Introducing Universidad San Francisco de Quito

I'm taking a break from the regular posting in the Writers' Lab this week to introduce my new location to you. I'll be starting in November as an assistant professor at Universidad San Francisco de Quito.

The following is what Wikipedia tells us about USFQ:

Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ (informally Universidad San Francisco, or simply USFQ) is a liberal-arts, non-profit, private university located in Quito, Ecuador. It was the first totally private self-financed university in Ecuador and the first liberal-arts institution in the Andean region.

Academically, USFQ ranks as one of the eleven-top universities (category A) in the ranking of Ecuadorian universities (being the only totally private university to qualify for the highest category), issued by the Ecuadorian Council of Evaluation and Accreditation of High Education (Consejo Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación de la Educación Superior CONEA). In 2009, it was ranked first in Ecuador in relation to the number of peer-reviewed scientific publications.

The university now enrolls 5,500 students, 4,500 of whom are undergraduates. The university each year has about 100 indigenous students and 1000 international students participate in USFQ academic programs. USFQ has developed a scholarship program for indigenous students, offering full scholarships to the best students of public high schools throughout Ecuador. Although USFQ receives no funding from the government of Ecuador, its faculty comprises one-half of all the people in that nation who hold a doctorate.

USFQ main campus is located in Cumbayá, outside of Quito (capital city of Ecuador), where students use a library, education and research laboratories, classrooms, and seven restaurants. USFQ is the only university in the world that owns a campus in the Galapagos Islands, and a campus in the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve (Tiputini Biodiversity Station), one of Earth's most biodiverse area.

That's a short introduction to my soon-to-be work place. I'll blog over time about my experiences here, as a lecturer, an expat and growing early career researcher.

Comparing traveling by public transport to traveling by car from Belgium to the Netherlands

Proofreading a paper on the train

TU Delft has a large number of Belgian students, mostly in aerospace engineering. Like most Belgian students, they travel back home over the weekend.

Since the failure of the new highspeed line Fyra between Belgium and the Netherlands, getting a good train connection over the border has become rather difficult.

Last August, I traveled twice to Delft from my hometown Lier: once by train and once by car. For comparison, I have tracked how much time it took, how much it cost me, and my general experience.

Traveling from Lier to Delft by train

I only had to be in Delft at 10am, but because the train connection between Antwerp and The Hague only goes out every other hour, I had to travel an hour earlier than necessary. I left by car at 6:20 from my parents' house to go to the train station, took the 6:35 train out, changed in Antwerp and Rotterdam and then walked to the TU Delft campus. I reached my office at 08:55. On my way back, my train from Delft to Rotterdam was delayed, so that I would miss my connection to Antwerp and onwards to Lier. Luckily, I was 10 minutes earlier in the train station, and hopped onto an earlier train out to Rotterdam. Otherwise my ride home would have lasted much longer.
The price of going back and forth was 44 euro - rather expensive for a trainride.
The advantage of taking the train is that -at least on the long haul between Antwerp and Rotterdam- I can pull out some work and take some concentrated time for work. On the shorter hauls, I pulled out my Kindle and enjoyed reading.

Traveling from Lier to Delft by car

I left at 6:20 as well, to make the comparison. Because I didn't have a train to catch, I was a wee bit slower in the morning, and actually left ay 6:25. There was a major traffic jam between Dordrecht and Rotterdam because of an oil leakage on the road, resulting in two lanes being closed. I arrived at the office around 8:20am.

As I drive a (relatively) small car (known by the name of Baby Benz), I use 6 liter of Diesel per 100km. Diesel is at about 1,4 euro/l. Given that the distance is 130km, I end up with a total price for 2 x 130km of 22 euro. Only half of the price of going by train.

Certainly, I couldn't read nor work during the ride, but I saved about half of the cost of the trip, and it took me an hour less.

From an ecological point of view, I do gravitate towards preferring public transport. And I sincerely hope the train connection between Belgium and the Netherlands will improve very soon, with more frequent connections, and a direct connection to Schiphol airport, and that the ticket prices will be a little more competitive with the cost of driving.

