By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In our World Blog, John Traxler says universities are lagging so far behind people on the street in the use of digital technology that taxpayers are entitled to ask why they are subsiding a system that is so out of touch and why students at the end of three years must still sit silent, alone and use a pen to answer exam questions. Will the masses, connected by mobiles and social media, overthrow the established order with its institutions, officials and values?
In Commentary, Hayes Tang says the student leaders in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement are redefining the meaning of political participation and challenging the role of capitalism in higher education. Nigel Carrington says if the UK succumbs to growing political pressure to pull out of the European Union it could damage knowledge creation by re-introducing borders restricting the influx of staff and students from member countries. And Ranjit Goswami says scrapping the University Grants Commission will not ensure that quality follows quantity in India’s universities: the priority now is to focus on outcomes.
In Features, Linda Yeung finds out how the Asian University for Women judges candidates for admission on their reaction to injustice and ability to empathise with the downtrodden. And Wachira Kigotho reports on fears that with Africa offering some of the world’s most lucrative business opportunities, foreign business schools are opening up a new ‘colonial frontier’ and carving up the continent. Read more...
In 2014 a conference hosted by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University and sponsored by the European Network of Indicator Designers explored the use and abuse of research metrics. From that conference a list of principles has emerged which is now known as the Leiden Manifesto. The journal Nature has published it as a comment by Diana Hicks of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Ismael Rafois of the Polytechnic University of Valencia and Paul Wowters, Ludo Waltman, and Sarah de Rijke of CWTS. More...
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