Samsung Galaxy charging bug

I am enjoying my Galaxy Note 9, but unfortunately there is a bug with wireless charging. Apparently it happens with a number of Samsung phones: we pop them on the wireless chargers at airports etc, and suddenly they stop charging. We get a message stating "Wireless charging has paused", no other explanation, no way to turn wireless charging back on, and no magic black lightning bolt inside the battery icon at the top of the screen.

Even more worrying is that often the battery seems to discharge more quickly than usual when on the charge pad. I was overseas and watched my battery discharging at what appeared to be break-neck speed while supposedly on charge (I know, first world problems, but I was jet-lagged :-D).

A quick search on the internet found me a solution by Hisona (8 December 2018). All we have to do is to reboot the phone via a battery pull. Of course, doing that when we can't get the battery out appears to be of a problem, but the same effect is created by doing the following:

• Press and hold the volume down button. Keep holding it down, don’t release it, then
• While holding down the volume down button, press and hold the power key, then
• Hold both keys down for over 10 seconds, then
• The phone should reboot.

We will know the phone has rebooted because the battery image will appear in the middle of the black screen with the amount of charge remaining, and if we put the phone on a charging pad, we will see the black lightning bolt.

I had 'the bug' twice while I was overseas. Both times Hisona's fix worked for me (8 December 2018). However, if this doesn't work, there are some more hardcore fixes available here.

Sam

• Reference: Hisona, H. (8 December 2018). Galaxy S9 wireless charging bug, “charging paused” error keeps showing up [troubleshooting guide]. Retrieved from https://thedroidguy.com/2018/12/galaxy-s9-wireless-charging-bug-charging-paused-error-keeps-showing-up-troubleshooting-guide-1083273

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Some Research Proposal pointers

The research proposal is a scoping document that helps us - eventually, after many edits and a successful ethics application - to get permission from supervisors, ethics committee or Uni research panels to start a project. An approved research proposal means that we have produced a reasonably well-scoped, relatively clear research question, underpinned by a fairly rational, underpinning, conceptual framework. It also means that - after more in-depth work on our literature review, developing our questions and refining our method - that we can start gathering primary research project data.

A research proposal usually contains an introduction explaining the scope and rationale of the project; the potential contribution of the project; the research question, aims and operationalisation; an early literature review; the proposed methodology; and a likely timetable of the project work. Needless to say, the institution's 'normal' academic standards of writing apply.

Research proposals are commonly used for undergraduate Capstone, Master's, and PhD projects. A PhD research proposal will be around 20,000 words (NB: at some institutions, a research proposal is called a 'confirmation document'). A research proposal for an undergraduate project will be around 5-6,000 words, with a Master's somewhere in between.

To write a quality research proposal, I suggest three things to get us started:

1. Check our institution/department/course document format, required inclusions, preferred structure, and word counts; then
2. Ask our supervisor what they would like to see included; then
3. Use a couple of really good text resources to construct both our arguments and our documents, such as these two stellar pieces of work:
• Maree, K. & van der Westhuizen, C. (2009). Head Start in Designing Research Proposals in the Social Sciences. Cape Town, South Africa: Juta & Company Limited
• Punch, K. F. (2016). Developing Effective Research Proposals (3rd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publishing Ltd.

Just note that some institutions call a pre-proposal a 'research proposal'. You will know if that is so because pre-proposals are short, at around 1000 words plus bibliography. They simply outline what it is that you aim to study, and are often part of your programme application form. Pre-proposals are a hook to gain the attention of a prospective supervisor, or a prospective institution.


Sam

References:

• Maree, K. & van der Westhuizen, C. (2009). Head Start in Designing Research Proposals in the Social Sciences. Cape Town, South Africa: Juta & Company Limited
• Punch, K. F. (2016). Developing Effective Research Proposals (3rd ed.). London, UK: Sage Publishing Ltd

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Brightening a pdf

I often check books out of the Internet Archive library, and find that some of the earlier scans are quite dark. If it turns out that we have a dark scan of a pdf, we can lighten it to better read it using Adobe Acrobat.

