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Summer 2013. It’s midway through August; our new and returning students will be joining us soon, both physically and virtually. It’s been a productive and exciting academic year and an outstanding summer here in Ireland. Next year promises to be even more interesting… today I learned that I have received funding for beginning work on my PhD next month! This has been a long time in the thinking and planning stages, so it’s wonderful to be getting started down that road. I’ll be pursuing the PhD by research here at NUI Galway, with Dr. Iain MacLaren as my main supervisor. I plan to explore open education, particularly focusing on issues of access, equality and identity. This blog will continue to be my hub for developing and sharing ideas; I look forward to continuing to engage with many others doing similar work and research.

To mark the end of summer and the start of a new academic year, I’m very happy to be participating in the annual eAssessment Scotland conference next week. The conference is unique, combining two weeks of open online conference activity with a one-day on-site conference at the University of Dundee on August 23rd. During the one-day conference, I’ll explore “Assessment in Open Spaces”, Helen Keegan will speak about “Structured Webs, Learning Chaos and Assessment”, Fiona Leteney will explain plans for Tin Can API, and there will be a variety of workshops by Doug Belshaw, Sally Brown, Domi Sinclair, Barry Ryan, and many more. Hope you can join us!

Image: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 catherinecronin

21 thoughts on “Summer and a new start”

  1. Good luck for your PHD. I am in a similar situation and started in February. I am exploring virtual communities of practice for interpreting studies. Your topic is great! I shall follow your blog and connect some of your thoughts with my area of research.

  2. Congratulations Catherine and best of luck with your PhD, i look forward to seeing you in MΓ‘ire’s room, I’ll be next door πŸ™‚
    Aisling

    1. Thanks, Aisling! Hard to believe the wheel of the academic year has turned and we are ready to meet new students again. I do look forward to connecting with you and MΓ‘ire throughout the year and to learning from and with you, and our students. Best of luck with your preparations!

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