In January, Austrian minister Christine Aschbacher became the latest in a long line of politicians in central and eastern Europe to be accused of plagiarising their academic theses – but one of the few to resign over it. She gave up her cabinet post for labour, family and youth in the wake of allegations that […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Plagiarism scandals are devaluing doctoral degrees in central Europe
Recruiting more Black PhD students isn’t so hard if you really want to do it
When I started my PhD, I was the only Black student at my induction. Although I had hoped I wouldn’t be alone, I wasn’t surprised. What did surprise me was the rapid realisation that I was the only Black doctoral student in the entire building. But once I started connecting with other Black PhD students, […] … learn more→
1 in 4 unemployed Australians has a degree. How did we get to this point?
A series of government policy reforms over recent decades aimed to increase the proportion of Australian workers with university degrees. They got that result, but what they did not expect to see was that almost one in four unemployed people would have a degree (although employees with a degree appear to have fared better during […] … learn more→
Academic resilience in times of COVID
On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation announced the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic of worldwide consequence. Globally, the economic, health and social disruption caused by the pandemic has been, and continues to be, devastating. Higher education and academia have not been spared from the impact of COVID-19. In Australia alone, it is anticipated that […] … learn more→
Casualisation is not a formula for success in Indian universities
India’s education minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, told parliament in January how more than 6,000 faculty positions remain unfilled at the country’s 50 or so central universities. At one of the country’s largest institutions, Savitribai Phule Pune University, at least 200 faculty roles are vacant, while empty academic positions can be found everywhere from cash-strapped colleges […] … learn more→
Snapchat is set to haunt exam integrity efforts
Much ink has been spilt of late on the evils of essay mills. Several countries have already outlawed them, and former universities minister Chris Skidmore recently introduced a bill in the UK Parliament to do the same. Essays mills are undeniably a blight on university assessments, but with teaching and assessment still largely taking place […] … learn more→
In the age of Google, why are we still so focused on testing facts?
Back when I was in college, the internet was in its inception; information was hard to find online and even less reliable than it is today. If I wanted to know basic facts (“What is the fundamental attribution error?”; “What are the stages of meiosis?”; “What was the Treaty of Westphalia?”), I had to either ask an expert or […] … learn more→
How to overcome the challenges of an online Master’s program
Online master’s programs make it much easier for non-traditional students to juggle the responsibilities of adulthood — full-time work, childcare, eldercare, housework, and so on — with the demands of an academic program. But if you’ve never taken courses online before, you’ll find that these programs can be challenging in a very different way than […] … learn more→
As one student gets out of bed, another gets in: thousands are ‘hot-bedding’ in Australia
International students commonly share bedrooms so they can afford the rent. What is perhaps much more surprising is that our research suggests thousands are “hot-bedding” – their beds are available to them for only some hours of the day or night so others can use them the rest of the time. If our survey of more than […] … learn more→
A very neat hack to avoid repetition and duplication
Do you repeat yourself? Most of us do. It’s not unusual. Repetitive writing takes many forms – several sentences that say the same thing using different words, a word or phrase used over and over, paragraphs and sentences that have identical beginnings, one point made multiple times using different examples. But repetition is not necessarily […] … learn more→
