement, retirement-planning on September 16, 2024 by telescoper

Now that I’m back home from campus after work, and have access to this blog once again, I thought I’d share a little ethical question with you.

Less than a year ago, while I was in Barcelona, I posted an item about looking forward to retirement. Here are two paragraphs from that piece:

The fact of the matter is, though, that I can’t afford to retire yet. I have a mortgage to pay and I’ve only had five full years of pensionable service in the Irish system, so won’t get much of a pension. I have the frozen residue of my UK pension, of course, but that is subject to an actuarial reduction if I take the benefit before I’m 65, which is also the standard retirement age for academic staff in Ireland. I can’t be made to retire here until I’m 70, in fact, but I think I’ll be well beyond my best-before date by then and am not keen to overstay my welcome.

So it looks like I’ll have to stay until I’m 65 at the earliest. In fact I won’t be able to collect the State Pension (SPC) until I’m 66, so I’ll probably have to stay another year. That means that when I get back from sabbatical I will have four or five years left until I can retire. I don’t know what I’ll be teaching when I return but I hope I get a chance to teach a few new modules before the end. In particular some cosmology or astrophysics would be particularly nice. All this is predicated on: (a) me living long enough; and (b) Physics at Maynooth not being closed down; neither of these is certain.

Since I posted this I have made a firm decision that I will retire as soon as I’m able, which should be in June 2028. This is partly because I recently had a health scare which, though it is now seemingly resolved, has persuaded me not to take (a) for granted. There are things I’d like to do before I pop my clogs and I won’t be able to do them while still in full-time employment. I’ve done some calculations and should be able to pay off my mortgage early, perhaps even by the end of this year.

Anyway, this led me to the following ethical question, to which different colleagues have had different responses.

A PhD in Ireland typically takes a minimum of 4 years. That means that if I were to take on a new PhD student next academic year (starting in September 2025) then less than three years would pass before I would retire. If a member of staff is less than 4 years from retirement should they decline all PhD supervision requests?

Opinions through the Comments Box please!

PS. My two current students will both have completed well before 2028.

PPS. Another question is who would take over the Open Journal of Astrophysics…

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Farewell to the Hume Doctoral Scholarships

Posted in Maynooth with tags John and Pat Hume Doctoral Scholarships, John Hume, Maynooth University, Pat Hume on September 13, 2024 by telescoper

If you are a final year student and were thinking of applying for one of the John and Pat Hume Doctoral Scholarships in order to fund a PhD at Maynooth University, then don’t bother. University Management – as usual in the case of anything without consultation or discussion – has decided to scrap the scheme. How this squares with the ambition to increase PhD numbers stated clearly in the Strategic Plan is anyone’s guess. Why it has been decided to aim a wrecking ball at Maynooth’s research activity is another question. Clearly it’s not shortage of funds: the University accounts reveal huge surpluses and just this week yet another administrative position with a six-digit salary (enough to fund at least 5 PhD students) was advertised. We can’t expect to have research students and a legion of overpaid bureaucrats, can we?

John Hume (a Maynooth alumnus and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize) died in 2020 and Pat Hume (John’s wife), who died in 2021; the John and Pat Hume Scholarships were created in their honour. The decision to extinguish that honour just a few year after their deaths is just crass. Let’s hope the inevitable backlash will bring about a change of mind. This blog may be banned on campus, but word will spread.

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Space Week in Maynooth!

Posted in Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags Maynooth University, Space Week on September 12, 2024 by telescoper

The annual Space Week in Ireland is from October 4th – 10th this year. As we have done for the previous couple of years, we will be putting on an event at Maynooth University. When I say “we”, I mean the Department of Physics collectively – I was away in Barcelona at the time of last year’s event so couldn’t give a talk, but I did one the year before. I’ll be doing a talk this year too. The description of my talk reads:

Two of the greatest mysteries in modern science concern the nature of the dark matter and dark energy we think dominate the Universe. In this talk I will explain how the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission, launched last year, is designed to shed light on the “dark side” of the cosmos, present some of the early results, and show how you can get involved in analyzing Euclid data.

Anyway, this year’s event will be on Wednesday 9th October. The event is open is open to all and will be held in the picturesque surroundings of the TSI building. Tickets are free but must be reserved in advance. You can do that here. The event has sold out for both the last two years – with over 400 attendees – so it’s best to book early!

You can find more details about the programme here. It may change so I’ll post the final programme nearer the event.

