I’m a Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Educational Research & Development at the University of Lincoln, where I undertake research and development into the use of technology in Higher Education. If you’re interested, you can read about my  funded projects. I also support the use of WordPress at the university and run the Lincoln Academic Commons, a hub for open source and open access related projects. I hold degrees in Buddhist Studies (London (SOAS), Michigan (Ann Arbor)) and in Film Archiving (East Anglia). Previously, I worked for Amnesty International.

The title of this blog is Expedient Means. Why? My first two degrees were in Buddhist Studies, and expedient means is the English translation of the Sanskrit उपाय upāya. It can also be translated as pedagogy and is often associated with a form of dialectics.

The implication is that even if a technique, view, etc., is not ultimately “true” in the highest sense, it may still be an expedient practice to perform or view to hold; i.e., it may bring the practitioner closer to true realization anyway.

I’ve discussed this further, here. You can also read more about upāya on Wikipedia.