“Earning a humanities degree was not only life changing, in terms of opening up a world of knowledge otherwise beyond my reach, it also turns out to have been enormously productive – for me and many, many people around me,” said Tim Winton this week. “My little arts degree has created jobs and cultural value for over […] … learn more→
Author Archives: Kevin
Top Australian writers urge Albanese to abolish Job-Ready Graduates, calling their humanities degrees life changing
How to improve university EDI policies so they address Jewish identity and antisemitism
According to Statistics Canada, police-reported hate crimes against Jews rose by 82 per cent in 2023. In the months following Oct. 7, 2023 and the subsequent war in Gaza, university campuses across Canada became sites of tension, protest and divisions. Jewish students and faculty increasingly reported feeling alone, excluded and targeted. As our research has examined, despite these urgent realities, Jewish identity and antisemitism […] … learn more→
Forget AI-generated music, this music was composed using DNA sequences
As a molecular biologist, talking to the public about my work with DNA has often felt like trying to translate a foreign language. This got me thinking: could these scientific ideas be presented in an artistic way, to help people engage with them? The intersection of science and art is important for a few reasons. […] … learn more→
Planning to take a degree taught in English when it’s not your first language? Here are some tips for success
Every year, millions of students from all parts of the globe study for a degree through a language other than their first, usually English. In 2023, 25% of all higher education students in the UK were international students. The understanding is that the incoming students will have, or develop, enough proficiency in English as a second language to study engineering, history, […] … learn more→
AI can be responsibly integrated into classrooms by answering the ‘why’ and ‘when’
Scroll through social media and you’ll find numerous videos such as “How to Use AI to write your essay in 5 minutes” or “How to skip the readings with ChatGPT.” The discourse surrounding AI in education is deafening and it’s almost entirely consumed by the question: How? How do we write the perfect prompt? How should educators […] … learn more→
Is it true that journalism education is no longer relevant to the development of digital media?
● Journalism education is considered no longer relevant to the dynamics of industrial needs and developments in digital technology. ● Changes in technology, professions, and production processes require journalists to remain critical. ● Journalism education must continue to instill idealism, public awareness, and ethical awareness. The discourse about journalism education being no longer relevant on campuses—including in […] … learn more→
AI agents are here. Here’s what to know about what they can do – and how they can go wrong
We are entering the third phase of generative AI. First came the chatbots, followed by the assistants. Now we are beginning to see agents: systems that aspire to greater autonomy and can work in “teams” or use tools to accomplish complex tasks. The latest hot product is OpenAI’s ChatGPT agent. This combines two pre-existing products (Operator […] … learn more→
How poetry can help to fight polarisation and misinformation
People are becoming more divided and ill informed. In January 2024, a report by the World Economic Forum identified misinformation and disinformation as “the most severe global risk anticipated over the next two years”. As a result, it predicted “perceptions of reality are likely to also become polarised” – and that unrest resulting from unreliable information may […] … learn more→
Can artificial intelligence correct complex spelling mistakes?
For centuries, before the advent of automatic spell checkers, proofreading depended on professionals such as scribes, copyists, copyeditors, typographers, or simply people with a good understanding of spelling. This continued until the 1970s and 1980s, with the advent of personal computers. Then, the way we wrote and corrected documents changed. Writing began to be digitized, […] … learn more→
AI will soon be able to audit all published research – what will that mean for public trust in science?
Self-correction is fundamental to science. One of its most important forms is peer review, when anonymous experts scrutinise research before it is published. This helps safeguard the accuracy of the written record. Yet problems slip through. A range of grassroots and institutional initiatives work to identify problematic papers, strengthen the peer-review process, and clean up the […] … learn more→
