 Well, technically, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to this morning's session. I'm the session chair. I'm Simon Birkitt. I'm a senior consultant for digital transformation working for JISC. We have a stand upstairs. Do you come with us afterwards if you wish to? We've got two sessions this morning. We've got our colleagues Huyin and John from Edge Hill and Nepoly over from South Africa. So 30 minutes each. We're going to do 20 minutes presentation and then we'll do some Q&A afterwards. And then I'll give you a good indication that we're about to hand over. So I'm going to give you back that up here. Very much. Super. We've got to be wide sound for the streaming. I'm hoping that people online can hear us because there's no way for us to check. So, I'm Huyin. I am a PhD student at Lancaster University. I'm also a digital learning producer at St Josemartine. And I trust it well amongst other random things. I'm John Brindle. I am also a PhD student at Lancaster University. And I am a learning design manager at Edge Hill University. She's a teeny tiny university up in the North West of England. And we're really big. And so there's one other colleague of ours who can't be here with us today. That's Dr Brett Blight, who is actually, in a sense, our boss in some way at Lancaster. So he's the programme director on the PhD that we're doing and also the director of the Centre of Tel at Lancaster, which is where this Tel researcher project began last year, February last year. So, we're just going to quickly tell you about the story behind the series, which is a webinar series, by the way, I should have said, and how we sort of build a community of my mind of researchers off of the back of just me being nosy, really. So it all started with being nosy. That was the honest truth. I had a supervision meeting with one of our supervisors and I just said to him, I said, Don, what did you do before you became a researcher? And then he told me, oh, I used to work with the ENIC chairs and I was a schoolteacher. Wouldn't it be interesting if you were to talk to the audience that is anyone who wants to become a researcher, anyone who's interested in someone's life story, their successes, their struggles, their inspiration, etc. Just to talk about your story and it really just started with a casual conversation with Professor Don Passi, as she said, and I approached you and I said, do you want to run a series with me together? And he said, yes, it wasn't a marriage proposal, by the way, but it sounded like that and the rest is as we are. Approaching almost the end of our second year now. It's a monthly webinar where we invite. I'm reluctant to say established researchers because that wouldn't be fair, but researchers who have been around for a while, who has a story to tell, who have something to share with the community. Those are the kind of criteria that we base our invitations on. So we're going to tell you a little bit about some of the talks that have happened, but before then. Yeah, I want to start with the idea of where people come from in terms of tell research and what we've found in that. And actually, no surprise, but as the people in this room probably know, your journey into tell was probably extremely varied and I bet everybody has a different story and it's the same with tell research as well. We found massively varied between all our participants. Nobody has the same story to tell. And it's fantastic and it's really interesting that we don't actually focus on the research. So we're not saying to them, tell us what your latest research papers on, we're saying to them, tell us about what makes you a researcher, what was your journey into research, how did you become a tell researcher in this field. And so some of the examples are just just great. You know, there's a couple of people who've been through the program. So we started off quite insular and just using people from Lancaster within the program. And it's since grown to lots of other different people who hold lots of different positions in lots of different places. And it's fascinating to find, you know, the people with anthropological backgrounds, there's people with pure computer science backgrounds, there's people with backgrounds in teaching. And yeah, so it's really interesting to find those really varied journeys. So if you're thinking about getting into tell research or you're thinking about taking your first steps in, then you're probably not alone in thinking, oh, I don't feel like I fit. And which leads us on to our next little slide, which you're going to talk about. Yeah, the children are saying the journey isn't easy. And I'm probably going to get into trouble for using this example, but that session was recorded and it is on YouTube. That is actually one of our first sessions by Dr. Brett Blyth. And he said to me, he was quite honest in the session by saying he grew up in a tiny village in the north of the country where everyone was racist and everyone was just, you know, the far right. And by going to university, save is us quite literally now he's very liberal, he's very kind of, you know, social justice kind of path is his blood, etc, etc. And he was quite honest by saying, you know, going to university doing a PhD and now teaching tell research, literally just changed live around by potentially being, you know, someone with a beginning with a T that word to now a well established and well respected tell tell scholar. And then we have Dr Kilmy Lee, who in her session really talked about the struggle that she's been through being a Korean woman in England in the Western world the struggle she come across the kind of people people don't want to recognise her achievement because of what she is quite frankly. And then we have other people like your ex-colleague, Dr Tinde, I can apologise and talked about how, you know, being on the kind of researcher journey has made her realise her role in the kind of multimodal methodology how she wants to engage