Reflections

Reflections on the project as a whole. There are a number of things which were interesting and at the same time a number of things which frankly could have been either done in a different way, or perhaps even not at all. 
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• Data gathering on myself is limited and not particularly useful or valuable. In a way that is ok, its a small research project and it has limited scope and limited time to measure and of course having a one person sample is not going to be representative.
• As Malmodin (2024) notes, the only accurate way of working out energy usage of a network is to do it historically, where all variables are known: total data, and total energy consumption, for the entire network. This would mean knowing:
  • All data / network traffic for the entire sample period
  • Energy usage of all devices and components of the network: end-users devices such as phones and laptops; the routers; cables; local UAL servers; transmission networks; cloud data centre; etc) 
  • data transferred, and stored, over sample period. 
• This would be the only way to calculate accurate usage of kWh/GB. Then therefore using this we would be accurately be able to work out the CO2e impact of this digital networked opportunity.
• On reflection, I did not know this before I started the research project, so this has been a significant growth of personal understanding.
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• Every action, and every aspect of carbon reduction seems to never go far enough — we need radically wide, drastic and seismic shifts to make any meaningful difference to the coming onslaught of the anthropogenic climate change. Our actions, this project, seem fickle and Earth’s ecosystems (human ecosystems included) are crumbling around us, over the duration of the project we have had the wildest fires since Los Angeles became a colonised mark of the map; UK has had numerous deadly storms; etc etc etc
• I accept that all acts of resilience and resistance to further destruction are of course positive, and I must take faith with this, and not despair — hope, as Zaki (2024) suggests is the ‘scientific’ opposite to cynicism as if offers us agency, or power in which to change something for the better, and that is a welcome invite to being hopeful.
• As a further reflection, and opportunity to take stock, I return to a prayer referenced in one of the first PgCert sessions, in regards to me accepting limitations and ability to positively change:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Niebuhr / Wygal

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• One of the interesting reflections is that because I am included in emails for many courses via Moodle, it means I’m privy to information as if I were a student or staff member of said courses. As mentioned in the findings, one MA course sent 22 Moodle emails in 10 days — I had always anecdotally understood that from some courses I receive a lot more messages from than others, but never actually measured which ones.
• 22 emails in 10 days does seem like a lot, I wonder:
  what the impact is on the students? Does all this information help? What is remembered, read, and listened to or actioned, and what is missed or overlooked? 
• Further research perhaps..
• Again, anecdotally I am aware that some courses do a weekly email, and others a more scattered approach, relaying info and sending reminders and updates constantly, as things are updated. 
• These thoughts and reflections, slightly depart from this current project’s scope (carbon and environmental impact), but I think in a way that they fold in:
  • Must we be always permanently in contact with people and things? Must all information be available at all times? Even if it’s there can we find it amongst the unnecessarily stratified Moodle layers?  
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• Thinking more about the qualitative aspects of actions and change in regards to peoples digital practices and rituals, it strikes me that some increasing common practices are adding to our digital lifestyles and therefore increase our environmental (and possibly social) impact.
  • Must we always take notes which appear suddenly across all our devices? Transferrable internet browser tabs? Include dozens of CC’d people in emails? Constantly be in contact with each other, sharing locations, updates, and virtue signals?
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• Coming back to the project, I mainly focused on emails and data transfer, and a little bit of digital storage, not the actual physical digital (portal) devices, which from secondary research suggests creates the most impact form our digital obsessions, both in latent power usage (Malmodin, 2024) and manufacture (Berners-Lee, 2020).
• Further research would look into UAL’s physical digital devices, their life-cycles, and uses of them.
  • For example, when LCF first moved to Stratford/East Bank, the digital/technical services did a pres and they had a quote that said: ’30% of devices from previous sites were migrated to East Bank’ and I thought, they’re presenting that as its somehow good — what happened to the rest?!
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• I acknowledge that I had initially intended to look also at the impact of permanent storage of information, not just emails, but this became too difficult to work out impact, but also work out how to measure or record this data if I did have enough time. I’m not a data scientist, or engineer, and this limits to a degree exposure and understanding of networked systems, and therefore measurement of them.
  • Further research would look to collaborate and work out the impact of storage of data, rather than the transference of data. 
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• The project as a whole feels not only utilitarian but also somewhat boring, high-level, abstract and distant, meaning as human — I feel unrelated to it. Big data, lacks human sentiment. Data about humans always has a feeling of abstraction however.
• Although it is useful for some of us to understand that emails, digital storage etc have an impact, what this contributes to the wider field of research is a little unclear to me currently. 
• All of that woe-me stuff said, I do think that I’ve grown and understood a lot more about how I practice and begin to research.
• Although an up-and-down personal journey, I have felt improvements to the way I deal with the feeling of too many competing work commitments. This feeling has layered into my time and priority management, and when combined with my fluctuating, often spiralling mental health has reduced my capacity to critically engage in a more meaningful way. But it’s learning all the same, and I’ve certainly learnt a lot. 
• Its also the first EC I’ve ever used after my FE, BA, and MA education, and that alone allows me to see and understand a little to why so many of our students request ECs currently. It’s a lot.
• But I am excited for more, just perhaps with more flexibility in timing.

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