However, the process to do that depends on the version of Acrobat that we have.

If we have Adobe Acrobat IX we can change some settings and rescan the file. Simply go Edit | Preferences | Accessibility | Replace Document Colours and ensure that Custom Colour is ticked along with background colour set to white and document text set to black. Tick the option, "Change the colour of line art as well as text".

If we have Acrobat XI, select Tools | Document Processing | Optimize Scanned pdf. When the dialogue box opens, click on the Edit button in the Filters section and turn "Background Removal" on. Adjust the other filters as desired.

Both will work.


Sam

References:

• Goodwin, A. (2 December 2016). How do I adjust contrast of a PDF in Adobe Acrobat Pro 9? Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-adjust-contrast-of-a-PDF-in-Adobe-Acrobat-Pro-9
• Lymburner, M. & Kremer, K. H. (n.d.). brighten a PDF page. Archival PDFs are black with a light grey background. PhotoShop works but tedious process. Retrieved from https://answers.acrobatusers.com/brighten-a-PDF-page-Archival-PDFs-are-black-with-a-light-grey-background-PhotoShop-works-but-tedious-process-q119143.aspx

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The Rise of Populism

I am of the belief that in a representative society, it is the duty of our representatives to represent the people who voted them in. They should uphold the issues they were voted in on, not flip flop on those issues. While I realise that viewpoints will change once a representative moves from outside of the government machine to the inside, when that happens, the representative needs to clearly tell us why the change cannot be made. As they are now better informed about that issue, they need to inform their followers, to educate us. Then we all grow together. We can debate issues and find new ways, processes which adds value to society.

As defined by the Guardian, populism is:

The framing of "politics as a battle between the virtuous 'ordinary' masses and a nefarious or corrupt elite – and insist that the general will of the people must always triumph. The Guardian is adopting the classic definition of populism proposed by political scientist Cas Mudde. Populism, he says, is often combined with a 'host' ideology, which can either be on the left or right.

"Populism is as old as democracy itself, but the last 10 years have proven particularly fertile: populist leaders now govern countries with a combined population of almost two billion people, while populist parties are gaining ground in more than a dozen other democracies, many of them in Europe" (Wintour, 22 November 2018).

The Guardian has published a quiz (here, Silva, Hawkins, Littvay, & Wiesehomeier, 22 November 2018) which we can use to find out how populist we are. As you can see from the above diagram, I am slightly left-wing populist. What is fascinating is to see how many other quiz-takers from all over the world feel the same way.

I am not sure that it is a good thing to be a populist of any stripe. It worries me that I am thinking that there are those with a great deal of power versus those who have little. This worries me because those views can lead to paralysis: through a fixed mindset (Dweck, 2006) and an external locus of control (Lefcourt, 1966). In being a slightly left-wing populist, I am demonstrating a belief in a divided society of 'us' and 'them' (Tajfel, 1982). Ouch.

However, knowing is the first step towards change. Now it is what I do with it that counts :-)


Sam

References:

• Dweck, Carol S (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. USA: Random House
• Lefcourt, H. M. (1966). Internal versus external control of reinforcement: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 65(4), 206-220. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0023116
• Mudde, C. (22 November 2018). How populism became the concept that defines our age. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/22/populism-concept-defines-our-age
• Silva, B. C., Hawkins, K., Littvay, L., & Wiesehomeier, N. (22 November 2018). How populist are you? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2018/nov/21/how-populist-are-you-quiz
• Tajfel, H. (1982). Social psychology of intergroup relations. Annual Review of Psychology, 33(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.000245
• Wintour, P. (22 November 2018). Hillary Clinton: Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/22/hillary-clinton-europe-must-curb-immigration-stop-populists-trump-brexit

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When Audible books won't download

I was so excited. I got an email from audible.com to say that a long-awaited audiobook had arrived. I dumped what I was doing and rushed off to audible to download my book...

...only to find that when I clicked on the download link against the new book in my library, I got taken to the page: https://www.audible.com/howtolisten. I tried it several times, to no avail. I seemed to be stuck in a loop.

