7 items with this tag.
Distributed version control is an approach to tracking file changes where every contributor holds a complete copy of the repository and its full history, rather than depending on a central server. It enables offline work, parallel development, and resilience against data loss.
Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes to files over time. It records who changed what and when, allows you to move between earlier and later states of a project, and lets multiple people work on the same files without overwriting each other's contributions.
The research industrial complex describes the self-reinforcing system of incentives across universities, funding bodies, journals, and publishers that rewards publication volume and impact metrics over meaningful scientific progress. The term draws on Eisenhower's military-industrial complex to highlight how interconnected institutional interests can sustain a system that actively works against its own stated mission.
Academic publishing treats scholarship as a finished, individually owned artefact. This post describes a writing and publishing workflow built on a different premise: that a scholarly corpus could work like an open source project — readable, contributable, forkable, and never permanently owned by anyone.
Academic culture has converged on the peer-reviewed journal article as the default unit of scholarly output, creating a hierarchy that excludes many valuable forms of intellectual work. This post makes the case for essays as a legitimate form of scholarship—not as a lesser alternative to empirical research, but as a distinct mode that enables exploration, synthesis, and engagement with audiences that traditional publishing cannot reach. Drawing on Boyer's model of scholarship, it argues for a more generous conception of what counts as scholarly contribution.
Academic publishing has converged on the written journal article as the dominant form of scholarly output, but knowledge has always been transmitted through conversation, dialogue, and oral communication. This post explores whether audio scholarship—podcasts, recorded dialogues, oral histories—deserves recognition as legitimate scholarly work. Drawing on Boyer's model of scholarship, it argues that format matters less than the rigour, intention, and intellectual contribution behind the work, and considers what it would take for academic culture to broaden its definition of what counts.
Traditional education systems are structured around teaching, assuming it inevitably produces learning. This essay argues that this unidirectional model — knowledge flowing from expert to novice — no longer suits a world of information abundance and AI disruption. A networked, learner-centred approach offers an alternative, reconceptualising learning as a complex process where educators shift from knowledge authority to learning facilitator, enabling diverse participants to contribute to collective understanding. This transformation is urgent as AI develops capabilities once exclusive to human experts, and requires reimagining institutional structures around learning networks rather than teaching hierarchies to prepare graduates for complexity and uncertainty.