British Standard on Construction Procurement

Today we had another meeting in London of a BSI Committee which is developing a new standard for construction procurement. The group is organized by Construction Excellence and has met quite a few times since the work started last year. After several meetings, we are now all familiar with each others' foibles and it is very easy to work together. There is representation from across the industry, although with an industry so diverse and complex, no group like this can ever be fully representative. But with a group of experienced people, we are touching a lot of diverse concerns about how to go about the process of construction procurement. Interestingly, this is taking place at the same time as the International Standards Organization is drafting an eight volume standard on construction procurement. The first part of the ISO is currently in draft form and out for consultation until end of April, so when I got back to my office I notified a few thousand people in our field about this, through a couple of mailing lists. I am hoping that this will generate some discussion and feedback, but there is a niggling doubt in my mind that a lot of people will not prioritise this or, perhaps, even see the point of commenting. I am keen to get as many people to comment on this Draft International Standard as I can, so if you have in interest in construction procurement, contact me and I can let you know how to get hold of the draft and comment on it.

Crowthorne Orchestra

Our Spring Concert well. Although I only brought 9 of the audience, there was a good crowd in the Old Gym at Wellington College. We played several pieces:

• Grieg: Peer Gynt Suite No.1, Op.46
• Dvorak: The Noon Witch, Op.108
• Leopold Mozart: Sinfonia Pastorella for Alphorn and String Orchestra
• Mussorgsky: Night on the Bare Mountain
• Smetana: The Moldau (Vltava) from Ma Vlast
• Khachaturian: Spartacus Ballet Suite No.2

and they all went very well indeed. I was particularly pleased with the Mussorgsky and the Smetana, both big pieces with plenty of trumpet to play. It was a real thrill to be playing such powerful and well-known music. I also really enjoyed getting to know Dvorak's Noon Witch, a piece I had never come across before, but it has really grown on me.

The audience were suitably amazed by the carbon fibre, telescopic Alphorn played by Frances Jones who explained how the real ones are made (and how heavy they are, being wooden and three metres long) and played a few solo pieces before playing her solo with the orchestra in Leopold Mozart's Sinfonia Pastorella. As there are no parts for brass in this piece, I was able to join the audience and see this part of the performance from the front, which was excellent.

This concert included some quite ambitious music for us, but the next one is even more ambitious, Sibelius Symphony No 2 in D Minor, one of my all-time favourite symphonies. I am really looking forward to playing that!

Multiple authorship

New Scientist, in its Feedback column of 18 July 1998, wondered how may scientists it takes to write a research paper. Their readers discovered some remarkable papers. One with 562 authors in Physics Letters B (vol 231, p 539). Then another with 596 authors in Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research (vol 289, p 35). 718 authors were found on one paper in The Canadian Journal of Cardiology (vol 12, p 127). But the clear winner appears to be something identified by the judges of the 1993 Ig Nobel Prize for literature. They deemed E. Topol, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P. W. Armstrong and their 972 coauthors (The New England Journal of Medicine, vol 329, p 673) worthy of the award for their achievement in "publishing a medical research paper which has one hundred times as many authors as pages". Can that record be beaten?

They also thought about which paper cited the largest number of institutions. One reader found 143 institutions listed in a single paper in The Lancet (vol 342, p 821).

And we thought multiple authorship was getting excessive!

Active vs passive voice

Some authors struggle with the problem of whether to use active or passive voice. I get the sense that they have a vague notion that the tradition in scientific writing is to write in the third person. This is manifest in their fear of using first person, or an active voice. I think of it as fear for two reasons. First, it's irrational. Second, they go to great lengths to avoid active voice or first person. I say it is irrational because when I ask them about it, they don't even understand what active or passive voice is. Just to clarify: if the verb relates to the person or thing, then we are using active voice, whereas if the verb is not connected to the doer, then passive voice is used. For example, in the preceding sentence, "use" is used in both voices, first actively then passively. The differences between first and third person is, perhaps, a little more straightforward.

I think that the fundamental problem is about using passive or active voice, and a lot of people seem to get very confused about this. Active voice is good, if you want to engage the reader. Passive voice is good if you want to stand to one side and look at the data, analysis and conclusions dispassionately. The confusion arises when authors pretend to change active to passive by changing "I" to "the writer" or "the author", which is just a clumsy way of revealing that they do not know what this active/passive thing is all about!

