On My Knees

It has taken a bit longer that I expected to get this far but I have now completed the grading of one of my modules. It wasn’t the written examination that took all the time, but the marking of the computational physics projects. This is always a slow job but for some reason it took even longer this year. Anyway, all components of the assessment for that module are now done and dusted and everything uploaded.

To add to the fun and games, last week I did the biannual trip to Naas for my anti-arthritis injections. I’ve been doing this regularly for some years now and it has become routine. When I first started I was told that there was a risk of one or both knees swelling up, but that has never happened. Until last week, that is. My right knee decided to swell up alarmingly. Although this was not really painful, I was forced to stay at home to rest and periodically apply a bag of ice. That worked well enough that I could go to last Friday’s concert (with the aid of a walking-stick) but it wasn’t until Sunday that I was properly recovered.

The alarm having passed I am now starting to feel the benefit of the jabs. I am planning sometime soon to walk from Maynooth to Dublin along the Royal Canal, that being the last leg of the National Famine Way. I want to be sure I can manage the 27km walk before attempting to do the full walk later in the summer. The weather is set fair for a few days so I might give it a go next week, assuming I manage to finish all my examining duties promptly. It’s the season finale at the National Concert Hall next Friday – followed by a long weekend break when I will be travelling a little, so I might try to do it on Thursday.

My next examination is not until Tuesday morning so, after several days of being shut away doing corrections, I can now spend a few days until the scripts are ready to collect doing numerous things that I’ve let slip while I’ve been busy. For one thing I have an inbox full of unanswered emails to attend to.

But for now I’m quite tired and in the mood only to vegetate.

Scholia: Category based marking in Python.

Prof. Karl Schmidt gave a great talk about his approach to marking and feedback last week.

I've implemented his approach in a Python library: https://vknight.org/scholia/

#marking #python

I’m waiting for the smooth brained 🧠 Chancellors of #Universities to take pay cuts for their lack of #contingency planning when the fully endorsed, “single point of failure #examination, #marking and #grades” disrupts the academic year resulting in disruption of #academic #SLA

Does anyone remember paper examinations?

#Software / #hacks / #CyberAttack / #academia / #tech / #lol 🤪
<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/08/canvas-cyberattack-us-schools-universities>