In 2001, Chris Woodhead, England’s chief inspector of schools caused a storm when he accused British universities of devaluing higher education by offering ‘vacuous degrees’.

At the time, London’s The Sunday Times carried a surprisingly candid interview with Woodhead. Among other things he questioned whether many vocational courses deliver on their claims.

Woodhead says many courses don’t prepare students for the real world. He argues some vocational degrees do little to help a student’s employment prospects and do even less for their employers. Britain’s Institute of Directors backed these comments, so did a number of individual employers.

Daft courses are here too

The criticisms could equally apply to courses currently on offer in Australia and New Zealand – not to mention some of the less prestigious American universities, which have a long tradition of offering worthless qualifications and dubious courses.

Woodhead grabbed the headlines by decrying certain ‘quasi-academic’ degrees on offer in the UK including: Golf course management, pig enterprise management, knitwear and beauty therapy courses.

And then there is ‘Madonna Studies’ – just in case you’re wondering we are talking about the popular singer here rather than theological investigation concerning the mother of Christ. Thankfully this nonsense is no longer on offer.

Sure, these daft-sounding degrees are easy targets, but Woodhead has a point. How many employers need workers who can deconstruct the lyrics of ‘Material Girl’?

How many employers need workers who can deconstruct the lyrics of ‘Material Girl?

You can read more about Woodhead’s comments and various responses at the BBC news web site. Just to prove what a straight shooter he is when getting stuck into the value of various university courses, you can also read Woodhead’s comments on media studies – which he describes as a one-way ticket to the dole queue.

Is there value in media studies?

I’ll leave it to you to decide whether there is any real value in media studies or the more offbeat subjects mentioned.

It’s interesting and disappointing, but predictable that most of the angry defensive response from academics to Woodhead’s comments focused on his trashing of seemingly silly courses rather than his more important points regarding vocational education in general.

Clearly British academics are as insecure as antipodeans when it comes to handling constructive criticism.

Woodhead’s important point was the balance between vocational training and coherent academic learning is now completely out of kilter. The issue is not whether our society needs people trained at public expense in the subtle art of looking after golf courses, tending pigs or even reading newspapers, but whether such a course is really on an academic par with an honours degree in Astrophysics.

Bigger picture

Woodhead rightly points out the danger in less obviously worthy courses of devaluing all higher education. It’s a very real danger. I’ve personally known employers in knowledge industries who are suspicious of all graduates – they think universities fill people’s heads with stupid ideas. Many of those who get beyond that level of thinking have doubts about anything other than a straightforward vocational degree.

I always found this attitude prejudiced and hard to understand until I interviewed a seriously strange person with a media studies degree for a newspaper job.

Common sense tells me one or two crazy examples are not enough evidence to deduce a trend and I like to keep an open mind but I have to say few of the media studies graduates I’ve interviewed are cut out to work in the media. It’s hard to image who might employ them. On the other hand people used to say the same thing about sociology, which has since become quite respectable.

It doesn’t make sense for education to stand still in a world where everything careens about at a frantic pace. However, there does need to be some kind of benchmark for higher education.

Lively debate about vocation versus academic learning

There’s always been a lively debate over the value of degree level vocational training and more academic learning. Both have their place in higher education and ideally, most people entering the knowledge workforce will have the opportunity to experience both kinds of learning at some point. Modern economies need people trained in sophisticated skills as well as people trained how to think.

Yet there is a lot of real doubt about the worth of some courses. This isn’t new. Back in the late 1970s an acquaintance of mine was accepted to study computer science at an American university. He sent me a copy of his first semester timetable. Of about 30 timetabled hours, only four hours could be loosely described as studying computers.

Of course, there’s a lot to be said for getting a liberal education, but this bloke spent six hours a week on the university golf course as part of his computer science degree. In year one he was expected to reduce his handicap to six in order to pass – a handicap of four represented a high distinction.

Playing golf would ultimately account for 15 percent of his degree. Those of us studying in, then still rigorously academic, British universities were shocked by this revelation. On the other hand, from a vocational training point of view it’s not such a dumb idea. A career in the computer industry, particularly in commercial sales, might well be helped along by an ability to knock a small white ball into 18 holes.

