Monthly Archives: March 2019

What does academic work look like?

What does academic work look like?

As you probably know, in addition to being director of research training and blogging, I am an active researcher in the area of research education, particularly post PhD employability. Occasionally I like to colour outside the lines by dabbling in related fields of study. One area that interests me is the nature and extent of academic […] … learn more→

Student loans warping society, Part 2

Student loans warping society, Part 2

So I’ve been wandering through a Buzzfeed article of all things, which talks about the student loans. We’ve established that 15-20% of the population has these loans, that they’re inescapable, that default rates are steadily rising and, bottom line, these victims won’t be able to pay them off. The important detail here is the 15-20%, […] … learn more→

Which academics are happy?

Which academics are happy?

Academics everywhere are under increasing pressure to improve their performance and that of their institution, often by undertaking tasks that respond directly to new forms of measurement and management within the sector. League tables now exist for every imaginable university degree, region and specialism and the plethora of tables continue to grow. Over the last eight years, […] … learn more→

How artificial intelligence and human thinking work

How artificial intelligence and human thinking work

Artificial Intelligence is now present in many spheres of our life. This rise of AI is both exciting and challenging because AI and machine learning have become an inseparable part of our life. The easiest way to understand artificial intelligence is to map it to something that we already understand, i.e. our intelligence. You can […] … learn more→

Parcoursup: first feedback on devices to help success

Parcoursup: first feedback on devices to help success

Parcoursup is the platform of orientation and application of high school students to higher education which replaced the Admissions Post-Bac site in 2018. For this second season of use, it seems important to us to return to one of the new features introduced by the procedure: support schemes offered to students to which universities answered […] … learn more→

Unrealistic striving for academic excellence has a cos

Unrealistic striving for academic excellence has a cos

In my past experience as an academic adviser, it was difficult to explain to a disappointed family why their child did not make an admissions cut-off when the student’s overall high school average was over 80 per cent. I also accompanied students who got into their programs of choice through the many hurdles they faced […] … learn more→

Aussie parents are under pressure to buy their kids academic advantage too

Aussie parents are under pressure to buy their kids academic advantage too

Allegations of parents cheating and bribing top-tier universities in the US to secure their children’s admission have caused a media storm in recent weeks. Those indicted included members of the Hollywood elite. The US attorney said “there can be no separate college admissions system for the wealthy”. The parents’ actions were denounced, in a system that claims […] … learn more→

Journalism needs to practice transparency in a different way to rebuild credibility

Journalism needs to practice transparency in a different way to rebuild credibility

Public trust in media continues to hover near all-time lows, driven by perceptions that the news industry is partisan and peddles inaccurate information (“fake news”), as well as ambivalence about news from social media. According to a new Knight Foundation report on news media trust, transparency is a key factor in restoring trust. Although media organizations promote the inherent value of transparency, they […] … learn more→

Read on paper, read on screen: how is it different?

Read on paper, read on screen: how is it different?

The screens of mobile phones, tablets and computers invade our daily lives, and here are dictionaries, class sheets or even literature classics just a click away. Should students be encouraged to take 100% of these unprecedented access to knowledge, and return the paper to the past? Nothing is less certain if we look at the […] … learn more→