with her research participant in different ways rather than just doing a kind of typical research. Sorry, an interview, which is fine it's nothing wrong with just the interviews but she preferred a kind of more interactive sort of different ways of getting data, etc. So I don't even want to give a few more examples of how people want to share their journeys. I'm trying to think now because so many people it's been really interesting. I really like Jane Secker's journey into it. I thought I was really interested. She shared her whole journey and how she was looking at something totally different and history and things like that and then it became suddenly started looking at copyright and open practice and things like that. So what's really interesting through journeys is this idea of change as well how people are transformed through their tell research journey that they actually a lot of the time what they start looking at in their research changes totally and becomes totally different and nobody becomes a kind of one trick pony almost. Some people do, but not all them. I'm not going to mention anything about threshold concepts. So, yeah, one of the key things is that people do like sharing their journey. So if you are looking at getting into tell research, which you know we're very early into it, we're just about to move to thesis state where we're kind of getting to thesis stage now with our with our PhDs. People really love sharing with you. So if you are ever nervous about approaching people we've had some people who we really admire. We really admire and we were like, and we asked her and she said, yeah, I'll come and talk. We've got some really great people coming up in the next year who we just never thought would be, you know, people who want to share their journey into research with us. And it's really interesting. So if you are worried about ever worried about approaching people about their research and about their journey, don't be. Ask them. And nine times out of 10, they'll go, yeah, I don't think if you had anyone say outright no, I can't stand you. Well, yeah, well, that is a that is a well established fact, isn't it? We don't like each other. So, you know what I mean? No, I mean, everyone I've asked have been who me, but I'm an old body. Well, but you are somebody you published, you know, pages and pages of, you know, paper. You've got your professor, you've got all these big names after you, you know, of course he is somebody. But me, really, that is normally the reaction I get from most people. You want me to talk about my journey, but I've got nothing. I'm just boring. Well, no, you're not. And maybe, you know, we can talk about a format as well. So we don't prescribe a particular format in which our guests needs to talk about it. The brief is quite open is basically talk about your research practice, talk about you as a researcher. If you want a bit of guidance, if you want some prescribed question, we have some questions to you can use, but it's not a requirement, which is why it's kind of quite interesting that, you know, like Brett talked about his journey, kind of like chapter to chapter, like I said earlier from going to university to, you know, now he's getting a bit older, how he kind of, you know, became a computer scientist to now a terrorist such etc. Then we have Jen Sacker, who did a pop quiz with guest of songs. So she used songs that connect chapters of her life and then we have Donna and Laurie who are both here today. So do go ask them questions if you want to. They basically interviewed each other and talked about their relationship, their collaboration, how they managed to keep each other sane after, I don't know, 20 years of working with each other. It's just completely open. And it's that's what makes the project interesting worth John and my time doing because we're not bored of it, we're never going to get bored of it because it's so many. I think I think I think what I've learned as well though is is that people get a bit overwhelmed when you ask them to talk about their life, but once they've sat down and think about it. 10 of 10 times so far they have more to share than they perhaps give them so credit score. So maybe we'll talk about the collaboration because I think this is a collaboration between us and them and also collaboration between the researchers themselves. Yeah, so collaboration is fun. We actually hosted a really good round table, which was how not to kill your co-author with a few people who have co-authored together. That was a really fun one because we found out a lot about some of the people who published together and actually the behaviors of people who co co-authored. Some people who say, well, what I'll do is I'll, you know, somebody will write it, I'll edit it and go through it and make adjustments and amendments. And that's how we'll co-author. Actually, the approaches to co-authoring was so, so different. And there was some really fun stuff about deadlines and there was a few jibed marks between Phil Moffitt and Brett Bly. We named them online about, you know, a deadline, otherwise it's a guideline, I think, was the barb that was there. So it was really interesting finding out about how other authors collaborate, but also actually the collaboration between us as well. And we've got our next slide, which is about friendship as well and building friendship and stuff through this process has been absolutely brilliant. And actually, you know, we've collaborated with some great people on this project and there's including some other people within the cohort that are part of the PhD programme as well. So I could be remiss to not mention Francie and Tom as well who, who he likes to mix me and Tom up because we're both one. It was Francie who accidentally called him Tom Lly, one of the sessions I edited that out, so it wasn't me. So it's quite funny. We have plenty of fun in creating this and collaborating over it as well. But it is difficult, and we find, you