The issue of open access to research findings has been in the media for a number of reasons lately, some positive – the release of the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) open access policy – and some tragic – the recent death of open internet advocate Aaron Swartz. But what is open access, why should we […] … learn more→

The rush toward the creation of massive open online courses (MOOCs) is catching on in higher education like wildfire. All it takes, it seems, is to wave a bit of money around, talk up the brave new world of technological innovation, bash the “failed” world of higher education as we know it, and the privatization […] … learn more→

I am so excited to be at Big Annual Conference in my discipline! And now here I am at Session With Very Interesting Title. I have read books and articles by these women and men, so to have them all sitting together is a buffet of scholarly brilliance. And now the woman who is doing […] … learn more→

Here’s an interesting question for historians: Why do ideologues never seem to be aware of their own ideology? Such is the case with the recent report from the Texas Association of Scholars and the National Association of Scholars’ Center for the Study of the Curriculum, “Recasting History: Are Race, Class, and Gender Dominating American History?” […] … learn more→

Scientists have warned about the “greenhouse effect” for years. Now it is no longer a scientific nightmare; it has arrived. Lines from Al Gore’s famous movie? No. The Sydney Morning Herald published these words in mid-1988. The article detailed record-breaking heat and drought in North America and elsewhere, linking these weather effects with predictions for […] … learn more→

Researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute are analysing geotagged tweets to see what they tell us about the material, offline world. As a fun side project, they have created a Twitter map to find out where football fans of different clubs actually live. The data used include all geocoded tweets mentioning any of the Premier […] … learn more→

In the UK, the Office of Fair Trading estimated that in 2006, 3.2 million adults fell prey to mass marketed scams and lost 3.5 billion GBP. In Australia, consumers are estimated to have lost $1b in 2008. It is easy to believe that society is becoming more sophisticated in identifying the ways of Internet scammers […] … learn more→

I am a sociologist. I teach some of those courses that many academics wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. One such course is Sex, Gender, and Society. I also teach other courses or segments of other courses that deal with sexuality, globalization, imperialism, wars, religion, sweatshops. These are all difficult courses and topics to teach. […] … learn more→

About two years ago I moved from Madison to Austin because I was convinced that the flagship university in Texas was building the best group of scholars and students in my field of study: international history, foreign policy, and leadership. The History Department at UT already had a distinguished group of faculty who study all […] … learn more→

In Chinua Achebe’s second novel, No Longer At Ease, the main character ends up taking bribes. He excuses himself by arguing to himself that the people given favor are all qualified… the son of the man in the following passage is already on the short list for a scholarship: ‘Please have a seat.’ ‘Thank you.’ […] … learn more→