What should researchers (including graduate students) blog?

Sylvie Noël, Population of One, March 30, 2010 writes: "You’re working on your Ph.D. or you just recently finished your dissertation? Congratulations, you are now one of a handful of experts in your domain. Yes, even as a “lowly” graduate student, you still know more about your research than the vast majority of people, and that makes you an expert. So what are you going to do about it?"

She suggests that researchers (including graduate students) should:
- Talk about your research. What have you done in the past?
- Talk about other people's research. Do you agree with their results?
- Talk about issues related to your research.
And yes, if you are an expert in the field, you should be blogging. Not just because it will help your career, but as a service to the community.  [Link]

Use a simple spreadsheet to organize and rate wine

Microsoft's Office Online site has a wine tasting spreadsheet which could be very useful if you are teaching wine classes. Each column in the spreadsheet is organized by the wine name, the winery, and the year. Each row contains a characteristic you assign point values to  - Appearance, Aroma, Body, Taste, and Finish. There's also some nice space left at the bottom for other notes, as well as a scoring guide for students or others who may be less familiar with the wine tasting process. Here is the link to download the full Excel template.

How to write a good research paper

So, you want to write a good paper? The most amusing reference is E. Robert Schulman, How to Write a Scientific Paper, Annals of Improbable Research, Vol. 2, No. 5, pg. 8.


Daniel Lemire says: "I know of three strategies to write an ambitious paper:

• Pick a new problem. Define the problem. Be the first to propose a solution. The problem should be simple and concrete. This is the best way to get highly cited and become famous.
• Try to explain something significant nobody has managed to explain.
• Improve by at least an order of magnitude what others have done."

Read the full article here

Waking up at 5am makes you more productive

Programmer Oscar Del Ben discusses how he rearranged his life to fit an up-at-5-am schedule and how it's made him more productive, including tips for how he was able to make the transition to being an early riser.

See Waking up at 5am - An experiment

Self-education websites

Mission to Learn is a collection of free online courses, Web tools, learning games, and other resources for lifelong learners.  This entry is aimed at helping people along the journey of self-education - or lifelong learning. Take a look at: 100 free places to learn online and Wide Awake Minds

Also How to Learn on Your Own is another site worth viewing.

New research study of hotel branding in SL

Hotels around the world are frequently exposed to a wide range of products, a plethora of co-branding opportunities are easily available to the hotel industry. Successful co-branding can provide a hotel with the competitive edge and differentiation that strategically fit with their branding objectives. To understand the brands preferred by hotel patrons, a unique study was planned, designed and conducted Basak Denizci and Paul Penfold in PolyU’s Virtual Hotel in Second Life in order to define the optimal level of co-branding in hotels.

Paul said, “The use of the Virtual Hotel does not only provide researchers with new tools for collaboration with other academics and fellow researchers worldwide, but also enables researchers to create innovative environments for conducting their research.”

Over a four-week period, participants visited the hotel rooms, reviewed the amenities and selected their preferred brands. Participants came from 39 countries including USA, Canada, UK, Germany, Holland, Australia and Hong Kong. Preliminary results indicate that coffee, TV, toothpaste, shampoo and shower gel are the most preferred products to be branded in a four-star hotel room setting. The most preferred brand for each item is also identified.

According to Dr Denizci, “A similar research conducted in the real world would have to allow participants to stay in a hotel in order for them to try the range of brands available in a variety of hotel settings. It would be a very expensive exercise for any researchers and also very difficult for them to reach a truly representative and international hotel patrons.”

The second stage of the study involves conjoint analysis which is instrumental in determining the trade-offs that hotel customers are willing to make in their purchase decisions as well as in developing pricing strategies for hotels.

This study serves as a guideline for multi-branding in a hotel room setting for the purpose of positioning the hotel brand. Data collected will be used by researchers in determining the most preferred amenities to be branded as well as their brands as favoured by respondents with different socio-demographic background and traveling pattern. Over 700 participants from around the world took part in this research and the results will be published later this year.

Classroom Habitudes in SL

Interesting inworld video of a seminar from ISTE Eduverse in SL on Classroom Habitudes
(Habits and attitudes in virtual worlds)