know, sometimes, you know, it's very time consuming for Puget in because she does a lot of the editing and social media. And he does nothing. I take the white colonial view and I just sit back and let her do all the work. So it's, but actually, you know, when we're collaborating with the people who are speaking as well, we do, you know, we ensure that we're making markers so that you can have chapter markers when it goes into YouTube. So all of them are available on the SeaTel YouTube channel as well, all the talks, where the author have given their consent to be put on there. But it's really, it's really interesting to collaborate on projects like this. And again, the kind of whole thing for you, if you're thinking of doing something similar, where you think they're doing, just think about who you're going to collaborate with and build that relationship. We've got, I think we've got an all right relationship now. I mean, yeah. It gave me a lift this morning. I picked her up from the station this morning so I'm just feeling okay. So on that note, do you want to say, you know, friendship's great, taking lots of friends through this, people who we would never have met before, and people who we would never have interacted with or never come across. They're becoming friends and colleagues and we're talking to them and able to kind of just say, you know, can I have a bit of help with this now? And again, one of the things that I'd always say about being part of a research community is to say, you know, not be afraid of asking for help from people. We've just recorded a radio show for Thursday morning about our research, about our views on our research and our journeys. And, you know, but again, the key thing is asking people for help and say, you know, I'm actually, and so anytime contact me or I'm going to say anytime contact you. Anytime, just contact me. Anytime contact my PA and he will filter your calls and inquiries and I'll decide who to respond. I'm joking. I think I think I think on the friendship note as well that I think, you know, we obviously knew of each other, but I don't think we would never have been that close without this project. And, and the friendship extends to I'm not naming them if you want to identify yourself you can do is people in this room I've never met. They would never have come to Lancaster to embark on a doctorate study journey if this wasn't for the community that the series has built as a result. And it wasn't the intention when when we started the series, February last year, we really just thought it was going to be, you know, two or three months and it would just fade away and it'd be forgotten. We never thought we're going to have so many sort of schedule at the moment it goes all the way to June next year. And I've still got a list of people I'm going to just going to bother. I'm just kind of thinking when am I going to just take a deep breath and just go ask because it's quite a wrecking to go and ask those big people but as I said earlier nine or 10 times, they say, yeah, of course, of course I'll talk about it. So on that note, I'm just going to then drop the people who have appeared on our series. Most of them don't need introductions, I don't think. But if you want to review the recording of the session it is available and the link will be available at the last night slide. And now it's time to review who's going to come next because we've talked a long summer break, but we're back in September later this month and we've got Dr Melissa Highton. She might appear later on in this conference I'm not sure and then we've got Peter Bryan who's around somewhere and all this amazing people. And I just want to say at this stage as well, though, we have expanded our not just terrorist searches anymore because we kind of realise that terrorist search HG research. There's a load that loads of overlap and often these people don't really categorise themselves in one particular field because it's so narrow. So we kind of like, we haven't changed the name of our project is still terrorist searches, but we are inviting researchers who work broadly in HG field. So if anyone's got any people they really admire and they want to invite that you've been shy or you don't have a channel to do that, give us a shout. We'll see what we can do, basically, because I think just to end this one thing we haven't mentioned is for me anyway, I don't know about you, but I always thought research was has to be closed up to keep everything close to my chest and I can't show people my work because otherwise people are going to steal my ideas. This happens, but I think through this series, through the generosity and openness, all the people who have spoken, and you're going to talk at the series, the one consistent thing about this people is the openness and it's the open practice. And I was saying to you, do you remember an early edition, I said, oh, we're in May now, I didn't realise all the people we invited. So if you look at this year, what is people we invited, they actually practice open educational practice, I didn't realise until they've all spoken and I realised actually that's a theme going on subconsciously through our minds. Isn't that right, John, and I think in both our work now we've got like an open practice element to it might not be the kind of the big banner, but it is somewhere in both our work, isn't it? I think that's been quite encouraging about a lot of the people that we've spoken to is that a lot of people really believe in open practice. It's quite magical to see that it's so prevalent within some of the researchers that we've spoken to. That's certainly been a way that I've kind of been a bit more transformed by that, by thinking about open practice more seriously. I was quite pleased before that. I'll be honest about that, that's fine. I think some of our speakers have kind of kept their doors open to say, if you guys need any help, talk about your work. Like Bonnie Stewart was really honest to me