The blog turned three a couple of days ago: at the 28th of September 2005 I started this blog. I had started my postdoc at Sydney Uni earlier that year and wanted to avoid drowning in theories and concepts and lose touch with what was really happening in the global world of higher education, science and innovation. That has definitely worked and therefore it’s a good thing that many PhD students started blogging, and actually, nowadays many academics are writing about their research and their academic life.
I’m still managing to create a few blog posts a month but unfortunately posting is getting less frequent since I left academia and moved elsewhere. Yet, it’s still good to see many people find their way to the blog. Somewhere this summer, I got my 200,000th visitor.
It’s always interesting to see what brings people here. Clearly, the most popular search terms are related to the university league table of the Times Higher. The peak in the chart is caused by a little scoop I had in November, presenting the Times Higher ranking before it was officially published. At least I hope that the people arriving at my blog looking for these rankings take the time to click through the more critical posts on the methodology, risks and consequences of ranking. The THES University Rankings 2008 are expected on October 9…
But fortunately there are also people looking for other things. Although in some cases these search terms really make you wonder… Here are a few examples:
- Herrings apparently communicate by farting. why?
- Dutch people are dumb
- 5 requirements to become u,s. president
- Person speaking japanese backwards and somebody speaking dutch backwards
- is eric beerkens from Indonesia?
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Happy 3rd Birthday Eric! In particular great to see you have managed to keep the blog moving along, and indeed forward, despite your new(ish) job and associated duties. Best wishes, Kris from GlobalHigherEd
Left by Kris Olds on October 3rd, 2008