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A Room with a View

Posted in Biographical, Maynooth with tags Maynooth University, Window on September 11, 2024 by telescoper

I thought I’d share with readers – at least those off campus, as access to this blog remains banned by Maynooth University – the view from the window of my new office:

Well, what did you expect to see from a Maynooth University office window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across …

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Maynooth University’s Privatized Network

Posted in Maynooth with tags Agile Networks, IP address, Maynooth University, Wordpress.com on September 9, 2024 by telescoper

Quite a few people have contacted me to ask why my access to this blog is banned on Maynooth University campus, as indicated at the top of yesterday’s post. As far as I can see, the block applies not only to this site (telescoper.wordpress.com aka telescoper.blog) but every site with an IP address or addresses (a pair in my case) hosted on the WordPress.com domain. I don’t know how many sites that is, but it’s a lot.

When I asked IT Services at Maynooth why I could neither read no write to my own blog via the campus network, it was explained to me that at some point one of the sites hosted on WordPress was involved in a phishing operation so the whole domain was blocked by the “external provider” as it is deemed a security risk. Actually WordPress.com has very strict control of its security, so this allegation is potentially defamatory and damaging to WordPress business. I wouldn’t be surprised if they take legal action. It doesn’t damage my business of course, as I make no money from this blog, but I nevertheless find it extremely annoying. In any case it seems to me an unreasonable and disproportionate restriction.

It was in February 2024 (while I was away in Australia) that Maynooth University privatized its computer network, handing over control of it to a company called Agile Networks. Apparently, this “external provider” now has complete control over web access from Maynooth University and is not accountable to the University for its actions. It, not the University, decides what websites can be accessed by staff and students. So much for academic freedom.

I might add that there has been a plethora of network service outages recently, so I was amused by the self-congratulatory tone of Agile Networks represented by its takeover of Maynooth’s internet access, e.g.

It has revolutionised the campus. It has made every outdoor area of the campus a viable classroom.

That may be true, but it merely reflects the fact that Maynooth does not have anywhere near enough indoor teaching or student study spaces. I’m sure students will be delighted that it is now deemed acceptable for them to study in the “viable classroom” of the great outdoors, complete with freezing cold and pouring rain!

Anyway, I contacted WordPress to tell them of the problem and they confirmed that nobody from either Maynooth University or Agile Networks has contacted them about the alleged security breach. They said

The ideal situation would be that the service provider reviews our documentation and whitelists the IP…

The situation is obviously not ideal…

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A New Term

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags Maynooth University on September 8, 2024 by telescoper

WARNING: THIS BLOG IS BANNED ON MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

I’m well and truly back from sabbatical: I spent most of Friday filling in forms.

It is now just two weeks before teaching resumes after the summer break. To add even more excitement to this, the building housing the rooms in which half of my scheduled lectures (and many of those of my colleagues) are to take place is still a construction site. The work was supposed to be completed by September 1st. Will the rooms be ready by September 23rd? I have no idea. What will we do if they’re not? I have no idea. We’ll just have to wait and see.

I still have the blackboard in my study that I used to give remote lectures during pandemic times. I wonder if I’ll be using it again? I thought this time round we would have a relatively smooth introduction to term, as opposed to the mad scramble caused in previous years by delayed Leaving Certificate results, but…

Among the new arrivals will be a cohort of students on our MSc in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics. I understand we have approximately 9 students which is not a bad start for a new postgraduate course. That means we’ll have to think up some projects for them to do. I might do that this afternoon, in fact.

Anyway, this coming week we have the first Departmental Meeting of the (new) Department of Physics. Hopefully we might find out how the merger is actually meant to work in practice. The day after that we meet the new (Interim) Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering. Incidentally the President of Maynooth University made this appointment in a way that is in direct conflict with the Statutes of the University. That’s par for the course at Maynooth these days, I’m afraid, as is the censorship of this blog.

This time next week we’ll be looking ahead to Welcome Week when the new students arrive and have a chance to look around and choose their modules. The local Facebook page is alive with messages from desperate students and their parents looking for accommodation in or near Maynooth. The University likes to boast about how many more students it will have this year, but not a thought is given to where they will live. The strain of having to travel long distances to campus, combined with the high cost of living necessitating many students to take on more-or-less full time employment, looks likely to ensure that drop-out rates climb still further.

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Congratulations to the Class of 24!