Power in construction contracts

We had an industry seminar about our research into the relationship between power and innovation. Among other things, we were talking about how power shifts from the client, thtough the design team, ultimately to the contractor, as the project progresses. Much of this was explained in Building Design Management by Colin Gray and Will Hughes (Butterworth-Heinemann, 2001) One of the participants in the seminar, Innocent Okorji, a barrister, wrote after the event that the shift of power may not be between people at all.

He suggested that there was a metaphor in the field of administrative law. He said, "in military dictatorship or feudal system, parliamentary or presidential State, power initially resides with who ever wields the preponderance of force. As soon as the wielder of the force/power enacts a constitution (repressive or not), power is then transfered to that constitution. The constitution does not change during the process of governance. If there are any amendments to be made in any form or manner, including re-allocating authorities/powers within the polity/state executives, the amendments will usually be based on the provisions of the existing constitution. It follows therefore, in an organization such as [a construction client], power, ... initially resides with the [client organization]. Once the [client organization] adopts one form or the other of a governance structure within their organization or in relation with outside parties, the power is automatically transferred not to any individual or construction organization per se, but to the institutional matrix that regulates the integrity of the relationships within such organization and/or with outside organizations.

The governance structure once it is adopted, it remains in force. Any variation whatsoever to the status quo may only happen according to the provisions of the governance structure. In a construction project scenario, once the employer enters into a contract with external organization or chain of organizations, power to regulate the transaction automatically resides in the provisions of the contract."

Now, I found this very interesting, and responded thus. It sounds right to me because in practice, the people who best understand the governance structure are those most likely to be able to turn it to their benefit. So clients will perceive that the power base has shifted after they sign the contract, but also they may, perhaps, perceive the power base to be with the contractor, even though it is in the contract. In an ideal world, to run the contracts the way they were written, a Chartered Engineer or an Architect would hold the power, as they have roles which spring solely from the contract. They represent the contract. But in most places we have either moved away from that position, or perhaps not even got there. So the contract ends up as a two-way relationship between buyer and seller, with very little effective third party involvement. Presumably, this is why we had to invent statutory adjudication in the UK, to deal with the problem caused by contract administrators failing to fulfill adequately the role envisaged for them in contracts?

Annotated bibliographies

All research involves starting with what is known on a topic and building on it. All research projects need some basic work to enable the researchers to produce something that is developmental and useful. Comprehensive literature searchers are important, but probably quite rare, especially in our field. Here is a process that ought to be followed, and that research supervisors and funders should encourage and support:

1. Discovery – find out what has been published based on a shortlist of keywords agreed among the members of the research team, or between student and supervisor.
2. Retrieval – acquire the documents, preferably electronically, so that they can be placed in a closed repository for the research team.
   
3. Evaluation – for each document, ascertain whether it is relevant, perhaps revising the list of search terms as a result, and develop definitions of terms for a glossary of concepts that cites publications where specific definitions are used, given or implied.
4. Classification – for each document decide what this is about in relation to the emerging glossary of concepts (terms) and also in terms of whether it appears to the result of research, experience or personal opinion.
5. Description – for each document, provide a few sentences that summarize its relevance to the project

There are two outputs from this process. First, a list of key concepts, with associated keywords for searching on, with each concept defined by reference to the literature, including the full range of referenced definitions for concepts that are contentious, and definitive definitions for those where there is consensus. Second, an annotated bibliography, probably in bibliographic software such as EndNote, which will provide the research team with the basis on which they can critically evaluate the quality of past research and write up a strong literature review. Both the Glossary of Concepts and the Annotated Bibliography can form appendices of any published research report.

Snow on the road

The snow came in across England today, heavy and cold. With the temperature around -2°C, we were all expecting the country to grind to a halt. Sure enough, railway lines were closed, airports closed, buses were cancelled, and during the early morning, one-by-one, all but a few schools were closed. Total chaos. Mind you, there is some merit in the argument that with this kind of weather being so rare (last time it was like this was 18 years ago), it is clearly not worth investing in the kind of infrastructure that could withstand all this, so many people worked at home or just took the day off.

My daughter was due to do a day observing communication in a primary school across the valley, and my son wanted to spend the day at his friend's house near to the same school. So I gave them a lift and we got in the car and headed to the school, sticking to the main roads, which were gritted because they were bus routes. We were surprised that the primary school was open, and Vicky went in, after I told her I would wait until she told me it was definitely on. After ten minutes, she was on the phone in a bit of a quandary, because the teacher whose class she was observing told her that she should not have bothered, and should have stayed home. Vicky was perplexed, to say the least, since she had actually turned up and was ready to do the observation, but clearly, she was not wanted, so we picked her up again and set of for Dan's friend's house, which was on a small road off a narrow lane, which plunged into a valley. Although this road was not gritted, and was a steep narrow hill, I assumed we would be OK, because we were not going down the hill, but turning off, just beyond the crown.