Interestingly, have had this happen before, and it turned out to be a glitch at the audible.com end: once I contacted them, they repaired the problem for me. It was a website update which had reset all user's settings to ask to "Check for Audible Download Manager" each time the user went to download. I had never seen this as an option before (probably because I have been using audio books for ten years or so and there was only one choice when I started!).

I searched on the site to look for my previous problem, but could find nothing about it. So I went to tech support (you can access them here).

I got connected to a very helpful person at audible.com who showed me how to correct this issue (just in case it happens to me again, following another website update). The instructions were:

• If you are being directed to the "How to Listen" page after downloading an audiobook, you need to change your software verification setting. Follow these steps:

1. Go to www.audible.com
2. Hover your mouse over "Hi, [Your Name]".
3. Select "Account Details".
4. Select the "Update Settings" option on the left-hand side of the page.
5. Untick "Check for Audible Download Manager".

And everything was perfect again. I am now happily listening to my new book :-D


Sam

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SMART Goals

I have written before about where SMART goals come from (here and here), but I have just realised that I didn't ever write an article detailing what SMART goals are.

So, ahead of yet another new year where many will be setting new resolutions, I thought I would quickly outline SMART goals, as per Professor George Doran's original 1981 model. The idea is that if we set goals with ALL of the following five characteristics, we are more likely to attain our goals:

• S Specific. This is where we decide to work on a specific and defined area. The language we use is specific. We should be able to point to exactly what we want this change to look like.
• M Measurable. We need to quantify what results will look like. We probably - if this is a long-term goal - need some milestones to add in so we can measure our small steps towards our goal
• A Assignable. We know who is going to do exactly what. All those who have a part to play will know what those roles are, and have agreed to the outcomes.
• R Realistic. This is not "lose 10kg in one week" territory: this is small, achievable steps to meet the overall goal. It takes into account all the things that will get in the way: illness; running out of funds; change in personal circumstances, etc.
• T Timely. Get accurate on when things will be done. Nothing loose or fluffy like 'next year' but checking progress on Monday each week, with a plan on how to catch up if we don't hit our targets.

It sounds so easy... and this is when endurance steps in :-)


Sam

References:

• Doran, G. T. (1983). How to be a Better Manager in 10 Easy Steps. USA: Monarch Press.
• Doran, G. T. (1981). There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write managements' goals and objectives. Management Review, 70(11), 35-36.

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Summarising Findings

In my teaching work, one of the hardest things is to teach students how to summarise their findings. It is a hard to get them to summarise enough. I do remind them that findings should contain not raw data, but information, clustering, summarising, and coding.

Putting data into a table or spreadsheet can help us summarise the raw data to look for information, as show in the two small tables below. The first table is raw data. The second table has some emergent codes starting to appear in its simplest form which, once analysed, will become information - and lead to categories - to discuss in the findings section.

Topic	Ren Zing	Jin X	Li W	Zhang Ye
Hiring	prefers to hire experienced people rather than graduates, because Xing needs staff who have social networks to help the company sell more electronic products, and also, experienced people do not need to spend much time learning how to sell the products to customers and potential customers.	prefers to hire people without degrees to be couriers and graduates to be trained as potential managers. Because couriers should be strong and do not need to have much knowledge. On the contrary, managers need to have degrees that can let them be respected and accepted by their subordinates.	prefers to hire a graduate whose major was IT or other related subjects in university, because W’s main business is about IT and it is better if every staff has the professional knowledge related to IT	prefers to hire an experienced person without a degree. Because: She is not a graduate and she is afraid that graduate staffs may not obey her orders; She does not think that graduates are needed in such a small restaurant; Graduate staffs deserve higher salaries but she does not want to pay more money to her staffs as her small restaurant has a limited ability to get profits

