Some people say college is already a game — but a poorly designed one. Political scientist Mika LaVaque-Manty is bringing game logic into his introductory courses, a winning effort that was honored at this year’s APSA annual conference.

The wicked problems of today’s world cannot be solved by staying within the realms of a single subject.

Amiera Sawas writes here on her experiences with risks in the field and beyond, finding that institutional protocols are undoubtedly robust on a wide range of physical threats, but more subtle threats, like sexual harassment, which cross psychological and physical lines, are not always explicitly dealt with.

As various canvasses and opinion polls attempt to predict the outcome of the Scottish independence plebiscite, it’s worth taking a look at how more methodologically sound inputs lead to more accurate forecasts.

While preparing for a panel on the subject at APSA this week, political scientist Erik Voeten looks over the launch of the open access and peer-reviewed journal ‘Research & Politics’ and discusses the opportunities and challenges of this kind of publishing.

Although this piece first posted at The Conversation was not intended as a response to Daniel Nehring’s request for opinions about effect of ranking-mania on academic labor, Alister Scott’s observations on the current state of British higher education do shine a light on one facet of the larger issues involved.

What’s the best for a professional association to build engagement from its members? For one thing, notes Mark Hager in an award-winning paper, you probably can put away the souvenir tote bags.

Why does it matter whether you study or work at the sociology department that comes first, 12th or 89th in a ranking? Why does it matter whether the journal you publish in is included and ranked in a certain index, or not? Let us know your thoughts.

Nick Shockey highlights OpenCon, a conference to take place in November aimed at mobilizing support around open access, open educational resources and open data among early career researchers. Funding has been made available to cover travel to attend the conference in Washington, D.C. but the deadline is Monday.

Social media allows scholars to discuss and debate current affairs like never before, but on a very public stage. Brent E. Sasley and Mira Sucharov examine and assess one academic’s tweets on the Israel-Gaza crisis and the questions raised over his style and approach.

Parsing federal education statistics, it turns out that prospective social scientists are the most avid consumers of humanities courses as undergrads (not counting humanities majors themselves, that is).

UPDATE: In a 2014 article, a former U.S. surgeon general and four co-authors argue that the U.S. military’s medically based ban on transgender troops in place then failed on the facts and on the precedents of other populations in uniform.