As we approached the turning, the road was completely covered with snow, and quite slippy. I touched the brakes, as we were already on a slight incline, and the car lost all grip and started to slide completely out of control, but at a very low speed. We slid past the turning, and I could not regain control, as the hill grew steeper. and the car continued to slide, completely out of control, but finally the front end hit the left bank of the road, and the rear swing around until it hit the right bank of the lane. There we were, completely stuck, right across a narrow lane on an a hill. I had completely blocked the road, and nearly hit a pedestrian and her dog in the process. Some neighbours came out with their shovels, and we emptied a nearby grit bin all over the road. A couple of policemen came to help, too, and after an hour I finally managed to get us out without damaging the car. It was a bit stressful and quite hard work. I had stationed my son at the top of the hill, around the corner, to turn back any other cars, and he managed to get about 20 of them to not come through. One insisted on coming through because he thought he could park up and help, but he also lost control and only stopped by crashing into the grit bin! He tried to help, but just kept getting in the way. Finally, we got the grit on to the road, and the salt in the grit melted the snow, and I was able to manoevre the car back up the hill. It had taken about an hour, and I was pleased that there was no major damage to the people or to the car.

Anyway, we all got home safely, and now I am in the warm having a cup of coffee. And I am staying put!

Double-blind refereeing

The habit of double-blind refereeing (reviewing) of academic papers has evolved over the years and is quite common in academic journals. The idea is that when an author submits a paper, the editor makes sure the author's name and address are not evident, then chooses other experts in the field to review it and provide a critique of the strengths and weaknesses of the research and of the way in which the paper is written. It is the basis of scientific quality control, and is also used in reviewing research grant applications, especially when public money us involved. As an editor myself, I am very dependent on the referees' advice when deciding the fate of a paper. But the fate of a paper is my decision, not the referees', and sometimes I don't follow their advice, which can confuse authors and referees.

One interesting thing that frequently happens is that authors refer to their own previous work and thereby reveal their identity to the referees. Sometimes, a conscientious referee will then contact me and ask what to do because they have noticed the authors' identity. My attitude is always the same. It does not matter too much! If authors choose to reveal their identity to referees, they are either not worried about the lack of anonymity, or too naive to realise what they are doing. The key point is that many referees would recognise the writing of someone who was well-known. So the invention of blind refereeing was obviously not to protect well-known people. It was for the benefit of less well known people. It means the judgement of the referee is solely based on the merits of the paper. An unknown research student who submits a paper will have it reviewed by people who cannot guess whether the author is a student or a professor, so junior academics are the ones who benefit the most from blind refereeing.

Of course, referees often think they know who wrote the paper, and they often guess wrong. I have often sent to famous professors comments from encouraging referees who say that with practice and in time, they might be able to get their work up to scratch!

Authors who reveal their identity are either already so well-known that it does not really matter, or they are too naive to realise that blind refereeing requires that they don't reveal their identity. Either way, the conclusion is that the paper can still be refereed by the referee to whom we have sent it.

Profound misunderstandings

I came across some notes I had made at a meeting with some industry people back in 2005. The purpose of the meeting was a launch of some research these business people had done which was about the construction sector. Interestingly, one of the opening statements was that they had interviewed people from 50 major private sector organizations, which by anyone's reckoning (because of the collective spending power of these organizations) made it a major study. Should I have been pointing out how many papers we had published in CM&E that has larger samples? They were confident that no one had done such a significant study before or since. I remember thinking that they were so confident, they did not need to do a literature search in order to ascertain this for sure.

Another speaker declaimed that if you do not know what kind of health care you need 25 years from now, then you should not let a 25 year PFI contract. And if you do not know how we will be educating children in ten years' time, then do not let a 25-year PFI contract. I wondered what he thought of 999-year leases on land. I wondered if he had a 25 year mortgage on his own house, even though he did not know what his lifestyle would be like ten years from now, or where he would be working. I wondered if he knew what it meant for a business to own real estate, and then I wondered how he had become so important in our industry.