Posted in Education, Maynooth with tags Conferring Ceremonies, Maynooth University, theoretical physics on September 6, 2024 by telescoper

After almost a whole week of conferring ceremonies at Maynooth University, today was the day that this year’s Theoretical Physics students graduated. We all know that theoretical physicists are la crème de la crème so they were obviously keeping the best until last. Anyway, congratulations all!

Here’s a suitable image from Private Eye years ago:

Scopus should be banned

Posted in Maynooth, Open Access with tags censorship, Maynooth University, Open Journal of Astrophysics, SCOPUS on September 5, 2024 by telescoper

I think it’s time to provide an update on the (lack of) progress getting The Open Journal of Astrophysics properly indexed in Scopus (which markets itself as a purveyor of “metrics you can trust”).

You might recall back in June that I reported that OJAp had been included in the index, but unfortunately the Scopus team messed up very badly by omitting about one-third of our papers and most of our citations. Here’s what they did:

In the column marked Documents 2020-23 you will see the number 67. In fact we published 99 articles between 2020 and 2023, not 67. This is easily established here. The number 67 relates to the period 2022-23 only. Accidentally or deliberately, Scopus has omitted a third of our papers from its database. But the error doesn’t end there. Papers published in OJAp between 2020 and 2023 have actually been cited 959 times, not 137. If you restrict the count to papers published in 2022-23 there are 526 citations. It’s no wonder that OJAp has such a low CiteScore, and consequently appears so far down the rankings, when the citation information is so woefully inaccurate. “Metrics you can trust?” My arse!

If you want accurate bibliometric information about the papers published in the two years that Scopus has chosen to ignore you can look here.

I sent this information to Scopus on 15th June, soon after noticing the error, but I then got shunted around. I eventually got a reply on 23rd August, acknowledging the mistake and including this:

I want to assure you that your request has been promptly forwarded to our technical team for the addition of the paper to our database. While we strive to resolve this as swiftly as possible, please be aware that this correction process may take up to four weeks to be completed.

I think they’re using some definition of “promptly” with which I am unfamiliar. I’m not optimistic that they will actually correct it in four weeks, either, since it took 5 months to get the initial 67 papers indexed.

This all merely demonstrates the folly that so many institutions place so much trust in Scopus. Based on my interactions with them, I wouldn’t trust them with anything at all. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that Scopus listing is such a reliable indicator of quality that any article not published in a Scopus journal is worthless. Knowing that it has a monopoly, Scopus has no incentive to put any effort into its own quality assurance. It can peddle any error-ridden tripe to its subscribers, most of them paying for the product with taxpayers’ money.

(I might add that if OJAp were a commercial journal, then the willful publication of demonstrably false information about it would be actionable as it is potentially damaging to business. )

Presumably at the instigation of senior management, IT services at Maynooth University are still banning access to this blog from campus. It would make far more sense for them to ban Scopus.

1 Comment »

Induction and Conferring

Posted in Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags Conferring Ceremonies, F4F4F4, induction, Maynooth University, Royal Grammar School Newcastle on September 4, 2024 by telescoper

I was away yesterday dealing with some personal matters and on the way home I was so bored that I took a rare glance at my LinkedIn feed and found this, which unfortunately refuses to be embedded properly.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/royal-grammar-school-newcastle_wearergs-activity-7236768897327087616-8Iz8

Anyway, it reminded me that it was 50 years ago this week that I went through a similar induction process at the Royal Grammar School Newcastle and was about to begin my Secondary Education along with my classmates in 1E, one of whom I wrote about here. We didn’t have “Year 3”, “Year 7” and “Year 11” in those days; we were just called “First Years”, which I guess is Year 7 in today’s currency. The Hall hasn’t changed much since my day. Although it looked enormous then, to a little boy, to an adult it looks very small to accommodate over a thousand pupils. At the morning School Assemblies many of us had to stand around the edges.

Meanwhile, back in the present week, Maynooth University is hosting events at which degrees are conferred. The cohort of undergraduate students graduating at this week’s ceremonies are those that took their final examinations in May/June this year (while I was away on sabbatical) so I didn’t teach any of them this year. I will, however, be seeing some again as they return for postgraduate degrees.

In a couple of weeks we will be having induction events for the new intake of students at Maynooth University. Most of our students are on 4-year programmes, so it well be September 2028 that the latest crop have their conferring ceremonies. If all goes to plan I shall have retired by then.

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In the Dark