By Holly Else for Times Higher Education. A small proportion of European economists have confessed to “acceptance or offering of sex” in exchange for co-authorship or promotion, as well as owning up to fabricating or manipulating data. A survey of about 400 economists, conducted among members of the European Economic Association on an anonymous basis, is analyzed in the article "Scientific Misbehavior in Economics,” currently in press for the journal Research Policy. Read more...
By Carl Straumsheim. Massive open online courses will return to the University of Wisconsin at Madison next year -- or something that looks like them will, anyway. Having reviewed the results from its first round of MOOCs, the institution will offer new courses that are shorter, cover fewer topics and target Wisconsinites. Read more...
By Michael Stratford. The Obama administration on Friday will formally propose changes to the PLUS loan program that would largely loosen the credit requirements needed to obtain them. The proposal, which was tentatively agreed to by a negotiated rule making panel earlier this year, will clarify in regulation the department’s current practice of considering accounts more than 90 days delinquent as “adverse credit” that generally hurt a person’s chances of getting a loan. Read more...
By Jake New. The Board of Directors that governs the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I member universities voted Thursday to restructure how the institutions govern themselves, granting a greater level of autonomy to the five wealthiest conferences. Read more...
By Jake New. Some National Collegiate Athletic Association rules violate federal antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Friday. Judge Claudia Wilken issued an injunction blocking those rules, which bar the sharing of revenue with athletes, including football and basketball players at the focus of the suit. Read more...
By Paul Fain. Business leaders have been vocal in their criticism of higher education for not producing enough skilled workers. Yet corporate types rarely stand up for public colleges during funding battles in state capitols. That may be changing in Louisiana. A recently enacted law in the state requires colleges and private industry to team up on workforce-related academic programs. Read more...
By Steven Conn. A week before the first paper was due, a young woman in my class raised her hand and asked where the rubric was. Shamefaced and stuttering, I had to admit that I had no idea what a rubric was. She helpfully explained that this was a set of guidelines explaining what I expected them to write, how I expected them to write it, and how each aspect of the paper would be evaluated. A set of boxes that students could check off to guarantee that they had met my expectations. For all intents and purposes, in other words, an outline for the paper. More...
By Lucy Ferriss. There probably is such a thing a scrutinizing a public speaker’s language too carefully—but not on this blog. Our radar screen lit up this past week as the Twittersphere ricocheted responses to President Obama’s August 1 one-liner: “We tortured some folks.” The We here are the agents of the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11. More...
By Geoffrey Pullum. The dinner-table conversation touched for a few moments on Usain Bolt, earth’s fastest featherless biped, who’s in Scotland to ensure a win for Jamaica in the men’s sprint relay at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow (mission accomplished!). Apropos of nothing more than this brief mention, a 70-year-old guest at my table suddenly remarked with a scowl: “I don’t like Jamaicans.” More...
By Allan Metcalf. Dude, there seems to be no end to curiosity about the word that began as a label for a sissified dandy in New York City but developed into almost the coolest label for a young man nowadays, as well as a cool form of address to persons of any gender. Dude was unknown in 1882 but swept the nation in 1883, thanks to the equivalent of the Internet in those days: newapapers.
And yet—did the meme really begin on January 14, 1883, with an 84-line poem in the New York World by Robert Sale Hill? Or was dude in the air before Hill was there? More...
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