CRADLE News, tweets and traffic – No red lights!
16 March 2021
Whether it was due to lockdown tedium-surfing or random searches of exciting key words related to the world of higher education assessment and the digital world, readership of the CRADLE News blog has continued to grow. Our news posts were read by well over 7000 people in 2020 (up 22% from 2019) and new users rose by 1500, an increase of 125%! So welcome to those people who discovered CRADLE and our news, but also a shout-out to our returning audience with a recorded viewership increase of 21% from 2019.
Popular articles
Whilst we listed the most read posts in December, we felt that it is worthwhile to take another look at the top three articles given their significant number of continued views by our followers.
1. Sword vs Bukowski, or how I wrote a 75,000-word book in seven weeks
Prof. Phil Dawson’s topped the 2020 list with his article Sword vs Bukowski, or how I wrote a 75,000-word book in seven weeks, namely his account of account of writing his latest book, Defending Assessment Security in a Digital World. Not wanting to peddle more productivity propaganda, Phil deftly outlines the four simple and practical steps for writing, while advocating the Pomodoro technique.
2. Cheating and COVID-19: some CRADLE suggestions
Written in response to the rapid transition to online learning and the concept of a possible ‘second pandemic’, namely rampant online cheating, our second most popular post Cheating and COVID-19: some CRADLE suggestions focussed on a two-page resource, CRADLE Suggests… Academic integrity, assessment security and digital assessment. This item reviews the practical suggestions for addressing cheating in online learning, drawn from research from CRADLE and the broader literature.
3. A look at Google Scholar metrics
A look at Google Scholar metrics was our third most read post, where Dr Joanna Tai adroitly explains the ‘what, where, why and how of data’ within Google Scholar’s metrics system and how best to use these metrics.
CRADLE on Twitter
Twitter land was contemporaneously popular with the number of followers continuing to grow since the thread started in January 2017. Our followers increased by 54% from 2019-2020 and by 360% since December 2017! Follow us here @CRADLEdeakin and stay up to date with the rapid transfer of news and comments by our followers.