Keeping your Spreadsheets under Control

For all of us who juggle a lot of data for the analysis part of our dissertation, the following situation might sound all too familiar:

You use a very large spreadsheet (or numerous spreadsheets) that holds a certain analysis of your data. You typically move columns with results around to different tabs, to further distill your results. You also copy-paste some of these columns into other sheets. You fiddle and fidget around. A few months later, you find a mistake. You make some corrections. Rinse and repeat. By the time you start writing, you fiercely try to remember all the manipulations you made to your SuperDuperSheets.

You're not alone. This may or may not have happened to me *__*

Only after I defended and finished - I came across a very smart way to keep my spreadsheets under control.

Add a "version management" tab to your spreadsheet.

Now, let me expand on this idea.

Start by adding an extra "version management" tab to a new spreadsheet. In this sheet, carefully write down a version name (name of the file, typically) in the first column, in the second column the date, and in a third column an explanation of all changes you made to the sheet. Carefully fill out this sheet every single time you move something around, or tinker with the sheet.

If you're a starting PhD student, start doing this the very next time you build a new sheet. Thank me later.

If you already have multiheaded monstrous sheets: start by managing them in this way, and take a few extra hours to redefine the logic behind what you did earlier. Your dissertation-writing self will thank you.

How do you keep track of your modifications in calculation sheets?

Writers' Lab: 5 Lessons from 3 years of blogging

On Tuesday, September 14th in 2010, I started PhD Talk. At that time I didn't have much of a defined goal for the blog. The original purpose of the blog, was the following:

"However, there are always better ways to do things, and most of the time you discover this while doing. "

I simply started a blog because I had had blogs (and websites) before, and I thought it was time to pick it up again. My previous blog never got more than 200 pageviews. I just wrote for my family and friends - and that meant my mom and two of my friends would read the blog.

I didn't start with a plan for PhD Talk. I didn't have a posting schedule, a mission statement, a decent following on Twitter - I just started.

For the first months, I was simply writing every now and then, without getting much traffic or comments. But gradually things started changing. Posts got retweeted. Marketing and Communications of TU Delft caught sight of my work, and gave me a pat on the back. And after a while, I started to identify as a blogger. I landed guest posts for a number of big blogs, live-blogged twice for TEDxDelft and became a permanent author at Grave Concerns E-zine, Lifehack and Gradhacker (which ended when I finished graduate school). I received some freebies here, a store voucher there and some Amazon credit elsewhere. And I'm extremely grateful for all the support of my readers. Thank you!

1. There's value to academic blogging

After some time of writing at PhD Talk, I boldly stated that blogging is for every single academic, which triggered the discussion of the added value of blogging to academia. That doesn't translate into: "every academic should start a blog". I think there lies a lot of value in guest-posting, or in universities paging their staff every now and then to write something, showing their work and/or view on a hot topic.

By sharing my presentations online, and making my research topic visibly linked to my name, I've received e-mail messages from colleagues worldwide to discuss my experiments, and share some of my papers. Without an online presence, I would have never had the opportunity to make these contacts. Conferences, yes, also - but conferences are a different dimension, with a different audience. The internet adds an additional layer to this experience of knowledge exchange.

2. Writing about new topics triggers learning

Researching topics for TEDxDelft and Lifehack has been an incredibly rewarding experience. I've learned to make a quick search for a topic that is completely new to me (say: sulfur concrete), analyze the available information, spot the caveats, and then try to explain it in plain English to a broader public. By developing this skill, I've expanded my writing skills beyond what I could have possibly learned in academia, yet my academic writing has significantly benefited from this.

3. Practice produces speed

I used to need an hour to write a CD review, it now takes me 20 minutes - because I have fine-tuned my approach. As for blogging, it depends on the post - but certainly my ability to form sentences has seen an increase in speed. And likewise, writing sentences for research papers now goes much faster.

4. Building connections helps growing a blog

It's the guest-blogging, the Twitter connections and the community of fellow academic bloggers that have helped me grow PhD Talk. If I'd have stayed in my own corner, fiercely typing away the hours, and not interacting with anyone, I don't think PhD Talk would have received the exposure it has today.