Ultimately the only way for knowledge workers and would be knowledge workers to steer through the higher education maze is to spend time researching the options. It’s obviously worth checking the academic reputation of courses, subjects within courses and institutions before signing up.

Less obvious and more difficult is checking with potential employers about the relative merits of these things. You’ll need to be extra canny about this – people often just pass on their own prejudices rather than provide valuable insight. But education is too valuable to waste. You don’t want to spend three years getting a Mickey Mouse degree – even if you plan to work for Disney.

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All these points are valid, but for ebooks to begin displacing printed books, there also needs to be a great leap forward in display technology. The current crop of electronic books are tiring to read when compared with print.

Higher resolution, large format, non-flickering, non-backlit displays are available, but not in the quantities required and not, yet, at a realistic price. After years of looking at other forms of electronic books, I’d say once ebook makers overcome this hurdle, they’ll be mainstream.

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The online application is a Java program that works with Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer to investigate a computer’s security status then report back on potential risks.

On the plus side it is free, quick and simple to use. The code loads directly from the Health Check web page and after the obligatory rigmarole of accepting terms and conditions it takes next to no time to download even on my sometimes erratic broadband connection. I clocked the first download at seven seconds.

Once leaded the software steps through a familiar wizard-style process with four stages. the first stage happens without your involvement. It checks you have anti-virus, anti-spyware and a firewall installed and up-to-date.

Clicking on the ‘next’ button moves things along to stage two which investigates back-up – we’ll look closer at this in a moment. The third stage checks to see if certain key programs are up-to-date. The last stage is a summary screen with links to ’solutions’ to identified problems.

So, even if everything was perfectly hunky-dory, which it isn’t, PC Health Check 2.0 is of limited functionality. For a start there are many alternatives that do the same job either as well or better. For example, Secunia offers the free Online Software Inspector and the more complete downloadable Secunia Personal Software Inspector.

But my big problem with Health Check 2.0 is it mainly exists as a crude promotional device for F-Secure’s products and services. It’s compromised by its commercial function.

Allow me to expand on this. My computer failed the second stage back-up test. The software told me it didn’t find any back-up. This is wrong there are three back-up applications on my computer. I back up regularly to an external disk and to a server.

When I clicked on the Health Check 2.0 ’solve’ button to troubleshoot the ‘problem’ found by the software I got a message about protecting my “valuable content” with F-Secure Online Backup. And a link to the F-Secure store.

I live in New Zealand. My computer has almost a terabyte of data. Although I’m theoretically on an unlimited broadband plan, but with shaped bandwidth for almost the entire working day. In other words, online back-up simply isn’t a realistic option. And yet PC Health Check tells me it is.

My instinct says if the application gets this advice wrong – what use is the rest of its information?

Lastly, when the program finishes, there’s the opportunity to register an email address with F-Secure. Now why would I want to do that?

For an alternative view see F-Secure refreshes online PC Health Check by Stephen Withers at iTWire. His found other shortcomings, but reached a similar conclusion.

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If the list items are short, you can use bullet points. Or, if the order is important, choose numbered bullets.

Both make text easy to scan and read quickly.

Another, more elegant, approach is to write a variation on the following theme:

First, something happened. Second, something else. Next, we used a little elegant variation to make things more interesting. Then, we did this. Last, we finished up.

Spell out the words from first to ninth* then write 10th, 15th, hundredth.

Some people use firstly, secondly, thirdly and so on. While strictly speaking both approaches are grammatically correct, I’d argue adding -ly is old-fashioned and unnecessarily fussy.

What’s more, you’ll end up looking silly if you want to deal with lots of items and reach eleventhly or even millionthly.

So, stick with the simpler format.

* or perhaps tenth. This depends on your taste or house style, but remember to stay consistent.

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Earlier today someone who claims to be passionate about search engine optimisation followed my Twitter account. In recent months I’ve come across people who are passionate about real estate, online marketing and customer service management to name just a few.

They are either liars, totally deluded or insane. I don’t which is worse.

