How may I use these articles?
You may use these articles to improve your own practice or to support your students, as long as you cite them here on zaposa and do not remix them, mirror them, or charge for access to them. Please direct your lab members to this handbook directly, and cite it appropriately.
- Advisors assign some of the articles tagged students in their classes or research labs
- Articles tagged faculty are helpful for new faculty (or people who want to be faculty) to learn to direct their own research programs and integrate education research into their professional practice.
- The PEER articles are frequently used in the Professional development for Emerging Education Researchers program.
Curious about other uses? Contact me.
Who wrote this handbook?
The future
Could there be an article about X topic?
Probably? If you’re asking me to write it, I’m happy to take suggestions and add them to the queue. If you’re volunteering to write it, I encourage you to do so! Let me know when/where it’s available.
You might check out the zaposa blog to see if there are posts on your topic of interest. I sometimes put things over there when they don’t quite fit thematically in the handbook, or when I’m still working out how I want to address it.
I write these as the mood strikes and as the need arises. So there will be more, but I don’t have an ordered list of future plans.
Could you link to another article I wrote or found?
Generally, I am happy to link to resources in the spirit of this handbook. Send me your link, suggest where it fits, and I’ll look at it.
I found an error or omission in one of these articles.
Cool, send me an email and let me know (a) which article and (b) what error.
| Issue | What could happen? |
|---|---|
| Link is broken or missing | Yes, I will fix this. |
| Typo detected | Yes, I will fix this. |
| Citation missing | I might change this, depending on what citation you want me to add. |
| Section needs expanding | Small expansions are ok. Large expansions are too much; maybe a new article? |
| Article needs another section | Small expansions are ok. Large expansions are too much; maybe a new article? |
| Disagree with contents | hmm, let me know and I’ll think on it. |
| New features please | hmm, let me know and I’ll think on it. |
Could you make formatting changes?
I mean, probably I could. It’s not a high priority.
| Format change | Likelihood |
|---|---|
| Chapter numbers | low |
| PDF format | med |
| Printed book | lowest |
| Dark mode | done |
The past
Where did this handbook come from?
This handbook began as a disconnected clumping of articles on my personal website. I wrote them irregularly and on random topics as I needed them in my professional life: to record my learning, to share with my students, to give to my collaborators.
Many articles grew from collaborations with writing experts, education researchers, learning scientists, faculty developers, and others. As we started PEER, I wrote more to support PEER’s growing curriculum. Eventually, there were too many to keep as a disconnected listing. I needed structure.
Unrelatedly-yet-simultaneously, the backend of zaposa outgrew my old hosting system (googlesites). In summer 2023, I engaged in a massive refactoring of the articles to generate a book and modernize the code.
This handbook is a labor of love.
What is zaposa?
za*po*sa 1. noun. A placeholder for multiple ideas at once.
Zaposa.com is the personal domain of Eleanor C Sayre. “Zaposa” is an easily pronounced short non-word. There are no formal definitions for zaposa because I made it up. Creative readers are encouraged to send me definitions like the one above.
Technical details
What are the technical underpinnings of this handbook?
This handbook is written in quarto, hosted on github, and published via netlify. Header images are generated in Affinity Designer; some article images are made in Affinity Designer, while others come from Keynote. The text is written in BBEdit and managed as a project in RStudio.