after she sent an email to me and said, oh, that was really fun. If any time you need any help, just give me a shout. And I think we've got to the stage where we're both shameless. It's nothing wrong with it. So, yeah, just to end the presentation, if you want to learn more about the series, what are the recordings, see who's coming up, that's the website that'll lend you to everything that we have. As I said, anyone you want to invite via the series, just drop me an email and we'll take it from there. Has anyone got any questions? We have time for questions, don't we? We've got hand up. Actually, they need the mic, don't they? Or they're like, are you seeing all the collaborations outside? I mean, I don't know if there's, I know one thing, but are you seeing any other impact from this friendship developing? We will be speakers also in the other industries. I think this is a thrust on a personal level. We talk to each other most days, don't we, on sort of like how we're getting on with our research. I mean, it wouldn't have been that possible. I mean, it would have been possible because we were in the same cohort. But I think, like I said, the series really brought us closer together in terms of with the speakers. I think we have, actually, I made a joke with Alice, who is our admission person for the programme. I said, well, you're going to have to start paying the commission because through the series. I'm not taking up any of it through the series. I think we have a crew recruited four or five student onto the Lancaster programme. So the series is doing things, not really genuine income for the university. I don't care because I don't get paid from them. But it's to kind of encourage people to take a research and to answer your question in terms of collaboration. I don't know because we've tried to get feedback from people after the session. I'm sure now we're all working in similar fields, getting feedback from people after any session is incredibly difficult. So that's something we're working on. We need to do better on that. I think we're aware of that. But it's hard because you can't just pin somewhere and it's like, tell me what you think about a second, you know? So, yeah. I thought, I know who I wanted to come to my teacher and she did. And when I saw through her presentation and she talked about her work at Lancaster and how well she got on with her colleague. I thought, I'm not going to find that job and I did and I got to it because I got to it in itself, measuring the impact. We're sending in invoice after today. We'll give you my trip. There you go. It's perfect. It's people like yourself and other attendees. Sometimes they will email me to say, thanks, it's been great. We've been inspired. Before Twitter was still a thing. It's still a thing in a way that we sometimes get people with tweeting our session. They say, it's been great. I'm not going to do this and that. So we have little nuggets of impact. But as I said, it's incredibly hard to kind of formally measure them because as I said earlier, it just, it just sends someone a questionnaire. Don't feel it out. They don't feel it out. You can't really force them. So I'm asking is if you're ever going to attend our sessions, give some feedback, please. Any more questions? If you don't mind, I'm going to ask this person. There were some lovely turns there about stories to tell, generosity of sharing, endurance and all those sorts of things. And I just wondered if all the people you've interviewed, what one thing have you taken away in your own practice? Hard. I think the one thing that I personally took away, taken away from it is that you look at all these big names you think they've got it good. Yes, but it's 20, 30, 40 years worth of hard work. And I think Rilori in his session, he was saying he started doing research is going down the sewer and just measuring, you know, the brand stuff. I can't remember exactly what he said, but you have to, you think those people just have it on the plate, handed to them, they don't. It's really a lot of rejection, a lot of struggles, a lot of, let's say earlier, you know, Cymru Lee, he keeps getting rejected because of what she is. Let's be frank about it. And then you got Sue Cromer, he was saying, you know, when she transitioned from an administrator to a research associate or some kind of UCL, people still saw her as a little admin lady, you know, typing away in an office. And she just had to leave the environment just out of fresh to establish her research identity. So I think the one thing for me to take away is that it's hard, but once you get there, it's worth it. So I don't know about. I think, again, I think I alluded to this before is the openness and the fact that, you know, it's, we're really lucky that these people openly share their stories with everybody. And that we can do it in a very open way. And one of the key things is there's no financial imperative for anybody in any of this. Part of Lancaster University's programmes. But I just said that on Mike as well, haven't I? But the actual, you know, there's no financial imperative for any of the researchers who talked to us, we're not making any money from it. And nobody has ever asked us to pay you the maths or no one has ever asked us. Well, I'll do a talk, but it's 200 quid for half an hour, whatever. No one has ever, they literally just go like, who me? Yeah, of course, what do you mean to talk about? And then we have a little conversation with them. And then, you know, some of them produce like 20 slides or whatever, you know, that's hours of their work. But it's like, you know, we're keeping for the deploy on the generosity of the people. That's it. And the fact that there is, there is a rich community of Tau research out there massive. I mean, this conference is testament to it. But yeah, don't be afraid to reach out to people. That's it. A lot of great notes, finish all. So I'd just like to thank Ian and John for their presentation. Thank you very much.