My notes on Newfield, C. (2019). Unbundling the knowledge economy. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1-9. Far from being distinct institutions at a remove from society, this special issue explores their many interconnections with social and political life. Once we recognise the mutating character of the university, transforming and growing in […]
This is a fascinating analysis of demographic trends in the UK, considering the implications of a coming expansion of 18 year olds for UK higher education in the 2020s. Extrapolating forward from current application rates, 50% of this cohort will be applying to go to university and the system is […]
Using the communal kitchen at the Faculty of Education last Friday, I noticed that the lid had fallen off the bin and was sitting on the floor. In the middle of something and keen to get home, I didn’t stop to pick it up. I just came back from the […]
In advance of running my first impact and social media workshop on Tuesday in Ghent, I’ve been working through some of the literature on impact. One book that’s proving more thought-provoking than I expected is Achieving Impact in Research by Pam Denicolo. It’s an edited collection that emerged from a symposium in Warwick […]
This is very interesting. It reminds me of Milena Kremakova’s notion of the ‘troll on the bridge’. Much as university leadership can be characterised by ‘Academic Caesars’, who demand internal loyalty in return for shielding their subordinates from the political context, the ‘troll on the bridge’ secures the autonomy of those within […]
Notes for a panel I’m doing in April with Claire Aitchison, Inger Mewburn & Pat Thomson. The idea for the panel was partly provoked by this Discover Society piece. I’m an enthusiast about social media for academics. But for all the examples I see around me of social media enriching and […]
As I’ve blogged on many occasions recently, I think the reasons for this are obviously not altruistic. But it’s an interesting phenomenon nonetheless. From Battle of the Titans loc 609-623: It feels like a college campus, and that’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel. The source of Google’s success has […]
On a cold Sunday morning watching Frasier in bed in my hotel room, I was slightly amazed to see an advert for Staffordshire university on channel 4. What makes it even more surprising is that they’re offering £1000 to people who enroll with them who registered it as their first […]
An excellent, though rather depressing, analysis of the TEF on Wonk HE: There is a remarkable contradiction in all of this. The government is proposing a substantial apparatus of scrutiny, surveillance, intervention and interpolation, which will occupy untold hours of academic staff time. It involves delegating new powers to the […]
Bookmarking this so I can come back to it later. If I pursue this thread, Social Media For Academics is never going to get finished: Reflecting their student populations, universities have long been bastions of oodles of consumer technology. We are awash in mobile phones, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, and the like. […]
I just stumbled across the ‘Free Speech University Rankings’ produced by Spiked Online. As one does, I immediately looked up my own institution. Warwick has been given a ‘red card’ but not, as one might expect, relating to the recent police action on peaceful protesters but rather because the student […]
This expression by Will Davies has stuck with me since I read it a few months ago. Teaching is a disturbing example of the process Will is alluding to: ratcheting up demands on staff to the point where many are unwilling to continue. In fact increasing numbers seem unable to […]