Topic	Ren Zing	Jin X	Li W	Zhang Ye	Coding
Hiring	prefers to hire experienced people rather than graduates, because Xing needs staff who have social networks to help the company sell more electronic products, and also, experienced people do not need to spend much time learning how to sell the products to customers and potential customers.	prefers to hire people without degrees to be couriers and graduates to be trained as potential managers. Because couriers should be strong and do not need to have much knowledge. On the contrary, managers need to have degrees that can let them be respected and accepted by their subordinates.	prefers to hire a graduate whose major was IT or other related subjects in university, because W’s main business is about IT and it is better if every staff has the professional knowledge related to IT	prefers to hire an experienced person without a degree. Because: She is not a graduate and she is afraid that graduate staffs may not obey her orders; She does not think that graduates are needed in such a small restaurant; Graduate staffs deserve higher salaries but she does not want to pay more money to her staffs as her small restaurant has a limited ability to get profits	Not management graduates; Want experience + no degree; want graduate + work experience;

We need to look at our data over time and seek emergent codes (the colours), then write up our underlying factors from that (perhaps the green might be a category of protectionism: that the manager doesn’t want to hire anyone smarter than themselves in case the new hire takes over the manager's job), and while we explore the underlying factors in our findings, we may put intermediary analysis tables into our appendices if we feel they add value.

We will graph data, put codes into tables, cross-tabulate answers of different questions about what we know about the similarities and differences of the participants. We can do lots of analysis and really dig into our pot of gold.

But recently I struck an issue at the other end of the data to information continuum: a student who summarised too much. The student summarised their findings so much that who owned the findings and how they were collected - both key sets of data in themselves - got lost in the process. As a result, the findings read like unevidenced literature review.

I advised the student that they needed to locate the clustered findings alongside their particular participant voices. I took a paragraph that they had written to illustrate what I meant.

I said to the student: "For example, you might preface 'The introduction of performance measures was not at a broad system level, but at a specific organisational level, and looked at how it is that organisations are going to be assessing measures relating to several different dimensions' with

'A significant number of survey participants at [x] (75%) mentioned that the introduction of performance measures was not at a broad system level, but at a specific organisational level, and looked at how organisations would assess multiple-dimension measures.'

While I might not have your meaning exactly correct (apologies: I have simplified your last clause as it was overly complex), you can see what I mean. The findings need to relate to those who said them".

I had not encountered over-summarising before. It was an interesting experience, both for myself and the student. At least I have written a blog post about it now, so if I strike it again, I can just direct the student to an example!


Sam

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Free Online Typing Tests

Some recent research on typing speeds made me review some 60 second online free typing tests in English, so I thought I would share with you all what I learned.

I found three typing tests online which all seemed pretty consistent in that I got roughly the same scores on all tests. I did at least ten tests on each site, with my cwpm (corrected words per minute) results ranged from the late 40s to early 50s.

The pros and cons of each site and the results follow.

While old fashioned in look, Goodtyping's Good Typing Test (2018) is fairly easy to sit. You don't have to register. It also gives you a pdf certificate, which might be useful to take to an employer as evidence when applying for work that requires a specified keyboard speed. The view is a large chunk of text which you copy, and the density of that is a little off-putting. Like all of the tests reviewed, it also reports your accuracy. Mine is rubbish: I rely far too much on the thousands of autocorrects that I have loaded into Microsoft Office! The text doesn't change though, so you could, in theory, just practice that piece of text and get faster.

LiveChat's Typing Speed Test (2018) has a really nice platform for their test, and it is easiest of the three tests to take. The interface is clean and it is easy to focus on the test itself. However, if you are dyslexic as I am, you have to focus very hard on what is in front of you, as I found initially I was peripherally reading the next word instead of the one I was supposed to be keying and getting muddled, and I also found the strike-through as you made a mistake distracting. Both interfered with my concentration. While you don't have to register, if you don't, you can only view your results in a pop-up window over the main screen. You need to register to get more. I didn't register, so I don't know if there is a charge to get test results more formally. It reported clear accuracy rates. This was the easiest test to repeat again and again. I didn't notice many of the same word combinations coming up, and it does say it draws from the most common thousand English words.