5. Building a community is difficult

But exposure is one thing - building a community with an engaged audience is another thing. I haven't discovered yet how to engage my audience as much as I would have liked. Posts don't get much comments. Things seem to be static, rather than dynamic. All discussion happens on Twitter, not on the platform of PhD Talk itself.

For sure, I'd love to keep on building this blog, and my own domain would be the first step. But I have to confess I prefer writing over tinkering with the layout and workings of the website itself. That change can still come, over time. Most likely, that e-book will come sooner, though.

By all means, stay tuned for more posts here at PhD Talk. If all goes well, I'll keep it up for yet another 3 years (and onwards).

What have you learned from blogging? What would you like to see featured at PhD Talk?

Literature Review Bootcamp Course

Great news for PhD Students! Ben from Literature Review HQ has launched the Literature Review Boot Camp * to teach you the nuts and bolts of writing a literature review.

The course lasts about 4 hours - and it is packed with information. There are 6 sections, each with a number of videos and worksheets. Then, there is also a section with "extra's": 3 additional classes (videos of about 40 minutes each), and the success guides for your reference on the 6 topics of the course.

What are the 6 sections of the course?

Mindset
In a series of 6 videos, you learn how to replace stress and fear of failure with confidence and control. This module helps you to set yourself up for success in your literature review, and ultimately in your PhD.

Organization
This set contains 8 videos, in which you learn how to keep your literature review organized. You learn how to organize your references, both your hard copies and soft copies, and make sure you can find each and every paper right when you need it.

Searching
When you type in your search keys, you can get thousands of results back. In 7 videos, you learn how to weed through the output and snatch the papers you need for your research.

Reading
How should you read, how should you not read, and how can you increase faster and get a better comprehension of the papers you read? Ben teaches you the ins and outs of absorbing information in 10 videos.

Writing
One of the most important aspects of your PhD studies is writing - and in these 8 short videos you learn all the tools to communicate your ideas clearly on paper.

Improvement
Better and better, every day and in every way... With 7 videos you learn how to use the skills you learned during the course to keep on improving your research.

The brilliant part of this course is that it is short. It takes only 4 hours to get an overview of all skills: no beating about the bush, but clear advice. The course covers theory as well as tutorials for practical applications. To make sure you turn the course into practice, every video has actionable goals, and every module finishes with a recap of what you need to start doing.

Ben has been studying the literature review for 4 years, and he has been blogging about the topic for 3 years: he is the go-to resource for anything related with the literature review. And now his knowledge is offered to you in this boot camp course.

Check out the Literature Review Boot Camp course! *

*I'm using an affiliate link for this course. To make sure I'm not simply trying to sell you something, I actually went through the whole course myself, and I was delighted with what I saw (even took a few notes for myself). I wholeheartedly support this course, and -most of all- I love to share excellent resources with you, so that you can succeed in your PhD.

Planning for Success - an update on my time management system

As I'm constantly experimenting with what works for me, and how I can optimize my workflow, it should be of no surprise that my time management system tends to gradually evolve over time.

The last time that I discussed my time management system on PhD Talk is more than a year ago. Since then, I've changed some of my tools.

Even though I haven't changed my overall top-down approach for planning what needs to be done, I've made some changes in the tools that I use: I tried to reduce the number of tools that I draw upon, to improve the fluidity in my planning.

I was reminded of critically analyzing my time management system recently, after reading The Sunday Meeting on Inside Higher Ed. I still do my planning usually on a Friday, before heading home for the weekend.

My current approach looks like this:

1. Tools for planning

I split up my planning from the general overview, down to the daily task lists:

- The general overview
With paper deadlines and conferences always planned several months in advance, and teaching duties coming up, I need a good overall view of what needs to be done in which month.
I am keeping the general overview in Google Calender, and I've added additional calendars with my personal planning, the academic calendar of USFQ, the Dutch holidays and more. More and more, I am gravitating towards Google Calendar for planning.