Sorry. Nobody is passionate about search engine optimisation. They might enjoy working in the field. They may enjoy it an awful lot and be really excited by the money it pays. But they are not passionate. Not if they are mentally healthy.

The term is meaningless. It’s a cliché. It tells me the person using it is an unimaginative idiot. I nearly used a rude word there instead of ‘idiot’.

If you want to say you like something a lot, think up a new way of expressing the idea and we might just want to listen.

And while we’re on the subject, the same applies to sexy.

Computers are not sexy. Pieces of software are not sexy. Attractive members of the opposite sex are sexy.

Set aside one day a week when the computer doesn’t get switched on. A day when email doesn’t get checked, when Facebook doesn’t get updated, and when tweets are not twittered. No firing up the desktop for game playing either.

It doesn’t need to be the same day every week. You may have to trim things according to needs and deadlines. You may only be able to manage one day a fortnight.

The idea is to go off-line and let the brain rest. Or, if not rest, then allow it to change gear. Rather than constantly responding to incoming messages and data just let them pile up. They’ll still be there tomorrow.

You can also de-stress. And before you comment here saying you find it stressful NOT being in constant touch with cyberspace, think again. You know that simply isn’t true.

Remember, the online world will go on turning without you.

Spend the time reading books, chatting to friends, playing sport, enjoying the sunshine or baking muffins instead.

That way, when you get back online, you’ll be refreshed. It’s like a mini holiday. It may sound like a cliché, but I definitely work better when I’ve taken a day-long break from my computer.

Not original

The digital sabbath is not an original idea. In fact, if you are of a religious persuasion, it came at the end of the first recorded week. The Biblical creation story says God rested on the seventh day.

Ancient Jews worked for six days then strictly observed the Shabbat when lots of everyday things simply were not allowed to happen. They knew this was mentally, and physically healthy.

I actually first heard about the idea of a digital sabbath in an online forum many years ago – sadly I don’t recall who or where the original idea comes from.

Some problems

Of course, it’s much harder to take even one day’s rest from the digital world if you are a hard core digiphile with a web browsing smartphone, an ebook reader or if you use the computer as an entertainment hub for music and video. And you may have a job, or some other responsibilities that make going offline difficult.

Nevertheless, I suggest you do what you can to give it a try and reconnect once a week with the analogue world.

I’m not perfect

I’d like to be able to report I manage to take a full day away from my computer every week. The truth is, I don’t always manage it. In fact, although I try to schedule a full day off each week, I generally only get a couple of full-blown digital sabbaths each month.

This is something I intend to work on.

James Murdoch talks about being in “the business of ideas” and says journalism plays a role (phew!) but it won’t be on the scale of News Corp’s broadcasting and entertainment operations.

James Murdoch sees smaller role for newspapers.

On the other level, it’s disturbing just how bad some managers can behave. And it must harm the business.

Bob Sutton: Asshole Boss of the Year?. (Warning, the language may cause offence).

Brainware – 10 Things You May Not Know About Listening.

In my experience, it’s important to give people your full attention when listening, although this is hard in today’s world where there are so many interruptions. I think the people I’ve worked with know if I really want to hear what they have to say I’ll take them away from the work place – either to a quiet room, or better still a café.

The other important listening strategy is to put people at ease, then get them to talk about them. Their lives, their feelings and their ideas. I guarantee if you can do this, you’ll lean more.

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On some levels it may. But overall, it’s something you should be aware of.

For a start, if you are writing for English-speakers outside of North America, your words and your meaning will be easier to read, better understood and unambiguous if you follow local use.

Moreover, if, like me, you come from a British English tradition – for the purpose of this discussion that includes Australia and New Zealand among other places – you’ll not only feel more at home writing in your own voice, your writing will be more natural as a result.

And that matters hugely online, where a writer’s voice takes on far more importance. At the same time, you’ll find words flow more fluently when you are comfortable with your English.

Another reason not to force yourself into using American English is you may occasionally get it slightly wrong. At worse, American English speakers will spot you as a phony. More likely, your prose will be misunderstood.

Remember your goal as a writer is to articulate ideas as clearly and efficiently as possible. Your natural voice is the best tool for the job.