Waalboer's Typing Speed Test (2018) sat between the two tests for interface. A bit old fashioned in look, but has eighteen-ish words stacked in three lines on top of each other. As the test runs, the word you are currently typing moves to be highlighted middle row of the copy text. However, what I did find a little distracting was that your incorrect words became red. This interfered with my concentration a little. You don't have to register, and your results pop up in a refreshed window afterwards, which you could print to pdf for evidence. The beauty of this test is that as well as reporting your cwpm, it lists all your mistakes. You could use this site to diagnose your worst key combinations then work on your accuracy. This test has also been designed for children and adults.

All these tests have their uses. I would go to Goodtyping (2018) for certification, Waalboer (2018) for learning, and LiveChat (2018) for practice.

Sam

References:

Goodtyping. (2018). Good Typing Test. https://www.goodtyping.com/test.php

LiveChat. (2018). Typing Speed Test. https://www.livechatinc.com/typing-speed-test/#/

Waalboer, J. (2018). Typing Speed Test. https://typing-speed-test.aoeu.eu/

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Word document Draft stamp

There's a little piece of info that keeps slipping from my mind because I don't use it very often, and that is how to mark a Word document as a draft.

Once I remind myself of how to do it, is not a difficult thing. But for some reason, I simply don't remember. The process of doing this simply does not stay with me. It is staying as explicit knowledge instead of transferring into implicit. My solution, as is usually the way, is to write a blog post, so I can look it up when I need it.

Part of my recall lapse is, I think, remembering what this function is called. I think of it as a stamp, or a mark; whereas it is called a watermark.

So, to mark a Word document as a draft, the process for Word 2010 is:

1. Go to the Page Layout tab (this is Design in Word 2013+)
2. In the Page Background Section, select Watermark
3. The Watermark dropdown box, select Custom Watermark
4. Tick the Text Watermark box and enter the required text, change to your chosen settings (font, layout, size, colour, and orientation), then apply, and OK.

For Word 2013+, the process is:

1. Go to the Design tab
2. In the Insert Watermark dialog box which appears, select Text
3. Choose Draft from the list
4. Change to your chosen settings (font, layout, size, colour, and orientation), then apply, and OK.

Hopefully that helps me to remember, and may be useful to others :-)


Sam

• Reference: Microsoft (2018). Add a "Draft" watermark to your document. Retrieved from https://support.office.com/en-us/article/add-a-draft-watermark-to-your-document-e7258ae7-575d-4b58-92d3-9a98c1f067e4

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Typing, typing, typing

Average Typing Speed Per Minute
of All Levels (Winslow, 2014)

With my interest in digital competence, I have been looking for a measure of what typing/keyboarding speed is 'normal' for someone who is digitally competent, as opposed to someone who is considered a 'beginner'. Someone who is digitally competent will have developed unconscious, implicit keyboard skills, whereas a beginner has to push 'effortful' "explicit knowledge about the task into working memory and manipulat[e] it to support performance" (Snyder, Ashitaka, Shimada, Ulrich, & Logan, 2014, p. 162).

This idea of explicit knowledge is one of the reasons why material learned in short intensive sessions often does not stay with us: it is not rehearsed until it becomes an implicit, automatic skill. Unrehearsed explicit knowledge is vulnerable to fading (Snyder et al, 2014), while implicit knowledge stays with us. It converts into "automism", like riding a bike.

In today's world of work, keyboarding is a vital skill. Surveying 500 employers on the keyboarding skills which employers required their staff to have, Microsoft found that: a third of employers won't hire staff who can't touch type; over 40% say typing is a key work skill; almost 40% link typing speed to productivity; and 20% report that business performance relies on fast touch typing (Bush, 2 September 2014). Keyboarding is a key component of the cross-functional communication, integration, and presentation (CIP) skills required in today's workforce (Anderson & Gantz, 2016).