He went on to talk about "value", a word that still makes me squirm. Why does it make me squirm? It is indefinable because it means all things to all people, and it usually is introduced into conversations about the impoverished nature of the kind of objectives that business set themselves for their "key performance indicators". This guy defined value as what you wake up worrying about in the morning. Ha! What wonderful mumbo-jumbo.

The session included some e-voting opportunities where each audience member had a little device to select from options that were presented to them. Fascinating. Questions appeared on the screen, with 4-5 options to choose from. Often, the last option would be "other", and the speaker clearly had not wanted this, because in putting each question to us, he described this option as being there for those who could not make up their minds between the specific options he had listed. We could see the collective choices being counted on the screen in real time. The speaker knew what he wanted us to answer, because whenever the majority chose the option that he favoured, he used the phrase "finally being honest"! What was even worse, he then told us that he was going to use this as "data" to inform the policy for the organization he represented. I despaired.

There were many other presentations that day, from a series of industrial captains, many of whom had been involved in the preparation of the reports being launched. There were some interesting points that I took away from the meeting. One speaker asked why people were so preoccupied about capacity when efficiency (productivity) was so low. Surely we should first improve productivity, before trying to increase the capacity of such an inefficient sector. Another questioned the tone of the rhetoric surrounding partnering in the industry. He said that driving improvements from the client side is not as effective as equal partnership. Even radical change can be made step-by-step. But it is rare to find partnering agreements that are genuinely equal in terms of commitment.

As is often the case, I wondered about how we could bring industry and academia closer together. This was five years ago. I think we are making progress.

Test Department

Today I was rediscovering Test Dept, a UK group from the 1980s who used large pieces of metal, assorted hammers, buzz-saws and so on to create a mesmeric industrial sound that was hugely original at the time, and ultimately lead to the whole "industrial music" scene I guess. They still sound good to me. Check them out here. I always appreciate musicians who are sensitive the economic and political context of their music. Too much music is de-contextualized and lacks meaning. This stuff might not be to everyone's taste, but at least you can see where they are coming from! This is not sugar-coated, over-produced, escapist pap. I wonder what happened to these guys. The bass player from one incarnation of the group is Vic Reeves, and he's been quite successful with his surreal brand of knockabout comedy.

Presumably this would be called performance art these days, and I guess that anyone making this kind of noise these days would create the sounds with synthesizers and sampling, rather than smashing real lumps of metal with huge great hammers! They were good.

First week back

The first full week back at work has been a time for tidying up. Hundred of e-mails that I've read and not answered, and thousands of files on my computer that have been cluttering up my workspace for too long. I have spent several hours a day revisiting these old e-mails, deleting anything that is not absolutely necessary. Some e-mails I had kept thinking that I would get around to taking some action on them later, when there is time. But now I have to acknowledge to myself that there won't be time. One consequence of sorting through them all was finally finishing off a major paper jointly-authored with Stephen Gruneberg, on Performance-based contracting. Finally we can get this submitted. I still have two book chapters and a couple of journal papers to finish, as well. One book chapter I had committed to has disappeared. The editor of that book decided that it was going to take too long to wait for me, so he asked someone else instead, and now has the chapter he needs. In terms of tidying up my computer, I have got in quite a mess with trying to syncrhonize the documents on the various computers that I use. Every time I synchronize two of the computers with each other, all the files I had deleted from one are resinstated unless I deleted them from the other! I have ended up with four different locations for all my document files, so I was finding it impossible to lose and files that I had tried to delete. The solution? Make an "old documents" folder on all four computers, and then move anything I want from there to a fresh new documents folder, which can be synchronized across all locations. Now I can pick up everything I need from a sub-folder, and then remember to delete the whol sub-folder in all four locations. All this for data security. It is remarkable how difficult it is to maintain a usable and robust backup regime with computers.

Saturday morning orchestra

Feeling that I was not getting enough time to play my trumpet, I accepted the invitation of a fellow trumpet player, Dave Johnson, to tag along to another orchestra. This one is quite handy as it rehearses exactly the same time, as the orchestra in which my son plays double bass, and just across the road. Since he needs taking and collecting every Saturday morning anyway, it is very convenient for me to join in. I took part for the first time today, and they were a very friendly bunch. Not too bad at sight reading. The timps and harp parts were put in by a guy on a keyboard with an amp, which was novel. We worked through Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, McCunn's Land of the Mountain and Flood, and Wagner's Prelude from Tristan und Isolde. Not much for the trumpets in this latter one, but enough to keep us busy in the other two pieces. This also gives ma an opportunity to use my new trumpets because each piece demands a different instrument. Indeed, the Wagner starts with an F trumpet and then changes to an E trumpet, neither of which I have! However, Dave had a useful tip. Using the C Trumpet, the transposition is pretty straightforward because the key signature is obvious. It's good to be practicing and learning more!

