Summa cum laude

Publishing and Open Access

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:17:14 PDT

CELT hosted an informative seminar this week on Open Access publishing, facilitated by the research support staff from the library. The seminar focused on the development of ARAN, NUI Galway's open access repository. More universities are developing these types of repositories in order to facilitate access to the publications of academic staff, and it seems as though many publishers and funding bodies are in favour of them.

The main reason that they are seen as a good idea by everyone (and not just those in favour of open access on principle) is that they increase citation counts. Citations are of course fast becoming the key performance indicator for academic researchers. Some of you who work in fields where publishing manuscripts or books used to be the more traditional route through an academic career may well be wondering whether it is time to stop writing books and start publishing journal articles. This is the topic of a discussion happening now on the THE website and it is worth a look if you are interested in this question.

Academic Workloads

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:54:41 PDT

I've been watching a debate hot up on the THE website in response to an article about academic workloads. The research for the article suggests that academics' working hours (in the UK, where the study was done) have remained fairly stable over the past few decades, averaging about 55 hours per week. What has changed is the proportion of administrative duties that academics undertake (up now to just over 30% of their workload).

These findings are interesting and are certainly generating much discussion on the website. What is somewhat depressing is to see the old chestnut of the administrative/academic divide generating some sarcastic comments again. There is obviously distrust on both sides with some academics suggesting that an unnecessary layer of middle management is causing the burden, while others are taking pot shots at academics as whinging skivers. You would think there would be some way to help bridge this perception gap.

from the papers

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:57:51 PDT

Iain Macwhirter, Rector of Edinburgh University, highlights the need to keep firm on free higher education.

NUI Galway is this year's Irish University of the Year.

Clear your desk and head for the airport.

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 14:51:13 PDT

Ok, it has been quite some time since we posted here. This is in part a reflection of the frenzied activity that takes place in universities in late August/early September, wrapping up the newly ended academic year, supervising and marking projects, rushing to complete research commitments, upgrading facilities, hosting summer-schools and conferences and then the final burst to get ready for a new cohort of thousands of new students in September. Date-wise of course it coincides with politicians' holidays and so it permits the continued persistence of the long-summer-vacation myth of the ivory tower. Not all of us have the contractual conditions of parliamentarians or some others, but despite the pressures we do the work, and often in blatant disregard for the European working directive (particularly when the new semester kicks in).

For some though, this particular new academic year marks a devastating period in their professional lives as with contracts due for renewal, the public sector moratorium tramples on their hopes, disregards their experience, their productivity and their talent and brutally casts them aside to join the ranks of the unemployed and the world of mortgage arrears. Its scattergun approach across the whole sector shows a complete lack of foresight, strategy and logic. The 'smart economy' is unlikely to be built on dumb decisions.

This may sound like a somewhat bitter posting, but its high time someone acknowledged the work of contract staff and their situation puts in perspective some of the fretting of those of in permanent posts about relatively minor issues (as frequently voiced at academic meetings and elsewhere), with the scale and impact of the recruitment freeze perhaps not yet fully appreciated.

If only it was in our power to do something about the situation. Of course there is talk that the moratorium may be challenged given that it is counter to the 1997 Universities' Act in denying autonomy to the institutions, but whether such will have any real traction remains to be seen.

In the bleak midwinter..oh no hang on it's summer...

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:11:24 PDT

As the recruitment moratorium begins to bite in Irish Higher Education, with no new contracts allowed and potential staffing shortfalls in academic and support posts looming; the news from across the water in the UK (particularly England in the devolved structures) is also gloomy. The recent edition of the Times Higher warns of impending bankruptcy of some institutions as well as detailing the crassness of someone's approach to dealing with staff dismissals at Imperial College.

Mad Genius or Bad Science

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:00:37 PDT

As we build up towards next June's Symposium we'll be running a number of occasional posts on the theme of 'creativity'. To kick the series off, where better to start than with one of the most prevalent myths, that of the "mad genius"?

In a paper published in May's edition of Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, Judith Schlesinger (psychologist and Jazz afficionado - there seems to be a distinct subgroup of such people) exposes the weaknesses of this idea by tracing back recurring references to their original source. It's a well written and biting piece and shows the real dangers of using secondary references/sources with some extremely dodgy original material becoming cited widely with little question. Perhaps because it fits our stereotype of creativity and genius (as Keith Sawyer emphasises in his book "Explaining Creativity") the citation has just been copied into a wide range of subsequent publications with no critical review.

