University news from the West

Golden opportunities
As the Olympic flame departs Beijing 2008 and the world's attention shifts to London 2012, UK universities are looking forward to sharing the spotlight. Hannah Fearn reports
Judgment calls
Amid worries about examining practices, Times Higher Education asked ten academics to mark a first-year paper. Verdicts ranged from zero to a 2:1, but the markers identified an inherent consensus, says Rebecca Attwood
Reform unfair financial aid system, says Hepi
Report calls for national pool of fee income to end ‘market’ in bursaries
Staff may get a zero salary offer to avoid redundancies
Reports from the Universities UK conference

Graduate Enrollments Are Up, but Uneven
Gains are greater for foreign students than those from the U.S., for blacks than for whites, and for those studying in the health sciences than in other disciplines.
Graduate Enrollments Are Up, but Uneven
Gains are greater for foreign students than those from the U.S., for blacks than for whites, and for those studying in the health sciences than in other disciplines.
Sharing Your Notes Online -- and Getting Paid for It
A new Web site brings social networking and ad revenues to the traditional note-taking service, but the model could raise copyright issues. Knetwit, as it’s called, is a Web site that combines some familiar Web 2.0 features — user profiles, file sharing, online communities — with the goals of campus note-taking services. Students — or, potentially, professors — join the site for free and can post their notes, papers and other assignments that might be helpful to others. Depending on one’s point of view, that could be equivalent to study sessions or tantamount to cheating.


GLOBAL: OECD calls for greater internationalisation Karen MacGregor
Governments should position their higher education systems in the global arena, develop a strategy and framework for internationalisation and encourage institutions to be more proactive internationally, says an OECD report published last week. Tertiary Education for the Knowledge Society offers this and other policy advice to countries striving to build tertiary education in ways that stimulate innovation, competitiveness and economic growth.

GLOBAL: What are universities for?
The enduring elements of the success of universities explain why, in a global economy, they are now regarded as crucial national assets. But a discussion paper released last Thursday says this has also resulted in a certain amount of "loose thinking" about the roles that universities can play in society, while obscuring their most important contributions to it.

US: Foreign students better at completing PhDs Philip Fine
International students in the US finish their PhDs at a higher rate than domestic students, according to the Council of Graduate Schools which has released results from the largest analysis to date of data on doctoral students.

NEW ZEALAND: New category of university rejected John Gerritsen
A parliamentary committee has advised against creation of a new category of tertiary institution aimed at bridging the gap between New Zealand's universities and polytechnics. The Education and Science Select committee delivered its report on a controversial Bill proposing creation of the 'university of technology' as a separate category of institution.

EUROPE: Radical new ICT approach needed Alan Osborn
The European Commission has launched a major consultation about the development of information and communications technology in the EU following indications that Europe is slipping further behind in the global technology race. The consultation runs until 7 November and is part of Brussels' far-reaching response to the so-called Ahu report issued this summer, which identified a number of key failings in European ICT research and innovation.



Higher Education Will Feel The Impact of Baby Boom Retirements steven bell
Higher education in particular will be faced with a significant number of faculty members and administrative staff retiring, and that number is only projected to rise over the years. To gain a firsthand perspective on how the baby boomer retirement phenomenon is projected to affect higher education, we spoke with two key decision makers at prominent Southern California institutions. When they do leave, the administrative staff and faculty members walking out the university door are veritable vessels of institution-specific knowledge. "You're losing the institutional history and continuity of teaching content that you've had over the years," Rushforth said.
Remedial Education Is Costly For IHEs steven bell
It's a tough lesson for millions of students just now arriving on campus: even if you have a high school diploma, you may not be ready for college. In fact, a new study calculates, one-third of American college students have to enroll in remedial classes. The bill to colleges and taxpayers for trying to bring them up to speed on material they were supposed to learn in high school comes to between $2.3 billion and $2.9 billion annually.