What is in Kelvin's Head?

A Working Rector for the University of Glasgow

21/01/2014

I’m honoured to have been nominated as one of the candidates to be Rector of the University of Glasgow.

If elected, I would serve as a working Rector who lives within walking distance of the University in order to serve the student body.

The students of the ancient universities in Scotland have the power to elect a rector who chairs the University Court – the highest decision making body in the University. It is essential that students are represented by someone on that body who knows how universities work, has experience of working for and with students and who is able to allow the university to flourish by putting students first.

I know universities well, having worked with student sabbatical officers and a whole range of welfare staff. Having a range of campaign skills that I’ve learned through campaigning for gay marriage and for human rights generally, I hope that I would be able to work with students for a better university experience.

More details and a manifesto over on the campaign page.

[Photo credit – lorentay © Creative Commons:Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)]

Glasgow University Rector

8 responses to “What is a wiki?”

Chris

31/07/2007

I wanted to comment on your wiki post, but there is a gremlin preventing me – no box to write in, so no writing!
[Comment now moved]

This is what I’d have said:
Great clip! A really clear description – can we get it incorporated into an educational package for the church? See http://scotedublogs.wikispaces.com/ for a good example of a wiki in use for over a year.

Reply
Tim

31/07/2007

Yeah. Wikis have huge potential. When I was setting up my church website I sat down and thought:
a) lots of pages
b) easy editing
c) uniform appearance across pages
d) ability to allow some people to (not) edit certain pages

End result was dokuwiki.

The real trouble is still persuading people that they’re capable of contributing…

Reply
kelvin

31/07/2007

Yes, it is odd getting people to post on a wiki is very much harder than getting them to post a comment on a blog. Something about a fear of being the authorial voice.

I think that it is fear of being contradicted and corrected, which is a shame, as whenever I post to a wiki, I’m hoping that someone can improve on what I’ve written.

Reply
Kimberly

31/07/2007

Fabulous video. Thanks for linking it.

I wonder if this is one of the ways we should be trying to respond to the Draft Anglican Covenant.

Reply
Stewart

31/07/2007

Wikis are great – look forward to seeing the St Mary’s Wiki developing (and adding to it!)

Reply
jimmux

05/08/2007

Thanks for a very clear explanation! Now that I understand how they work, I’ll be raising a discussion on how we might be able to use them on the National Postgraduate Committee of the United Kingdom. They seem a very useful tool for sub-committees which do a lot of work by e-mail.

Reply
Kennedy

08/08/2007

I had a look at Tim’s church website and looked at the bit with the contributions from the congregation and saw this statement:

‘Please note: the content in this section is contributed by members of the congregation and should not be considered official statements by the Church.’

I am a great fan of wikis for collaborative work, but I think this indicates one of the issues with ‘public’ wikis. These problems tend not occur when wikis are being used for internal usage or for a closed group. Open editing is very attractive but you need some form of management to ensure that defacement doesn’t occur or statements which might be damaging are published.

Also, how do I tell the difference between ‘the Church’ and ‘ members of the congregation’? Are they not the same thing?

Kennedy

Reply
Repeat post – wiki video | What’s in Kelvin’s Head

20/02/2009

[…] First posted quite a while ago here. […]

Reply