3 février 2013

Like many proud citizens of the world today, there are times when you might feel like the country you live in is one of the best on Earth—and there are times when you might feel that your country could make some improvements. When it comes to education in particular, some countries are ahead of the game. What does a “well-educated” country look like? Things like high school graduation rates, number of citizens with a college degree, and even things like employment and rate of pay, can be combined together to serve as a reasonable meter for educational success. At the end of 2012, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) calculated what proportion of residents in 34 countries had obtained a college degree or the equivalent of one. From there, the top 10 “most educated” countries were determined. Some countries are more surprising than others, but all seem to have their own unique way of ensuring that their citizens are educated properly. While not all countries have the same resources available to create wonderful education opportunities, those countries that use their highly-educated citizens to further world progress and assist those countries who have less can do amazing things for the future. Take a look at the stats behind these well-learned nations. Read more...

Financial fallout from a decision to leave the EU would, in reality, be minimal for higher education institutions, argues Alison Wolf.
We will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice," announced David Cameron last week: to stay in the European Union on the terms our government negotiates or to "come out altogether".
Suppose the UK population chooses "Out". How much should universities, as universities, care? And how much would we even notice?
For Britain as a whole, the consequences are large. Given academics' views and voting patterns, it is hard to believe that most would be in the "Out" camp. But for our institutions it is not obvious that the change would be dramatic. And I can think of some university finance directors who would be grinning widely.
It has been an article of faith in Brussels that, within the EU, states will converge in every way. A few years ago, I co-authored a report for the European Commission on "convergence and divergence" in European education. Our sponsors took it for granted that we would find convergence, and we had a hard time even getting "divergence" into the contract title. Read more...

By David Matthews. More than 300,000 people have signed up to the University of Edinburgh's free massive open online courses (Moocs) since they were first announced in July 2012, it has been revealed.
The university is offering six courses on the Coursera platform, which hosts Moocs primarily from universities in the United States.
For every student physically studying in Edinburgh, there are now ten online learners, a statement from the university says.
Timothy O'Shea, Edinburgh's vice-chancellor, said he was "delighted" that the courses had "caught the imagination of the public". Read more...

By Allan Metcalf. American Speech, the journal of the American Dialect Society, is unique, in the old sense of “one of a kind.” It is the one and only academic journal that focuses on what’s happening with the English language in the United States.
The editorial policy is more inclusive, allowing articles on “the English language in the Western Hemisphere” and “other languages influencing English or influenced by it,” but the center of attention remains American English.
Many people are concerned enough to write articles about what our language should be doing; look no further than Lingua Franca for examples. Few people, however, take the trouble to do research and find out, for better or worse, what our language actually is doing. Those few find room for their research in American Speech and its companion annual monograph, Publication of the American Dialect Society. Read more...

By Steve Kolowich. Course-management systems have become crucial to the everyday operations of colleges so gradually that many users may not think about it all that much. That is, until the lights go out.
A number of institutions had a rude awakening this week, when Desire2Learn, which makes a course-management system used by many colleges, saw what one top official described as the biggest malfunction in the company’s history.
Desire2Learn was moving its clients’ data from the servers of one “cloud” storage provider to another, when sometime on Tuesday a technical glitch triggered errors and outages across its entire network of higher-education, public-school, and corporate clients. Read more...

The following is a guest post by P. Pushkar, a former lecturer in international-development studies at McGill University who is now based in Gurgaon, India.
Many researchers who have been looking at data on international migration believe that the ideas of “brain drain” and “brain gain” have become less relevant in the 21st century. Instead, there are signs of “brain circulation,” in which skilled workers move around the world more freely than before to the benefit of all nations. In Indian higher education, however, little has changed; its most talented scholars continue to leave for Western countries. The paradigm of brain drain and brain gain stubbornly persists. A recently released study by Wan-Ying Chang and Lynn M. Milan of the National Science Foundation found that only 5.2 percent of Indians who study outside their home country to earn doctorates in science, engineering, and health return home. These numbers, which are based on a 2008 survey, are substantially lower than the 20.4 percent of foreign graduates who reported working or living in their countries of origin. Read more...

The following is a guest post from Mandy Reinig, director of international education at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Last year I wrote a blog post that explored common misconceptions of what study-abroad administrators do. In a sense, it was an opportunity for us to tell faculty members, hey, we’re not glorified travel agents.
Now I want to turn the tables and give the professors their say. I have asked a few to give me their perspective on some of the misconceptions study-abroad officials have about professors’ work. A few study-abroad colleagues also weighed in with what they see as frequent misunderstandings. Those who responded represent a  variety of disciplines as well as institutions. The instructors who responded have been involved with international education in some capacity, whether in directing a program or simply encouraging students to study abroad. Read more...

Les Français auraient de plus en plus la bougeotte. Alors que près de deux millions d’entre eux sont aujourd’hui expatriés à travers le monde, ce chiffre devrait encore progresser de 50% dans les 7 années à venir, selon une enquête de PricewaterhouseCoopers parue récemment. Les jeunes sont les plus motivés, l’expatriation constituant une opportunité de trouver un emploi. Afin de les aider, Mode(s) d’emploi a sélectionné les meilleures informations pour quitter sereinement le sol français. Avis d'experts, destinations à la mode, interviews d’expatriés, avantages d’une expatriation, préparation au retour…. Tous nos conseils pour réussir son projet à l’étranger! Suite de l'article...

Faut-il rivaliser d'ingéniosité pour trouver un emploi ? Il semble que le jeu en vaille la chandelle. Certaines initiatives ont en effet été récompensées, emploi à la clé.
Ouvrir un Tumblr, parodier des séries et des tubes, ou recourir à Twitter… Nombreux sont les moyens pour attirer l'attention des recruteurs. Dernière initiative en date, celle de Philippe Dubost, un jeune chef de produit zélé qui a publié son CV en reprenant la charte exacte du site de vente en ligne Amazon. Entièrement rédigé en anglais, le faux site web affiche un slogan calqué sur celui du géant de la distribution online, "un seul en stock, commandez-vite". A noter que le clic sur le bouton "ajouter au panier" permet à l'employeur de contacter le candidat. Suite de l'article...