By . Governing councils give the green light to look at detail of deal. A merger of the Institute of Education and University College London is set to be completed by December after the institution’s governing councils gave the go-ahead for more detailed discussions. More...
By . A publisher has launched a pilot with 21 UK universities to reduce their subscription costs in proportion to the amount of open access fees they pay. The “offsetting” arrangement devised by the Institute of Physics’ publishing arm will allow universities that subscribe to its “hybrid” journals to publish more open access papers in them without incurring greater costs. More...
By . Students’ hours of study can vary by up to 25 hours a week depending on their course, a survey of undergraduates has found. But commonly cited reasons for students not receiving their allotted contact hours include “couldn’t be bothered to attend”, finds the Higher Education Policy Institute’s Student Academic Experience Survey, published today in partnership with the Higher Education Academy. More...
By . The UK’s public spending watchdog has been asked to investigate possible misuse of public money in the student loans system by for-profit colleges. The government has allowed private and for-profit providers to expand their numbers of students with public-backed loans without any restrictions on their student numbers. Nearly £1 billion will be paid out to students at private providers by the Student Loans Company next year, up from just £30 million in 2010. More...
By . Report identifies emerging technologies likely to have an impact on teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in tertiary institutions across Australia. Earlier this year, we reported on six challenges impeding technology adoption in higher education, and six trends set to accelerate the adoption of technology in higher education as identified by the NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition. More...
By Jonathan Thon. I was recently invited to give a keynote address at the Human Disease Mapping conference at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland that was fully coordinated by a small group of the college’s PhD students and postdoctoral fellows. The scope was to share my experience and story of my academic career in a period where the global financial and humanitarian crisis is affecting young scientists’ hopes of doing what they love most – science. 
By Jennifer Polk - From PhD to Life. It’s election season here in Ontario. Where I live, the lawn signs went up a few days ago, and the campaign offices are up and running, their outsides and insides plastered with oange (NDP) and red (Liberal). On my walk home from the library just now, I noticed one home sporting two election signs, one for each of the top two contenders. I was struck by the duelling loyalties expressed on this neighbour’s lawn, and my thoughts turned to my own work. More...
By Kane X. We need a national strategy to reform EI rules that acknowledges the specific labour conditions of sessional teachers.
One of the unfortunate realities facing many adjuncts is the need to rely on employment insurance between teaching periods. Although there’s no shame in relying on funds that you’ve paid into, it does underscore the problem facing adjuncts. Summer teaching positions are thin on the ground due to lower enrolment in the intersession and summer semesters, so some adjuncts depend on drawing from EI just to survive. EI rules in Canada are not specifically tailored to the postsecondary sector of employment, and adjuncts are lumped in with other teachers although the two groups face quite different circumstances. More...
By Eric Hehner. The referee system needs to be changed, and the solution is simple.
The publishing industry developed in a very different technological age. In the past, scholarly publishing was complicated, and scientists needed all the expertise and resources of a publishing company to do so. In the scholarly world, publishing ran the gamut from soliciting submissions to assessing and editing them; commissioning artwork ; taking care of the production process from printing to binding to distribution; and keeping track of financial and legal details. More...
By Natalie Samson. Library sprouts a new addition, which is accessible to the local community.
Twenty years after transitioning to digital records, Dalhousie University’s MacRae Library has dusted off its wooden card catalogues to house its latest collection: seeds. MacRae’s seed lending library, located at the heart of Dalhousie’s agricultural campus in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia (formerly the Nova Scotia Agricultural College), consists of about 875 packets of heirloom and organic seeds. More...
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