It is certainly worth reading Schlesinger's article just to get a feel for how extraordinarily bad the original 'evidence' actually is: trying to diagnose mental health based on newspaper obituaries; noting in diary entries that a great composer sometimes seems a bit low and yet other times happy; having conversations with writers at a country retreat and discovering that someone in their family had a mental health issue! Oh and lovely statistics such as an effect being demonstrated by 12.5% of the sample and in case that number rings an alarm bell, yes it really did correspond to a single person out of a group of only eight that were interviewed.

This is the kind of work that would be a field day for Ben Goldacre in his crusade against 'bad science'.

Irish HE funding crisis - reported in THE

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:57:17 PDT

The Times Higher this week has a brief item about the situation in the Irish HE sector. One of those rare forays across the water but great to see the issues being brought to a wider audience.

so that's why I'm not a Judge or Major General

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:17:13 PDT

The BBC and Guardian are reporting on Alan Milburn's new report on class division and access to the "higher" professions in England and Wales. The fact that the social division in Britain is now greater than when Labour first came to power raises the question as to whether we can really expect them to tackle the issue effectively now. There is much talk of universities being required to commit more effort to widening access, etc. When reports like this come out, I'm always tempted to think back on my own experience (I know, anecdotal!) and wonder to what extent such proposals would actually have had any influence on my wider peer group. I came from what today would be called a "socio-economically disadvantaged" group in the Glasgow area with noone else in my family having had experience of higher education. Certainly, one of the key factors that even made contemplation of university a possibility was the grants system, but some of the biggest obstacles I faced in terms of attainment and success were encountered at secondary school level where teachers had low expectations for people from my background but encouraged those from wealthier areas. We had a comprehensive state system with pupils from mixed backgrounds, which I also believe was important since I was at least exposed to people for whom higher education was a presumed entitlement, even if teachers didnt presume it was a legitimate aspiration for some of us.

Many teachers tried to steer me and others into seeing working in the local rocket factory (honest!) as being a worthy ultimate goal. Concentrate on science and you'll get an apprenticeship molding solid fuel tubes for missiles! When I did my exams and scored highly I remember my registration teacher being bemused and somewhat flustered about someone in that group looking for university application forms. Careers offices, teachers and the Rector (headmaster) all worked hard to limit our ambitions as best they could and sadly I let them all down by studying hard and moving to Edinburgh where despite it being overwhelming middle (and upper!) class, not a single lecturer ever made any comment about class or background - so long as you enthused as much as they did about quantum mechanics, general relativity and star formation you were in!

graduate (un)employment

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:49:56 PDT

At the weekend it was reported that the latest graduate employment statistics for England make some grim reading, despite the fact that the figures pertain to the period just before the current economic slump. Only 61% of graduates were in employment six months after graduation according to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Meanwhile, other papers also predict that up to 40,000 of this summer's graduates will be jobless. The graduate salary advantage that has been used so often in the past to justify fees is beginning to look somewhat tarnished.

summer breeze

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:30:41 PDT

Once again the Galway Arts Festival is underway and there's a pleasant summer's breeze with dappled sunshine across the city - all in stark contrast to the hovering clouds of the Bord Snip Nua report that many are still digesting. For those on contracts up for renewal the "Employment Control Framework" is also adding to the uncertainty - peer-reviewed high-impact journal papers, patents and research grants one month, dole the next - not exactly the knowledge economy we were all promised. But then things could be worse...

Or will the soothing rays on the beaches of Europe (or the gentle rain of Donegal?) ease away the pain and inspire more creative responses that dare to imagine an Ireland in recovery, a country with the fleetness of foot, social cohesion and sense of common purpose that all small nations have the potential to possess? Let's see what mood our political leadership is in when it returns from its long holidays while the rest of us keep things ticking over in their absence.

Suggested cuts in the Public Sector

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:12:47 PDT

Well, as everyone will know by now, An Bord Snip Nua, has published its report indicating a range of suggestions to cut government spending. For the higher education sector the details are spelled out in pages 63-71 of Volume II. Key points include mergers, abolition of PRTLI V and job cuts. Volume 1 and Volume II are downloadable for all to see.

