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Thoughts and ideas on education, culture, psychology, social science and more from our academics, students, alumni and wider community to create lasting and evolving change. Podcasts brought to you by UCL Institute of Education (IOE), the world's leading centre for education and social science research, courses and teaching, and a faculty of University College London (UCL).
More from us: https://ucl.ac.uk/ioe
00:00:00:22 - 00:00:23:02
Unknown
You're listening to IOE insights. The UCL Institute of Education podcast at University College London.
00:00:23:04 - 00:00:28:11
Unknown
This is Academia et al.
00:00:28:13 - 00:00:39:08
Unknown
The podcast for anyone and everyone figuring out life in academia.
00:00:39:10 - 00:01:06:18
Unknown
This is Academia et al, the podcast for early career academics. I am Zeinab El-Khateeb. I'm a lecturer in teacher education at the IOE, UCL Faculty of Education and Society. In this series of episodes, we are going to hear stories about academic journeys, achievements and legacy which we hope will inspire you to embark on your own adventure as an early career researcher.
00:01:06:20 - 00:01:32:22
Unknown
Today. I'm glad to welcome Professor Martin Oliver in the studio here with us. He is a professor in Education Technology at the IOE. His research focuses on the use of technology in higher education, the way that students use digital devices, networked services and traditional resources for learning. Martin, welcome you here with us and thank you for joining us. Thank you for inviting me.
00:01:32:23 - 00:01:57:02
Unknown
It's a pleasure. Firstly, it would be helpful if you could provide the audience with an overview of your academic journey and progression to the present day. Sure. So I did my doctorate some time ago now and that was in educational technology. I was based at the Open University, and I think I mentioned that because I think it's quite interesting as an institution, it's quite different from many of the other places I've worked.
00:01:57:04 - 00:02:25:15
Unknown
The focus on distance education, the commitment to open education and working with learners from different backgrounds was interesting and important. Absolutely. And it's a worldwide, isn't it, Open University as well? Yeah. So it was in conversation with people from around the world from a very early stage. So I moved from there to a position at what was then at the University of North London, now London Metropolitan, which combines sometime doing research and other people's projects with other time being an educational developer.
00:02:25:15 - 00:02:47:07
Unknown
So supporting staff with their use of technologies for education. And like many early career researchers at the time, the incentive for me was that I had to generate more external funding to extend my contract. Yeah. After that, I managed to get a position as a lecturer at UCL, and then I moved to the Institute of Education and then the Institute of Education and merged with UCL.
00:02:47:08 - 00:03:12:20
Unknown
So I was brought back into UCL again. So those are the kind of major sort of points through my career. Was that around the 2013 times, 2012 when they merged? Yeah, I think 2014 was the merger. I originally joined UCL in, I think, about 2005, and then worked at UCL for a number of years before moving to the institute to take up a program leader position then.
00:03:12:22 - 00:03:49:07
Unknown
But yet throughout that career, I think one of the things that was important for me and it's sort of driven my research work and been a point of interest has been trying to combine doing research with supporting academic practice. So working as an educational developer, working as a learning technologist, also, some of the work I've done as a manager, they're very much been around trying to improve what happens in academia in terms of the quality of engagement, the quality of people's experience for staff and students, the commitment to equity and inclusion that people bring with them.
00:03:49:08 - 00:04:18:16
Unknown
So trying to connect those kind of aspects of practice through to the research agenda that I'm working on. Yeah. Excellent. And that actually is us. To the next question, which professional accomplishment or initiative do you consider the most significant to date? That's an interesting one. The work that I did as the director for academic development, I think was important work to do.
00:04:18:18 - 00:04:46:09
Unknown
The portfolio included the responsibilities that UCL defines for a vice dean of equity and inclusion, but also adds to it HR responsibilities. So casework, staff progression, academic promotions, all of those were part of the same portfolio and actually bringing these two things together. Being responsible for questions of equity and for the mechanisms of reward meant that, you know, I wasn't just dealing with the symptoms.
00:04:46:09 - 00:05:09:03
Unknown
I was also responsible for the processes that had generated those symptoms and that sense of connection between the process. Yeah, yeah. And also the very personal nature of it. So if I had to sit across the table from someone and explain to them why they hadn't been promoted, well, of course I'd have to expect challenge on that. And often those challenges were to do with the lack of opportunity they had or the way they've been treated.
00:05:09:04 - 00:05:33:16
Unknown
So often these questions of equity were not just sort of abstract questions of percentages on spreadsheet about staff profiles, who are very much about people's direction, lived experience. And so that did connect in to both to my sort of responsibilities as a manager, but also informed the kind of research work that I wanted to do, the kind of approaches that I took to to the topics that I was studying.
00:05:33:18 - 00:05:53:16
Unknown
So trying to think about the the different kinds of lived experience and how those drove research questions or research agendas, how they connected through to research practice, and how those practices could remain relevant and meaningful to the kind of people who I have to sit across from and disappoint.
