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 […]
With the REF, We Can Evaluate the Impact of Impact
Measuring impact was a key feature of the just-released Research Education Framework in the UK. But ‘impact’ isn’t as fair a measurement as we could hope.
How Will Zero-Hour Contracts Change UK’s Academic Culture?
‘I did not contemplate the possibility that academics might rewarded for years of study, teaching, hard work with a no-obligations, no-guaranteed-income employment contract,’ says Daniel Nehring. And yet with zero-hour contracts entering academe, that un-reality is now here.
Peer Review Has Problems. Let’s Fix Them
In a conclusion to his two earlier articles on post-publication peer review, Andy Tattersall argues that while new ways to measure scholarly value may not be perfect yet, it’s still high time to start introducing them more widely.
Will SPOCs Live Long and Prosper?
We’re familiar with MOOCs — massive online courses. But what’s happened to the smaller — and more human-sized — online courses of yore?
Students Don’t Know What’s Good For Them
When students evaluate their courses and instructors, they tend to rate higher when they got good grades, and not good learning. That’s pretty common sensical, so why do we keep asking students if they’re happy?
Teaching Communities of Faculty About Scholarly Communication
Two Miami University librarians details how their school’s ‘faculty learning community’ cultivated awareness of the entire scholarly communication landscape and created stronger faculty advocates for change, but also highlighted key differences between established and newer faculty.
What Happens When Lectures Are Ranked?
What does happen happens when lecturers are ranked? Daniel Nehring offers some thoughts on the uses and misuses of student evaluations
Don’t Let A Snob Story Become a Sob Story
There are a number of species of snobbery that show up on campus and it’s useful to develop skills for counting or even reversing its malign influence. Step one: learn to laugh.