CELT in Paris

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:25:01 PDT

The Times Higher has been reporting on the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education which took place last week in Paris. One of the many interns supporting this conference was our very own PhD student, Aurélie Boulos.

Her infrequent missives from inside UNESCO headquarters gave us a small insight into the mammoth task of organizing a global conference at such a high level. We will look forward to hearing more about it when she returns to Galway. In the meantime, we feel comforted by the fact that she is now well-placed to help us organize next year's Galway Symposium on creativity in higher education (also the topic of her PhD thesis).

Keynote lectures

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:44:58 PDT

Thanks to Gráinne's hard work behind the scenes, the recordings of the keynote presentations at the Symposium are now becoming available online. You can access each of them at our public webcast page.

Congratulations!

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:47:18 PDT

Just a little interruption to the Symposium reporting to highlight some great achievements. Today was the conferring of the MA in Teaching & Learning in HE/ Academic Practice and we were delighted to celebrate the event with Dr. Dagmar Stengel, Dr. Frances McCormack and Dr. Tim Higgins all of whom completed a series of taught modules and undertook significant research projects on topics such as: the Bologna Process; Academic Identity/Practice; Assessment.

Well done to all three of you, particularly given that all of you are active in research and teaching in your original academic disciplines - no mean feat.

emerging issues #1....

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:56:01 PDT

Some of the topics that came up at the discussions/workshop sessions included a renewed interest in what sort of degree structures would be most appropriate for the new era of mass participation in higher education and the needs for graduates to be flexible in their employment prospects, but also to have acquired some greater awareness of cultural and civic values. Suggestions include a rationalisation of the plethora of programmes and a focus perhaps on a modern equivalent of a 'liberal arts' curriculum (remembering that such includes science as well as humanities and social sciences) or degrees based on themes. Of course, these are not new ideas and we have commented many times about these in this blog, drawing attention to Harvard's revised themes and the similar approach in Melbourne. Nonetheless, in the hectic and relentless pace of semesters and academic years it is not often that we find the time to gather our thoughts collectively on these broader areas, so the discussions were very worthwhile.

The thorny topic of commodification and whether it is legitimate to talk of 'customers' of higher education and if it is, then who are the customers, also arose. Some concerns that modularisation might even encourage students to think in these terms and result in pressures to deliver products rather than transformative experiences and individual personal growth. Some suggestions were that we could embrace the ECTS and Bologna principles to turn the situation on its head by communicating more effectively to students that the implication is that a full-time student must commit to spend an appropriate 'full-time' on study and learning, guided and aided by lectures, tutorials, materials and resources but that they must play the active role in the learning process. The fragmentation of quasi-standalone modules, often with one lecturer per module and the lack of opportunity to engage with curricular development at a higher, more integrated manner were seen as barriers to sending out consistent messages and indeed providing gaps through which students might slip in terms of monitoring their own performance.

We saw some excellent examples of efforts to support students in their learning through peer-assisted learning and were delighted to have students from the pilot project on this theme in AIT and GMIT deliver a workshop at the symposium. Of course, there are many variants of such schemes in place around the world, many of which are seen to be effective, but resourcing, planning and organisation demand not just time but institutional commitment and there is always the danger that such endeavours are viewed as another additional initiative on top of everything else, rather than the glue that links the various components together. The related concept of 'learning communities' is something that we will return to and in which I have some personal interest.

Other themes emerged in the various workshop and discussion strands, and more of them in our next few posts. We'll also let you know as soon as the keynotes are available online and we'll pop copies into the National Digital Learning Repository.

Winding down

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:49:12 PDT

Well, we just ended a great Symposium. Lots of buzz and conversation around the place and some good keynote presentations. We'd like to thank all of you who participated and particularly to those who have become regular attendees! Thank you all so much for your support and many apologies that we were unable to blog live from the event. We were so busy behind the scenes, but thanks to Sharon for heroically trying to at least send out some tweets!

Reports of the various sessions and themes covered will appear here in due course, along with links to keynote recordings, but in the meantime, it's time for the organisers to lake a little rest for a few days at any rate.

Fáilte!