Pig-headed scientists

"Scientists, especially when they leave the particular field in which they have specialized, are just as ordinary, pig-headed and unreasonable as anybody else, and their unusually high intelligence only makes their prejudices all the more dangerous..."

Eysenck, H.J. (1957) Sense and nonsense in psychology. Penguin.

Heavens above

I found this website where you can track the location of the International Space Station, and the numerous communication satellites whirling around the globe. One network of around 80 satellites, known as Iridium, is for satellite phones. Apparently, the mirrors on these satellites catch the sun and reflect it down to us, at certain points in their orbits. These are visible to the naked eye as bright flare of light, known as an Iridium flare. In this website you can enter your location, and it will then provide you with forecasts about where and when you can catch sight of the International Space Station, the Iridium flares and even, if you have some binoculars, the toolbag dropped from the International Space Station by an astronaut. Let me know if you see any of these things. Click here

(Photo courtesy of Ideonexus)

Persepolis (2007)

Persepolis is a cartoon movie about a young girl growing up in Iran through the Islamic revolution and subsequently the war with Iraq. It is a brilliant film, providing a really powerful account of how the impact of huge political change on ordinary people. It is remarkable to see how much of what has happened in this part of the world was brought about by interference of the UK and the West. Apart from the questions that it raises about what it means to be a civilized society, this film is a very moving autobiography. See it if you can.

Head of School

We received formal notification today from the Vice Chancellor that I would be appointed for a further four years to the Headship. This is a four year term of office, and I am currently in my fourth year, which comes to an end next July. So now I, and all my colleagues, know that I shall be continuing for a further four years, so we can continue to implement the planned recruitment strategy with a sense of direction and purpose. The VC consulted the staff of the School in coming to his decision about who to appoint. So while it is not intended to be a democratic decision, there is consultation. And apparently, there was overwhelming support for my continuation, which is great news, because it provides me with a mandate and reinvigorates my enthusiasm.

Three year operating plan

Each year, Heads of School have to prepare a rolling three year plan. This year was particularly difficult, for two reasons. First, the University is continuing to refine the process, and this year, although the once-separate teaching and learning plan was simply rolled up as part of the main document, a research plan was prepared earlier in the year, for the first time, with a view to the feedback from that informing this operating plan, and a risk register was requested in order to demonstrate to our auditors that we are managing our risks adequately. Second. a combination of events has resulted in our need to request lots of new academic posts. Basically, this is a combination of a spate of retirements plus the massive recent expansion of our activities. We have just about doubled the size of the School in the last four years, in every aspect of our work. This is why I have to make a case for a crop of new posts. And each one has to be carefully rationalized in line with our strategy for the next few years. It was a real relief to get it submitted today, just on the deadline. Over the next few weeks, senior management of the university will read all the plans from the different Schools. In January, a group of senior staff tour the Schools, interviewing the Heads, to be sure that they understand the aims, priorities and risks. Then they can rank order a master list of all the posts requested, so that when we find out from the Higher Education Funding Council how much grant the University is to receive this year from government, the final piece of the jigsaw will be in place in terms of next year's overall financial planning. At that point, they can determine how far down the list they can go in terms of the posts requested across the University. So it is a serious business as it affects how many new staff we get to appoint next year, if any. And it takes a lot of consultation and conversations to be sure about our relative priorities within the School before we put the plan before senior management. I was pleased to have got the document drafted, edited down toe the requisite length, and then submitted. Now I wonder how far down our list of priorities we'll get, given the dreadful ever-worsening situation.