Not being able to keyboard forms a situational barrier for job seekers which not only makes people less employable, it also prevents them from progressing as quickly as they should in developing their levels of digital competence. Muller, citing Darkenwald and Merriam (1982), suggests that situational barriers are those "which relate to an individual’s life context at a particular time, for example, cost, lack of transport, lack of childcare, lack of time as well as geographical isolation" (2017, p. 45). Research with first year trainee teachers found the "relationship between the barrier of typing and beginners [in using ICT] was higher than expected [at 3%, or 9 research participants]. Students identified the barrier [as a] lack of experience" (Muller, 2017, p. 192). Muller notes that situational barriers could be unique to each person, and were often "not something that the [organisation] may have been able to address or even prevent" (2017, p. 190). The missing elements appear so fundamental to a 21st century life that no one asks if learners have competence in these areas: the possession of the skill is taken for granted.

As a result, people missing elementary functionality may not realise how much of a barrier it is to their future learning; and further, the organisation may not recognise that the situational barrier exists, nor have the expertise to address it appropriately in-house.

This becomes a problem in the workforce as there appear to be a growing number of organisations where employees are expected to have a typing speed over 50 corrected words per minute (cwpm). 50cwpm seems like a high bar to me, as professional typists cwpm rates appear to fall between 50 and 80cwpm, with an 'average' typist's rate of 41cwpm (Ratatype, 2014)*. My own typing speed is 51cwpm: I am faster than that, but my accuracy is rubbish so I drop wpm by having to correct. A lot.

Significantly below 50cwpm, and below the Ratatype 41cwpm already mentioned (2014), a study of automatic voice recognition software versus keyboarding (Karat, Halverson, Horn & Karat, 1999) suggested that knowledge workers employed by IBM averaged 32.5cwpm when transcribing, and 19cwpm when creating new copy. A non-peer reviewed study by Ostrach (2010), with a sample size of 4,000 entries from LiveChat's Typing Speed Test, suggests that the 'average' keyboarder sits at around 39cwpm. Research by Logan and Crump found that Vanderbilt University students had an average of 70wpm (uncorrected): a markedly different finding. Results from these four data sets range from the early 30s to the early 70s for an 'average' user's cwpm, which is very broad.

However, it is not only the average cwpm rate which is difficult to determine. Accurate peer-reviewed beginner level data seems to also be difficult to find. To this point, the 'best' information I have found is an online table by Winslow (2018), which is the graphic accompanying this post. Winslow suggests that an adult beginner speed will be under 35wpm with an average typist between 36 and 45wpm, and a fast typist up to 80wpm (2014, and note the lack of correction factor - wpm, not cwpm).

What is interesting about Winslow's data is that it is suggested that a data entry clerk needs between 60 and 80wpm (2014). In New Zealand, a keyboarding rate is usually not specified in clerical job descriptions. I have long thought it should be included, as employers expect it.

It is interesting how diverse the research results appear. I will persevere with trying to find data about keyboarding rates, and write an update when I have more data.


Sam

References:

• Anderson, C. & Gantz, F. (2016). Keys to the Future: Align Workforce Readiness Skills to Ensure Student Success. Retrieved from https://msdnshared.blob.core.windows.net/media/2016/06/US41207816.pdf
• Bush, T. (2 September 2014). New research reveals why typing really does matter. Retrieved from https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ukschools/2014/09/02/new-research-reveals-why-typing-really-does-matter/
• goodtyping.com (2018). Good Typing Test. Retrieved from https://www.goodtyping.com/test.php
• Karat, C. M., Halverson, C., Horn, D., Karat, J. (1999). Patterns of entry and correction in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition systems. Proceedings of the SIGCHI '99 conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 568–575). New York NY, USA: ACM.
• LiveChat.inc (2018). Typing Speed Test. Retrieved from https://www.livechatinc.com/typing-speed-test/?utm_campaign=What-is-the-average-typing-speed-for-the-US-population&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=quora.com#/
• Logan, G. D., & Crump, M. J. C. (2009). The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing: The disruptive effects of attention to the hands in skilled typewriting. Psychological Science, 20, 1296-1300. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02442.x
• Muller, C. A. (2017). The development of digital competence in first year pre-service teachers. University of Witwatersrand Doctoral Thesis. Retrieved from http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10539/23667/Claudette%20Muller%209101080H%20PhD%20thesis%20-%20The%20development%20of%20digital%20competence%20in%20first%20year%20pre-service%20teachers.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
• Ostrach, T. R. (2010). Typing Speed: How Fast is Average 4,000 typing scores statistically analyzed and interpreted. Retrieved from https://cdn.shopify.comsfiles101569110filesAverage-OrbiTouch-Typing-Speed.pdf
• Ratatype (2014). Average typing speed infographic. Retrieved from https://www.ratatype.com/learn/average-typing-speed/
• Snyder, K. M., Ashitaka, Y., Shimada, H., Ulrich, J. E., & Logan, G. D. (2014). What skilled typists don’t know about the QWERTY keyboard. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 76(1), 162-171. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-013-0548-4
• Waalboer, J. (2018). Typing Speed Test. Retrieved from https://typing-speed-test.aoeu.eu/
• Winslow, N. (2014). Average Typing Speed Per Minute of All Levels – Identify Yours Here! Retrieved from http://typefastnow.com/average-typing-speed

