By Inge Ignatia de Waard. A nice overview of early educational technology presented by Mike Sharples, the pedagogical lead of FutureLearn and longtime EdTech researcher. The focus of this talk is first on technology for education, followed by zooming in on the learning bit of the EdTech, and at the end a brief look at evaluating learning. Read more...
This guest blog on Ian Diamond’s review of university funding in Wales has been kindly provided by Lucy Hunter Blackburn, who is a Freelance researcher and postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh as well as the author of the 2015 HEPI paper Whose to Lose?: Citizens, institutions and the ownership of higher education funding in a devolved UK. Lucy runs her own blog at https://adventuresinevidence.com. More...
I often wish there were more academics looking at higher education rather than just practising it, and it is rare indeed to come across a useful cross-country comparison like this one. The book’s categorisation of students into five different groups depending on their outlook and financial position is particularly thought-provoking, and I am struck by the similarities as well as the differences across the three areas being studied, England, Italy and Sweden. More...
HEPI has published a new policy paper, Protecting the public interest in higher education, by Bill Rammell, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire and the Minister for Further and Higher Education (2005-08) in the last Labour Government. More...
If you are lucky, there may be a few times in your career when you are given the opportunity to really make an impact. For those of us working in widening participation outreach, that time is now. More...
By Alex Usher. Next week, everyone’s favourite Federation of Students is going to have a “Day of Action” to demand “Free Education for All”. A few months ago I explained why some student groups think it’s a good idea to be protesting right now even while governments are quite sympathetic to them. More...
By Alex Usher. Is there any part of the university that has been more transformed over the past decade than libraries? One of the fascinating things about looking through old Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) statistical reports is how many things weren’t counted, say ten years ago. Expenditures on databases? Not counted. Logins to databases? Searches or article requests? Nope, nope. More...
By Alex Usher. The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) recently issued its annual statistical report. I thought I’d take the opportunity over the next couple of days to take a look at a few interesting patterns in library practices and expenditures. They shed some interesting light on the pressures Canadian academic libraries face right now. More...
By Alex Usher. Yesterday I outlined why a major private university has never emerged in Canada. But I also suggested that it wasn’t impossible one might pop up in the future if it were backed by someone with sufficiently deep pockets and an eye for strategy. More...
By Alex Usher. If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you’ll know that every spring I put together a little summary of provincial budgets and what they mean for higher education. A few days ago I decided to put together a slide comparing the cumulative changes in provincial funding since 2011. Here’s what it looks like, in inflation-adjusted dollars. More...
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