Could Distributed Peer Review Better Decide Grant Funding?
The landscape of academic grant funding is notoriously competitive and plagued by lengthy, bureaucratic processes, exacerbated by difficulties in finding willing reviewers. Distributed […]
September 20, 2016
The Transformation of UK Higher Education Since 1968
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Introduction: Academic Freedom in Crisis
An introduction to a series of short essays exploring contemporary issues of academic freedom from a range of perspectives, focusing both on British and international trends.
University Decolonization: More Than Mere Iconoclasm
The decolonization debate in African universities raises critical issues about the relationship between power, knowledge and learning, argues Ahmed Essop. It also provides an opportunity to rethink the role of universities in social and economic development and in fashioning a common nation.
Is Peer Review an Achilles Heel for Interdisciplinary Work?
Recent findings suggest interdisciplinary research is less likely to be funded than discipline-based research proposals, reports Gabriele Bammer, who argues different review processes may well be required to do justice to these different kinds of interdisciplinarity.
Seeking a Better Way to Evaluate Teachers
Teacher observations are both costly and time intensive, but perhaps it’s time to invest in better teacher evaluation to get better student results. So argues Robert Pianta, who has personally helped develop some measures that might achieve such high hopes, in a an article in the journal PIBBS..
Does Competition Make Peer Review More Unfair?
Researchers decided to conduct behavioral testing on competition and the process of peer review. What they learned offers some prescriptions for improving peer review going forward.
Stern Review: The REF and the Damage Done
The new report of the REF from Lord Stern hopefully may shift the spotlight away from individual researchers themselves and onto the organizational practice of their universities, argues Richard Watermeyer.
If We Scrap Tenure, What Would Replace It?
Universities need faculty who are dedicated to teaching, but the most persuasive argument in support of tenure – its role in protecting academic freedom– has come to be too narrowly associated with research.
Migrants Ate My Guinea Pig
German-born Daniel Nehring insists that the upcoming Brexit vote is founded less on reason and more on xenophobia, and argues that the toxic atmosphere surrounding the vote is already doing harm to Britain’s fabled academic enterprise.