- To Do lists
I've given up filling out the Word documents with my monthly and weekly to do lists - something that I have used during my entire PhD. Instead, I've started to incorporate Google Task lists. These integrate better with my planning in Google Calendar. I still review my planning every Friday evening, to make my daily appointments. That precise moment also serves as a moment to reflect on my progress and to ask myself why or why not I met my goals for this week; a method inspired by the monthly progress monitor.

- Daily appointments
Rather old-fashioned, but I keep my day-to-day appointments in a paper-and-pen type of planner. (It's bound in red leather with a pattern of roses on it, if that explains why I can't switch to a digital version). I write down my most important task(s) for the day, and have all my appointments written down and planned. Also, I write down my To Do list for the evening at the very bottom of the day page. I've expanded on how I structure my To Dos in a different post.

2. Tools for tracking

I'm not using RescueTime anymore, and since leaving my office and office computer in Delft, I've also not been adding what I did to ManicTime anymore. I do plan to start using ManicTime again - but I'd need to sync it over different machines.
LeechBlock and Cold Turkey come in handy when I need to ban myself from the distractions of the internet, but most of the time I prefer a different approach: whenever I feel the urge to give up my task and go browse around, I smile, acknowledge the urge, let it pass, and continue working.

3. Tools for reminding

This part of my approach did not have a solid foundation earlier, but by applying the Task lists in Google Calendar, and having both my planning and deadlines in a visual display together, I've overcome this hurdle in my planning.

How does your time management system work? Has it changed much over the past year? And what did you learn from changing your planning habits?

Writers' Lab: Turning your dissertation into journal papers

Depending on your institution's guidelines, you will either finish your PhD by having a number of papers accepted for publication, or by writing a "big book"-style thesis.

This post is entirely aimed at those of us who spend months on end delivering a thesis of several hundred of pages. We might be overly proud of having our baby finally sent out into the world, but then it will dawn upon us: the majority of the researchers would prefer to read a 10-page paper about a more specific part of this research than plow through our 400 pages of labor.

And thus, for most of us "big book"-thesis-writing-and-publishing folks, we'll need to revisit all our material again after publication of the thesis, and turn it into a number of journal papers.

If you are lucky enough to get into a post-doc position that is fully research-oriented, you have all the time (or at least, you might think you have) to write your papers. If you venture out into the industry, you'll have to do it in your evenings and weekends.

Regardless the time constraints, it's still extremely valuable to take the step of turning your dissertation into journal papers. I'm in the very middle of this process (and I mean with "middle" that it surrounds myself, not that I am convinced that in X months, I'll have them all out, written and then accepted) - and so far, I've made the following observations.

1. Plan for it

After you graduate, life is going to take over. You might be changing jobs, moving to a different place/city/country, and these papers might start to slip to the back of your mind. Take some time while your dissertation is still fresh from the press, and ask yourself the following questions:
- Which chapters or subchapters would serve as a good journal paper?
- Which journal should I submit my work to?
- How much time do I think I need for writing this paper?

Then, start planning paper by paper. I'm currently assuming that I can produce a paper per month or 1,5 months' period of time, besides all my other duties and transitioning to my new job. I then give my co-authors a month to send their feedback. Then, I plan another 2 weeks to implement the comments of my co-authors. I plan to start writing the next paper whenever the draft of the previous one is done, so that I create a constant stream of writing, revising, sending to co-authors and submitting.

2. Co-authors

Now that you have -hopefully- worked well with some committee members to deliver the final draft of your dissertation, taking into account their advice, is there any part of your research that particularly benefited from their input? If you are planning to write a paper on this topic, consider inviting this committee member to be a co-author.

Writing with other authors than your standard folks (typically daily supervisor and promotor), will improve your writing, and is also considered well in most fields. Publishing with different authors shows that you can work across research groups, universities and that you are ready to extended into the world.

3. Not all papers are born equally

Some papers will roll out from your dissertation in a mere few writing sessions. For other papers you'll be sweating and sighing as you try to force a piece of research into a stand-alone narrative. Don't get mad at yourself or your work - just accept this fact as it is. And if the frustration becomes too much, just head out and have an ice cream.

Have you published several papers from the work in your dissertation? How did you organize this, and what advice would you like to share with me?