Around the world, face-to-face teaching has ceased, campuses are closed and empty, a sudden shift to pervasive online has generated little enthusiasm among students, travel restrictions have drained the lucrative flow of international students to a trickle, and many universities have reported significant financial problems. So what do I do with my freshly minted PhD?

“We felt it’s important to dissociate the specific paper from making policy recommendations, because this is taking things to a different level. Now, if you ask my opinion about whether it does have policy recommendations or implications separate from the study, I think what it says is that this is a very common infection, and very often it is asymptomatic, so it goes below the radar screen. “

For over a decade Kenya has made moves towards e-learning for university students. This is all the more important now, as universities have closed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But questions remain as to how effective it is. Jackline Nyerere shares her insights.

The current crisis we are encountering, as a result of COVID-19, should enable the appropriation of the current system of delivery and assessment in higher education. Technology integration, undeniably, remains essential for the modernization of education in India and other countries in the developing world. At the same time, such efforts should take into consideration of socio-economic factors, including region-specific issues and student diversity.

The lockdown prompted by the COVID pandemic presents opportunities to rethink how academic practices take place in virtual environments. Mark Carrigan argues that if adopted uncritically, they could exacerbate existing inequalities in the use of digital technologies and open up new areas of academic life to surveillance and control.

“In a world facing many complex, formidable problems,” Kenneth Prewitt asks, “how can the social sciences become a decisive force […]

Getting named on a journal article is the ultimate prize for an aspiring academic. Not only do they get the paper on their CV (which can literally be money in the bank), but once named, all the subsequent citations accrue to each co-author equally, no matter what their contribution.

Do sociology graduate students need to publish more today than they did a generation ago to get a faculty position? Do assistant professors need to publish more to get tenure?

When her college started requiring students to complete an internship in order to graduate, it created a serious dilemma for Janelle.

“I wouldn’t be able to do classes, do the internship and work to make money – which is kind of important because I’m basically just paying for school as I can,” Janelle said in an interview for a study of internships during her junior year in South Carolina…

Using bibliometrics to measure and assess researchers has become increasingly common, but does implementing these policies therefore devalue the metrics they are based on? Here researchers present evidence from a study of Italian researchers revealing how the introduction of bibliometric targets has changed the way Italian academics cite and use the work of their colleagues.

Peer review is integral to the award of funds for academic research. Lambros Roumbanis argues that randomly awarding research funding via lotteries presents a more rational, efficient and most importantly unbiased means of distributing research funding.

The Journal of Health Psychology has led the charge into reviewing the published work of the late Hans Eysenck, and the editor of that journal, David F. Marks, and historian of psychology Roderick D. Buchanan, note the detritus of a Kings College London inquiry — 61 retractions for Eysenck’s work so far — and argue the case spotlights the need for a new body to ensure future research integrity.