Crowthorne Symphony Orchestra

Our concert went very well. It was all a bit touch and go, though. One of the viola players cried off at the last minute with flu, and even the piano soloist was feeling too ill to come to the afternoon rehearsal, so the conductor had to rehearse the orchestra without the soloist, which is not easy in a piano concerto. In fact, it is unheard of! To deal with this strange situation, the conductor and soloist agreed that for once, the soloist would follow the conductor, rather than the other way around. We rehearsed the whole programme from 1:30 until 5:30, which was quite am exhausting to do immediately before a concert. But all the brass, the basses, the harp and a large proportion of the violins were brought in just for the day, because we seem to be low on string players these days. It would be unusual to have many brass for all the weekly rehearsals, as there is generally not enough for them to do to keep them occupied. So the rehearsal on the afternoon of the concert is the first time we have played together, and for some instruments, the first time they have seen the pieces. Normally we would not have this many extras on the day, though. My new trumpet was excellent. I played set it up as a D Trumpet for the Cimarosa overture, and as an E flat for the Liszt piano concerto. It sounded good in the acoustic of the hall. The first half went off without mishap, and most people in the audience seemed to enjoy it a lot. After the break came the Symphony, the big piece we had really focused most of our attention on for the preceding 12 weeks. It is a huge and demanding piece, but very absorbing and great fun. It went very well indeed, and was a real success. I'd sold tickets to 23 adults and 6 children for this concert, an unusually large contingent. Although half a dozen of them were unable to attend due to flu or unexpected guests, I still had 24 people in the audience, which made it a very special concert for me. We're all looking forward to the March concert now. I wonder what we'll be playing?

Graduation ceremony

I have not seen such a strong staff contingent in a graduation ceremony before. We were 44 strong! Apparently, that is pretty close to the maximum that can fit on the stage. The December graduation is mostly for postgrads, although there are sometime some undergrads who passed on resits, or whose results were unavailable in time for the main (July) ceremony for some other reason. This was the first year that there were two days of December graduations ceremonies. It was as smooth and well organized as always, and the VC's speech was short and to the point, and well received. The students and families that I spoke to enjoyed it a lot, and as they were postgrads they were able to compare this to their previous graduation from other universities, and everyone who did so preferred this one. It was not too long, the speeches were interesting and it all worked. The weather was horrible, though. Grey, cold, wet and dark. But we had wine and nibbles with our SCME graduates on the London Road site, courtesy of Gerri Excell, and everyone went away happy. As always, it was a real delight to see PhDs graduating. Of all the awards a University can award, this is the highest, and the hardest work, so doctoral graduates are always enormously relieved to have finally completed their arduous journey. Graduation is always an enjoyable event, reminding us just how much it means to the graduates to have completed their courses of study. Let's hope that we can keep in touch with them, though, as pretty soon they will be the very people we want to talk to for access to research data, or for developing our employer engagement agenda. They generally progress through their careers quickly.

Listing the 700 people who reviewed papers for CM&E this year

Each year, the editors of Construction Management and Economics like to compile a list of all the referees who have reviewed papers in the preceding 12 months, and thank them formally by publishing this list. Given that we have a database recording everyone's involvement, and their contact details, this should be, on the face of it, a simple task. On listing the people who had been active, I first noticed the obvious errors. Some people had been entered twice into the system, sometimes by themselves, sometimes by their co-authors. The system distinguished people by their e-mail addresses, but these change, or people use different ones for different purposes. Then I found that some people type their details all in lower case or all capitals, so I had to fix that, both in the outputted list and in the database. Then I found that a large number of people never bothered to enter their institution, so I had to figure it out from their e-mail addresses, or if that was not clear, find a paper they had authored, then inspect the cover page. Some people have middle initials, but there was no consistency as to whether they put a full-stop after their initial or not. I had to add one for every user who had omitted it, on the basis that if I subsequently wanted to remove it from any output for consistency, a global search and replace would have something to go at. Some users are unfamiliar with the name of their own university! Several had XYZ University, when it should be University of XYZ. Others had apparently not noticed that their University had changed its name, sometimes several years ago. Some had entered the University and part of their address, but not bothered changing the default country (UK), so I had to relocate them to their correct country. And then we noticed that strange thing had happened in the database (which is maintained by a software house in USA). Certain countries had been changed, arbitrarily. While Taiwan had changed to "Taiwan, Province of China", Iran had changed to "Iran, Islamic Republic of" and Hong Kong, SAR China had changed to just "Hong Kong". We decided that the change to Iran and Hong Kong were OK, but were aware of the sensitivities surrounding the status of Taiwan. All of the entries for Taiwan had to be edited manually, because countries are selected in the database from a drop-down list, which we cannot edit. Perhaps this was why some Taiwanese users had left the country as United Kingdom, because they preferred this kind of mistake over being categorized as part of China. After several hours of editing the list of 700 people, we finally had a list we could publish. Having put most of the errant records straight, and allocated someone to the task of checking the database more thoroughly over the next year, I am optimistic that next year, this will be a ten-minute job!