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:28:06 PDT

Welcome to the 7th Galway Symposium on Higher Education!! There's been a lull in the city since the Volvo Ocean Racers left us at the weekend, but now the next big event is about to start - "Design for Learning - Curriculum & Assessment in Higher Education".

Taking place in Aras Moyolla on the north part of the main university campus, it promises to be an opportunity for debate, intellectual stimulation and jolly banter around the key themes of learning outcomes, Bologna and assessment.

We will also be celebrating the President's Awards for Teaching Excellence at the Symposium Dinner, inviting those who have been nominated to join us at the event.

All change in England

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:47:01 PDT

In Gordon Brown's cabinet reshuffle today, he abolished the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and passed over responsibility for all of higher and further education to Lord Mandelson's newdepartment for Business. This has led to a quite negative response from some academic quarters since it further embeds universities as essentially business training organisations and cuts them off from wider education and culture. You can read the Guardian's report here and the official government statement here.

Symposium Countdown

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:33:34 PDT

Yes, it is hard to believe, but the 7th Galway Symposium on Higher Education is almost upon us. In just one week's time we will be immersed in debate and discussion around the themes of 'Curriculum and Assessment in Higher Education'. For those of you who just can't wait to see what's in store, click here for the full symposium programme.

And as if that wasn't enough, our Symposium dinner on Thursday 11th June is set to be extra special this year, as we celebrate those academic staff in NUI Galway who have been nominated for the President's Teaching Awards.

Let's hope the weather holds up for us!

http://designforlearning.eventbrite.com

Your future in your hands??

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:13:32 PDT

Slipped into the Department of Education and Science's website on Friday, is a call for submissions to the group charged with developing a National Strategy for Higher Education. The deadline for such submissions is the 19th June. This may well provide an opportunity to make your voice heard. The invitation is summarised below and can be downloaded from here.

The Higher Education Strategy Group has been established by the Minister for Education and Science with detailed terms of reference. The Group is expected to report to the Minister by year end.

The Group wishes to take account of the views of all stakeholders as it prepares its report and proposes to undertake a two phase process of consultation. Accordingly a structured process of consultation will take place in August/September. This will take the form of a consultation document on the major issues arising from its terms of reference.

In addition at the first stage of the process, the Group is now inviting submissions in respect of the development of the vision and objectives for Irish higher education. Accordingly, stakeholders are invited to submit

- the three most significant changes that they would wish to see made to Irish higher education,
and
- the barriers or obstacles which they would identify to the achievement of those objectives.

In light of the above, you are invited to submit your views on this first stage of the process using the Guidance Document. You can download this document by clicking here.

The Terms of Reference document is available for download here.

Where submissions are being made, the Group requests that they would be limited to no more than 2,000 words. Submissions should be made electronically no later than Friday 19th June 2009, to hestrategy@education.gov.ie

Indicators rather than metrics?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:54:19 PDT

One of the comments I heard at the Edinburgh Colloquium the other week was "As we move into a 'post module descriptor world' and leave over-specified learning outcomes behind...". Interesting comment and one that perhaps could be contextualised by the fact that Universities there went through the whole modular, credit accumulation, learning outcomes, assessment grid stuff years (over a decade now) ago. Similarly, the proposed new approach to Quality Enhancement (having decided against "Quality Assessment") summarised in this document (Indicators of Enhancement) from last November paints a very different picture to that which is in process elsewhere. At least there is a recognition that numerical indicators and tracking of details of outcomes, processes, etc, are all very well when you have nothing in place, but as time goes by their limitations can become quite apparent. So the argument is about developing a culture that embeds evaluation, review and to some extent hopes to encourage innovation.

"The indicators are not quantitative. They have been phrased and presented to avoid any sense of compliance with a checklist. They have also been developed in a context which recognises that supporting and enhancing learning in the twenty-first century is a difficult and challenging process. They recognise that the very nature of enhancing the student learning experience is extremely complex and unlikely to be able to be reflected in simplistic statistics or metrics which would be meaningful across a very diverse sector and student population. However, the areas which they cover might all respond to quantitative indicators should institutions (as some currently do) wish to develop key measures which are particularly appropriate to their own context, mission, and strategic aims and objectives."

