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 […]
Book Review: The War on Learning
In The War on Learning, Elizabeth Losh analyses recent trends in post-secondary education and the rhetoric around them. In an effort to identify educational technologies that might actually work, she looks at strategies such as MOOCs, gaming subject matter and remixing pedagogy, writes Susan Marie Martin.
Are Good Intentions Enough in Allocating School Places?
Unintended consequences and little practical improvement could result from England’s plan to give poor students priority in school placement, especially if schools can decide to opt in or out, argue Stephen Gorard and Rebecca Morris.
Technology: What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Stronger
Gavin Moodie has looked at how printing first challenged then changed–for the better–higher education. Here he suggests more modern forms of technological advancement likely will result in the same.
MOOCS: Veni, Vidi, Meh!
David Glance argues that the university-shaking predictions once routinely made for massive open online courses have been borne out.
What Do Sociology Students Read?
Just as scholarship now is more and more about the generation of economic benefits, for many studying is now less about ‘reading for a degree’ than about ‘getting a degree,’ suggests Daniel Nehring.
Return to Planet Quantophrenia
Robert Dingwall argues that numeracy and and a grasp of quantitative method of course have a place in the education of a social scientist, but they shouldn’t be the only skills in the graduate’s quiver. How about he ability to walk around, for one?
Pricing the ‘Great Cost Shift’ in US Higher Ed
Some Australians have looked to the United States as a model for revamping Oz’s higher education system. U.S.-based sociologist Steven Ward suggests they ought to take another look.
Googling ‘Reference Work’ in the Age of Wikipedia
These aren’t the best of times for reference librarians, but the challenges leave only one option — to get with the times.
