SHILLONG, India: Police are investigating an Indian university suspected of issuing fake PhDs after it awarded more than 400 doctorates in a single year, officers said.
The first survey of European genealogical ancestry over the past 3,000 years has found that all people of European descent are related – even if they now live on opposite sides of the continent. Further research is expected to show that every human is related no matter how distantly to every other member of the human species and that classifying people by race is biologically wrong. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, conducted the survey and found that a pair of modern Europeans living in neighbouring populations shared up to 12 common ancestors from the past 1,500 years, and upwards of 100 ancestors from the previous 1,000 years. In a paper published in PLOS Biology, the researchers say these numbers drop off exponentially with geographic distance. Read more...The Human Variome Project comprises an international consortium of scientists and health professionals working to improve global health through free and open sharing of genetic variation information. The project acts as an umbrella organisation across different countries, institutions and initiatives. It works to encourage communication and collaboration, with the aim of improving global health through sharing of genomic knowledge. Read more...By Andres Bernasconi. In its 2012 edition, the Times Higher Education World University Ranking put no Latin American university in the best 100, and only four among the entire cast of 400. The Shanghai 2012 ranking treated Latin America no better: one in the leading group of 150 and 10 in the overall group of 500 universities ranked. This status is somewhat puzzling, given that Brazil is the sixth biggest economy in the world and Mexico the 14th. This should make a difference when it comes to the possibility of supporting fine institutions of higher education, as one finds in countries such as Israel, with three institutions in the top 100 in the Chinese ranking, or The Netherlands with two. Read more...By Maurits van Rooijen. A couple of months ago David Willetts, minister of universities and science in the United Kingdom, urged universities to invest in putting courses online. This was not just a call to action, but also an indication that the e-learning revolution has now reached the top of the UK government’s priority list. Due to all the recent changes in the British market, e-learning is certainly something that all higher education leaders should be considering as an alternative tool for expanding global reach, improving access and, of course, increasing revenue. Read more...By Jennifer Howard, The Chronicle of Higher Education. Steven B Roberts's 103-page tenure package features the usual long-as-your-arm list of peer-reviewed publications. But Roberts, an assistant professor at the University of Washington who studies the effects of environmental change on shellfish, chose to add something less typical to his dossier – evidence of his research's impact online. This is an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education, America’s leading higher education publication. It is presented here under an agreement with University World News.By Grace Karram. Coordinating research efforts between diverse stakeholders in a decentralised higher education system is challenging in most disciplines. But when the subject of the research is the system itself the complexity increases. In Canada’s largest province, Ontario, research on post-secondary education occurs simultaneously in diverse spheres – faculties of education, university administration-research offices, government ministries and provincial quality assurance bodies, to name a few. Read more...The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has allocated more than US $8 million in new grants through its Grand Challenges Explorations initiative, a phased grant programme that funds innovative ideas to tackle key global health and development problems, and provides additional resources for projects that demonstrate promise. Fifty-eight projects from 18 countries will receive $100,000 grants that allow researchers to begin testing global health and development projects that could transform the lives of those most in need. Read more...By John Richard Schrock. As with other countries, academe in China is a mixed bag. There are essentially five ‘bands’ of universities from rank one downwards, and I visit the top one – mostly ranks one and two. I have also met some of the 1,000 talent scholars who have been brought here from Western universities, and they are nearly all impressive. I sit on evaluation panels for masters and doctoral defences in my field of entomology. The universities have all-day sessions where eight to 12 students defend in a row – China has to deal with large numbers of students and limited faculty – and I see a range in quality. Read more...By Alya Mishra. Kritika Desai, a final-year student of English literature at Jadhavpur University in Kolkata, has just enrolled for an “Introduction to Finance” on Coursera – a platform providing massive open online courses, or MOOCs. The course is offered by the University of Michigan./https%3A%2F%2Fprofilepics.canalblog.com%2Fprofilepics%2F1%2F0%2F1076071.jpg)