* A note on the Ratatype data (2014) mentioned above: the data cited on their infographic is inadequately sourced, so may not be reliable. Further, as Ratatype have a free typing test on their site, much of the data used on their infographic may have been self-generated.

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Two year versus three year degrees

A fellow career practitioner, Tom Staunton, wrote a blog post on the UK Government's proposal to introduce two year degrees (Coughlan, 18 November 2018). Tom was worried about this shift from three perspectives: that the 'more choice' rationale provided by the UK Government had no evidenced outcome value; that the 'saving money' argument ignored other ways of cost reduction; and that completing a degree more quickly may not improve - or even maintain - quality (20 November 2018). One element of the article focused on institutions not being able to cope with the shift two two year programmes. We shouldn't really be worrying about the mechanics: let's put the learner at the centre of this.

The article (Coughlan, 18 November 2018) suggests that the proposal is to turn around the lack of mature students undertaking degree study: "Condensing a full degree into two years is seen as being more appealing to people who are in work or with family commitments", so students would complete the same credits but whack it out in two years. I almost laughed out loud when I read that. The UK Government's solution for busy, over-committed people is to load them up with even more stress by increasing their study load. I find students are already stressed in their study learning at the present rate, how is it safe - or how will it provide better learning outcomes - to increase those stress levels?

I left a comment with Tom telling him that I agreed with him. I too think that two year degrees are a bad idea. This proposal may white ant the value of a degree, or at least start employers questioning what degree people did and how long the programme was, creating a two tier employer view of undergraduate qualifications.

In New Zealand we have a two year diploma and a three year degree. I have noted that there appears to be a difference in mindset between the diploma students and the degree students. I find that diploma students are less aware of their own shortcomings and more certain of their own judgement. Further, they are taken much less seriously by employers with a diploma rather than a degree, and so are less employable. Interestingly, in some cases we have just reduced diplomas to an eighteen month qualification. Perhaps we too are getting ready to propose a two year degree in New Zealand.

Moving to a two year degree would worry me as there is something that changes or shifts - I feel - for students when they move from a two year programme of study to a three year programme. I think that extra year adds an ability to reflect on their programme of study and to professionalise their learning.

Education should not be a force-feeding process. It should be more like the slow food movement. In my view, I think students need more time to think, to develop ideas, to construct argument, to explore and discount fallacies.

Because a three year programme appears to change graduates, monkeying with it should be explored with caution. I would like to see research showing graduate benefits from both lengths of study before we dive in and make changes. This discussion needs to be entirely about the learners and how better learning takes place.

If you are interested in reading a bit more of my thinking in this area, check out here, here and here. The latter article was inspired by an earlier blog post of Tom's.


Sam

References:

• Coughlan, S. (18 November 2018). Two-year degree plan to cut cost of tuition fees. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46209247
• Staunton, T. (20 November 2018). Thoughts on Two Year Degrees. Retrieved from https://runninginaforest.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/thoughts-on-two-year-degrees/

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Getting information under the OIA

Recently, after asking a government department for some information which I knew they held and being told that they couldn't/wouldn't give it to me, I decided to try getting it using New Zealand's Official Information Act (OIA).