More Symposium Workshops

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:48:47 PDT

Just another taster of what we have on offer at our upcoming Symposium on June 11th and 12th:

Colleagues from the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) and Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT) will be facilitating a Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) workshop, to run on both days of the Symposium.

The PAL programme has just recently been implemented in GMIT and AIT and this workshop will feature an outline of the implementation steps, results of the first set of evaluations, and a simulation PAL session (by PAL (student) leaders).

More information on the PAL programme in GMIT can be found here.

Megaversity?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:56:38 PDT

Can't make it to the RSA tonight to hear the VC of Warwick talk about the future of higher education, but the Guardian sneaks a preview of his suggestion that top research institutions should merge to produce some sort of mega-university. Hmmm...Not sure of the economics in the argument quite apart from the logistics.

21st Century Graduate

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:30:16 PDT

At a colloquium in Edinburgh University on this particular topic as part of QAA Scotland's new set of "Enhancement Themes". An interesting range of presentations and some discussion, but interesting to see that there is little student voice in this. Or indeed even recent graduates. The idea that students' expectations of what the 'university experience' is about doesn't fit with either that of academics or indeed employers or the state was raised and it is an important point.

Mainly talks from people who were very much graduates of the previous century and distinguished as they are, one mischevious thought that did pass through my mind was the extent to which their wisdom, acquired through experience and decades of study of HE is actually being transmitted to the newer generation of students and staff. I guess that's part of the role of events such as this and the dissemination work of the centres for Teaching and Learning.

Ron Barnett brought up his 'will to learn' thesis and some mutterings at coffee were a reaction to the corollary of his suggestion that this is a defining factor in 'success' A point that at least one audience member also raised in a question. In other words, how realistic is it to focus on that aspect when there are many other, stronger factors that in reality prevent students from succeeding and rather than a 'lack of will,' they might suffer from overwhelming economic circumstances, or other factors. Non-completion should be an administrative concept rather than a judgement on personal commitment. I know that he wasn't advocating that particularly, but that was what the folk having coffee and pastries with me got from it. Somewhat cheekily perhaps, Ray Land also, in questions, brought up the fact that Dr. Goebels had a strong will to learn and earned three degrees but it didnt exactly imbue him with particularly desirable values, which in a sense led into the later presentation by Bruce Macfarlane on values and how some of the attributes identified in the Dearing Report are actually statements of values. He showed practical examples of university descriptors that highlighted such values rather than just listing 'learning outcomes'.

Jon Nixon gave a rather personal reflection and tried to explore what sort of society we might like to see by the end of the century and whether university education was able to imbue appropriate values and attitudes to achieve this. Although he didn't himself refer to this, I was reminded of the old Antonio Gramsci quote "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will."

Carol Bond (Otago) described some of her work based on interviews with students in New Zealand where she tried to explore changing student conceptions of higher learning as they progressed through their degree programmes as part of a longitudinal study. Of course, one could ask that although she demonstrated that they seemed to have a more sophisticated and deeper perspective in later years, to what extent might they also have been affected that by that time she'd have interviewed each of them extensively three times ?! just a thought.

Lori Breslow of MIT gave an entertaining presentation on the background to the Spellings commission and the politics of accreditation in the US.

Afterwards, a very pleasant reception/dinner for the presenters and the teams who are presenting tomorrow at the Learning & Teaching Forum for which I'm staying over. Edinburgh, as always, looking lovely, a grander capital I can't think of, though Paris comes a close second!

Should a university be allowed to fail?

iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie (Iain Mac Labhrainn) — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:50:44 PDT

A very depressing discussion that is taking place about the problems at London Metropolitan University on the Times Higher website is prompting me to consider what failure might mean for a university. Would the government close down a university in the same way that, for example, a hospital might be closed? The problems at London Met are complex, and there is no doubt it is in serious crisis.

I studied the history of the Polytechnic of North London as part of my PhD thesis. PNL had a rather lively and brief existence before it was merged with London Guildhall (formerly City of London Poly) to form the rather unwieldy and troubled university that is now London Met. There are no doubt many lessons here to be learned about mergers and mission drift, but also more generally about the massification of HE (and the ways in which widening participation has been managed and funded), and university governance.

But I'm still wondering, at what point should mistakes and mismanagement become fatal?