00:05:53:18 - 00:06:23:10
Unknown
It must be a huge responsibility, and it's very interconnected, isn't it, having to manage all together. Yeah. Thank you. Next question. So was there any individual who inspired you, intellectual development or their research or the interest? Has it been aligned with you research. I've worked throughout my career in a very collaborative way, so there are many people where the collaborations have been very generative and very productive.
00:06:23:11 - 00:06:44:23
Unknown
And in most of those instances, I've learned a lot from the people I've partnered with. So in terms of traditions of work, there are a couple of books that really sort of shaped the work that I do. So one of the ones, again from science and Technology studies, quite early on, I kind of picked up almost randomly and then read it, and it was one of those things which like, oh, so you can look at the world that way.
00:06:44:23 - 00:07:07:24
Unknown
That's really interesting. So this was a book by Bowker and Star called Sorting Things Out Classification and Its Consequences. And it was really interesting. I can imagine what kind of book it is. Yeah. So it's looking at the way in which things become infrastructure. So they've become taken for granted, and we just assume that they're going to operate and that that is the way the world works.
00:07:07:24 - 00:07:31:06
Unknown
But it was drawing attention to the historic modes of production of those classification systems and how that classification system is a very political act. So some of the things were interesting. Historical cases like classification of causes of death and the way these get locked in in order to ensure the comparability of data over time, and how that looking in often served colonial interests.
00:07:31:09 - 00:07:53:04
Unknown
And some of it was much more radical work. So, for example, looking at the classifications that operated under the apartheid system in South Africa about how people's race was determined in that system. So the important thing with the book was not to legitimate or agree with the classification system, but to show how it had been produced historically and therefore was able to be critiqued because things could be otherwise.
00:07:53:06 - 00:08:23:02
Unknown
So that was really interesting. Important. And then the other one, the other book was Amaury Mole's book The Body Multiple, which was an ethnographic study of diagnoses in hospital. And again, this was one of these books where the text is lovely. So the text has the ethnographic account, but it also has this extensive footnote. That's almost a second book, commenting methodologically on the text that is produced, so that many pages have got like a top half and a pot and a half, and you have to kind of read them simultaneously to make sense of it.
00:08:23:06 - 00:08:48:18
Unknown
So it's a really interesting reading experience. And the book opened up this idea of multiplicity and the production of multiple versions of the world, multiple worlds, and the way in which we as researchers are not simply describing reality to produce a truth, nor are we even just describing multiple realities to look at different truths that are produced. But we're also involved reflexively in the production of those worlds.
00:08:48:18 - 00:09:17:12
Unknown
So it's raising these, again, political questions about what an remold describes as ontological politics, the kind of worlds that we create, the equity, the fairness, the politics of those worlds. So yeah. Lovely. Oh, my last question. What will be your advice or academic advice do you have for AEU researchers? That includes stuff and also students because many stuff here, our students, including myself.
00:09:17:12 - 00:09:37:10
Unknown
Yeah, the difficult but important message is that this is a very hard career to get established on. It's true at the moment it's always been true, but I think it's harder now than it has been for years. Higher education internationally is not in a sort of growth phase where jobs are being produced, and so the jobs that are available are hugely competitive.
00:09:37:11 - 00:09:54:14
Unknown
So it's a really difficult. I very much feel for anyone who's struggling to get a position at the moment. It's it's a challenge. All I can suggest is that you persist, you know, if you if it's worth it for you, stick with it. Find other people who can help you stick with it, engage them in your struggles and work with them.
00:09:54:14 - 00:10:14:19
Unknown
Get them to support you through it. And if it's not for you, that's fine. There are many other things in the world that are just as rewarding and just as important to do. It's just been created. What's out there, you know? So don't tie yourself to it if you don't have to. But I think within that, the thing that will help people sustain is define the stuff they care about.
00:10:14:21 - 00:10:34:18
Unknown
So the stuff they care about may be to do with the people they have the opportunity to work with, or it may be to do with ideas that excite you, or it may be to do with, you know, political things that you're very deeply committed to. But whatever it is, it has to give you the energy to keep coming back when things are difficult, completely that resilience, isn't it, to keep going at it.
00:10:34:22 - 00:10:49:02
Unknown
Thank you very much, Martin, for your time. It has been a pleasure having you here and it's very informative. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It's been a pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you. Have a good day.
00:10:49:04 - 00:11:11:23
Unknown
Please follow the link in the show notes. Find out more about Martin's work as well as discovering more podcasts from the IOE And if you like what you’ve heard, please give the IOE podcast a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. This will help us to reach more listener who may also enjoy the podcast. I am Zeinab and thank you for listening.
00:11:11:24 - 00:11:19:01
Unknown
Have a good day.
00:11:19:03 - 00:11:47:20
Unknown
Academia et al. Is brought to you by the Early Career Network and IOE Marketing and Communications. The podcast is presented by Zeinab El-Khateeb. The theme music was composed by Ronnie Zhu, editing by Teresa Baker of UCL Educational Media, and Jason Ilagan is the executive producer of the podcast.
00:11:47:22 - 00:11:51:09
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