Firstly, I had to find out how to apply under the Act. Having thought that I would have to apply via the Ombudsman, I was surprised to see that - at least initially - I apply to the government department itself. It doesn't seem to be that hard to apply (though whether I will get a response is another story, as I am still waiting). There is a great guide online here, and on page 24 of Appendix 2 is a template "request for official information" letter for us to use to obtain what we are seeking.

The document online sets out some criteria for our request being granted. In general, unless the department has a good reason for withholding it, the information should be provided if we ask for it. This is called "the principle of availability". The idea is that official information should be available for NZers to "participate in decision making more effectively"; and we do have to be a NZer or a permanent resident. This surprised me, as I had not stopped to think about information as being a privilege of citizenship, but it makes sense. It is our collective taxes which have paid to collect the information, after all.

We can make a request for official information from any central government departments and organisations, asking for any "information held by an agency in any format, such as: written documents, reports, memos, letters, notes, emails and draft documents; questions which can be answered by providing information already known to and held by the agency (official information); and data" (Office of the Ombudsman, 2016, p. 7).

MBIE compiles New Zealand’s monthly “All Vacancies Index” from data collected from TradeMe Jobs, Seek, the Education Gazette and Kiwi Health Jobs. I want to find out how large the percentage share is from each of the four participant information suppliers into that All Vacancies Index. I suspect that it is something like 55-60% of jobs are found on TradeMe, 35-40% on Seek, 1% Education Gazette, and 2% Kiwi Health Jobs, but would like to know how accurate my guess is. Both TradeMe Jobs and Seek are owned by Australian companies.

I want to know because I find that my clients generally look only on TradeMe Jobs. My instinct is that TradeMe is the larger platform in New Zealand, but I don't know that. I have been unable to find any information on the platform size since 2010 (when TradeMe became larger than Seek for the first time). I suspect that TradeMe jobs is much larger than Seek now, but without evidence, I cannot provide my clients with good advice.

It is currently day 4 of the 20 business days that MBIE is supposed to supply the information within. I will update you when I hear what the result is.


Sam

• Reference: Office of the Ombudsman (2016). Making official information requests: A guide for requesters. Retrieved from http://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/system/paperclip/document_files/document_files/2465/original/making_oi_requests_-_guide_for_requesters.pdf?1516146924

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Barriers & benefits for NZ business

I was pondering about the barriers that New Zealand businesses have, and I came up with a list of key issues, which are:

• Economies of scale. It is hard to get cost out of business here, because we simply aren't big enough to have a factory with 40,000 people in it and to cough up $1b for robotics. We don't have the investment, the infrastructure nor enough engineering nous to be able to do this.
• Remoteness. Everything has to come a long, long way. We have to fly things in - expensive - or ship it in - still expensive. And that all takes a long time. By sea we are 70 days from New York or LA, 16 days from Hong Kong, 42 days from Hamburg (check out global shipping routes here and here).
• Higher costs. We have to import goods long distances, we have to import raw materials.
• Difficult balance of payments. Though this is largely governmental, it impacts business through tax. We have few minerals here and not enough manufacturing to be able to be self-sufficient. All metals must be imported along with electronics. Then our government requires taxes and bond at the border. Check out New Zealand (NZL) Exports, Imports, and Trade Partners.

On the other hand, those issues lead to some benefits:

• Small, fairly homogeneous market. It is relatively easy to test and scale a product for world wide release here.
• Remoteness. Not too much competition, and an uncluttered place to do business.
• Higher price points. People are used to paying more, and if you are smart, you can undercut the existing - often complacent - markets and become a lead-player quite quickly.
• Global focus. Because we are so far away, we have to constantly develop relationships with global partners to get products designed, made, marketed and distributed. We are used to going off-shore for everything. It holds no fears for us.

Interesting how the first four 'barriers' probably lead to the perceived benefits. When we can't do something, we find another way, and it shapes our culture differently.


Sam

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