A couple of days ago a UEB colleague who doesn't blog asked me what sort of numbers read my occasional thoughts.  He was wondering what the reach of a blog might be.  That set me to looking through the hit rates for my blog entries since I started in January of this year.  It's interesting to look at a 'league table' of the nost read entries. Inevitably the most recent postings tend not have been read quite so often, and it will be some months before I see whether they reached a wide audience.  There are also three postings that I know from references on cross-tagging achieved a global audience outsdie the university.  Most postings are read by around 30-40 people, with the least popular picking up around 15-25.  Interestingly, there does seem to be an element of discrimination at work because the list of the top 10 (below) quite closely picks out the postings that I would see as baing among the most significant from my own perspective.

Here it is:

1.  26 March.  In this posting I lamented the all-too common cases of students who don't notify us of health issues or other difficulties and then appeal their degree classification. (247 hits)  This has been cited internationally. If it is being used as a cautionary tale I am delighted.

2.  24 March.  This was about the lack of women on the University's Executive Board, with reflections on why women in our university may not be progressing to the top positions.  The context was the senior acacdemic women's mentoring programme in which I am involved. (226 hits)  This has also been cited outside Sheffield.

3.  22 January.  This was an end-of-the-first-week-of-blogging reflection on the process and my feelings about undertaking it. (221 hits)

4.  20 July.  A piece celebrating the work the university has done to welcome care leavers to study here.  (86 hits)  I am particularly pleased that this entry has been well read.

5.  25 August.  A lament about the lack of interest among UK students in preparing themselves to enter the international labour market.  (82 hits)

6.  23 February.  A consideration of the potential use of contextual data (on school and family background) in the admissions process to justify different offer-making for certain candidates. (75 hits)  This is something on which we are now starting to do some research.

7.  18 September.  A piece about the idea of a university, contrasting the views of John Henry Newman and Wilhelm von Humboldt.  (71 hits)  This is quite a recent piece so it could yet rise higher in the charts.

8.  19 July.  A reflection on the marketing of the university, in the light of the temporary opening for graduation week of the new Students' Union entrance. (68 hits)

9.  22 July.  Ruminations on the lack of ethnic minority students inc ertain departments and degree programmes, occasioned by observations during graduation ceremonies. (67 hits)

10 = 23 July.  An expression of my pleasure at working in a university in contact with bright ambitious students who wish to give to their community. (59 hits)

10=  23 July.  Some views on widening participation and at the under-representation (according to some benchmarks) of students from independent schools within the unviersity. (59 hits)  This is an issue that has risen to the fore again in recent weeks, being driven up by the current Union of Students officer team.

I will return to this 'league table' at the end of the year when I sign off.