One of many posts on my Readiness Assessment. As a reminder of the ground rules, this is a solo assessment, so while I’m allowed to think out loud on my blog, I can’t ask for or get (intellectual) help. Cookies and emotional support are, however, welcome.

Some conversations I've had recently around the topic of radical transparency that I feel like I need to note:

  • I organized a peer-review party for people in my department applying for an NSF fellowship; Monica Cardella and Emily Dringenberg were kind enough to come in as "external reviewers," and Ana and Lee Rynearson and Kelsey Rodgers were the other applicants. I mention this because radical transparency is part of what I talk about in my application essays -- not with the same depth of analysis as I'm delving into for my Readiness, though. I don't think it affected the content of my paper in any way (except to perhaps emotionally reassure me once again that the topic wasn't completely nutters) and I did tell them about my Readiness beforehand.
  • Robin and I had a long talk in her office yesterday (our regular advisor-student meeting) in preparation for a chat with Sally Fincher today on the idea of radical transparency in a disciplinary commons. For this, I had to explain radical transparency -- including some of the stuff I've been working out lately -- so they both got to hear some of my thoughts, but I think we managed to keep the "development of RTR" portion of the conversation in Mel-output mode and not other-people-contribute-input mode (although they totally contributed a ton of input to other parts of the conversation that had nothing to do with the theoretical underpinnings of RTR and a lot more to do with the nature of setting up a commons).

Maybe I should take a nap.