Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
Do Academics Themselves Undermine Freedom of Expression?
Spats, fall-outs and intellectual and personal feuds have long been commonplace among scholars. And, because critiques of ideas and publications are also exercises in freedom of expression, they are integral to the rough and tumble of academic life. But British universities are now facing much more insidious challenges…
Junior Scientists are Often Underused as Peer Reviewers
Their paper about the evolution of malaria was in review for what seemed like an eternity. Every month, Susan Perkins and her then-graduate student Spencer Galen would check in with the editors. The problem seemed to be a lack of peer reviewers …
The Perils of Industry Funded Research
Funders from private industry — which represent two-thirds of funding in medical research, for example — can go great lengths to suppress the publication of findings which appear unfavorable. How can academic freedom be protected with this monumental funding shift?
More Must be Done to Preserve the Freedom to Research
I had no reservations about conducting research in the UAE. And I underwent a rigorous ethical and fieldwork assessment and was sure to follow established protocols before and during my trip. Yet I was imprisoned for nearly seven months …
Defending Increasingly Threatened Academic Freedoms Globally
Academic freedom is under threat everywhere. Not only do some countries perpetrate direct attacks on students and scholars. But the internationalization of higher education has also created new global threats for both scholars and students. Here is how to defend academic freedom.
If Academic Freedom is Suppressed There, How Do We Act Here?
New bans and restrictions of research and teaching on topics such as constitutionalism and civil society have impeded independent scholarship in China. How should universities and academics outside of China react?
Student Success from the Perspective of Students Themselves
The Community College Libraries and Academic Support for Student Success project examines student success from the perspectives of the students themselves, the challenges they face in achieving it, and the services they think might effectively support them in their attainment of success. Given that three quarters of students surveyed also have jobs, when students’ needs aren’t met in their everyday lives, their academic performances suffer.
University Rankings Distract From Higher-Education Reform
University rankings might claim to provide an index through which students, faculty, and the general public might ascertain a number of things: the quality of education provided by an institution, the potential for networking at an institution, the breadth and depth of research being performed at an institution, and more. The institutional quest towards topping the university rankings can, however, derail efforts towards the improvement of society and higher education at large.
