Higher Education in Europe beyond 2010

Higher education institutions are being subjected to a variety of pressures that seek, primarily, to enhance higher education’s contribution to the successful creation of so-called ‘knowledge societies’, together with, and receiving only slightly less emphasis, the achievement of greater equity and social justice.

The report Higher Education Looking Forward: An Agenda for Future Research has examined the relevant higher education research literature in terms of its underlying conceptual approaches and empirical findings across a number of selected sub-themes (see below) in order to derive a future research agenda that will address scientific questions of long term strategic concern to the future of higher education.

The Themes
The five themes that have been addressed are:

• Higher education and the needs of the knowledge society

Key questions within this theme will be the adequacy of human capital theory in explaining
changing relationships between higher education and work, the balance between initial formation and continuing professional development in knowledge-based economies, and the division of labour between higher education institutions and employers in meeting education and training needs.

• Higher education and the achievement of equity and social justice

Key questions here concern the relationship between higher education’s roles in social reproduction and its roles in extending opportunities for social mobility and the achievement of greater social justice.

• Higher education and its communities: interconnections and interdependencies

Key questions will concern whether new function can be performed without detriment to the old and what are the change mechanisms within higher education institutions and systems needed to bring about effective realignments between higher education and its various communities

• Steering and governance of higher education

Key questions for this theme are to do with the implications of different forms of decision-making, accountability and funding for higher education’s ability to perform existing and new functions.

• Differentiation and diversity of institutional forms and professional roles

The questions raised within theme five relate to the preceding themes and to whether further differentiation within national systems will be accompanied by greater convergence between systems if higher education is to respond effectively to changing social and economic climates in European countries

Download the whole report for or see the Project Summary a quick overview .

University news from the West

Image Copyright by merla

IHEs Spend Lots Of Money On The Wrong Things
If colleges were spending most of their money on initiatives that improve the quality of education for students, you might regard price hikes running at two to four times the rate of inflation as a necessary evil. But spending on palatial dorms, state-of-the-art fitness centers and a panoply of gourmet dining options? Maybe not. Colleges could help ease the pressure by adopting cost-containment practices that are standard in private business. But most schools are nonprofits. And without the pressure to produce earnings, they have little incentive to slash expenses or improve productivity. Says Ron Ehrenberg, an economics professor at Cornell University and author of "Tuition Rising": "For nonprofits the goal is to raise all the money you can, then spend it."

Campuses Going Green But Less So In The Curriculum steven bell
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) on Aug. 21 released its own ratings of American colleges and universities — based not on selectivity, but on greenness. The results are a bit surprising. For all the attention that environmental causes have garnered over the past several years, the NWF found that sustainability-related education offered on campuses stayed steady between 2001 and 2008 — and might even have declined. While U.S. schools have done well in greening their campuses — rare is the day that passes without a college announcing a new green building or program for energy efficiency — colleges are lacking when it comes to sustainable education.


India Plans New Accreditation Body for Colleges of Business and Engineering
India plans to create a separate accreditation body for engineering and business colleges in response to complaints that the current situation, in which the same panel serves as regulator and accreditor, is open to corruption and fails to ensure academic quality, the higher-education secretary told an industry lobbying group last week, according to the business newspaper Mint.

Federal Spending on Academic Research Continued Downward Trend in 2007
Washington — Total spending on academic scientific research grew slightly in 2007 even as the the subtotal financed by the federal government fell, after inflation was factored in, according to a new report. Colleges and other providers made up the difference from their own pockets — but they weren’t happy about it. The federal government is the largest source of funds for academic research, and the 2007 fiscal year represented the second straight year of decline after inflation, according to the report, which was issued by the National Science Foundation. The federal total was $30.44-billion, a net drop of 1.6 percent compared with 2006. Such a two-year decline had never before occurred since the NSF began tracking those figures, in 1972.


Cleaning up the act By Tariq Tahir
Academic fraud in Britain is endemic, but universities continue to argue the case for self-regulation. America and Denmark have tougher regimes in place, so should we follow their lead?

Oiling the learning machine By John Gill
The huge expansion of higher education in the Gulf offers major opportunities for UK academe. But there are also challenges


Next Steps for E-Texts With slew of new announcements and partnerships, some publishers, colleges and even bookstores seem poised to offer e-textbooks as a serious alternative for students. more

'Collision Course' for Graduate Education At political science meeting, experts on Ph.D. education consider how to give grad students more breadth and better teaching skills -- while also getting them to finish dissertations on time.


The real Shanghai Jiao Tong winners
How many Americans does it take to produce a university? No, it's not an academic joke, it's a population-based analysis of the recently published 2008 Academic Ranking of World Universities by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The study shows that while the US might have the most top 500 universities in the world, it is not the most efficient producer of such universities on a population basis. That title goes to Sweden and the analysis also demonstrates that Scandinavia in general is a veritable powerhouse of academic excellence given its population base

DENMARK: Academics sign up to protest
Danish academics are collecting signatures to convince Science Minister Helge Sander that opposition to the current education law is, in their words, "no sectarian craving from a dissatisfied minority...but has a broad basis of support among Danish students and researchers". .

US: New Stanford study of dual-career academic couples
Dual-career issues are growing in importance in higher education in America. More than 70% of faculty are in dual-career relationships, and more than a third are partnered with another academic, according to a study just published by Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research. The publication, Dual-Career Academic Couples: What universities need to know, is based on a survey of full-time tenured and tenure-track academics at 13 leading US universities, as well as interviews with administrators at 18 universities. The lead author is Londa Schiebinger, director of the Clayman Institute and Professor of the History of Science. The report is freely available.

INDIA: Poor pay discourages researchers
Increased job opportunities and fat pay packets for young graduates are turning out to be a bane for academic research in India.

Searching this blog

Looking for a blog entry, but can’t find it on the first page and not sure of how to go about searching for it ?

The easiest way is to use the Search function that is part of this blog – in the top left corner you will see a search box. Use this box to type the word or concept that you are looking for and click on Search Blog

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New issue of Peer Review out

Peer Review provides a quarterly briefing on emerging trends and key debates in undergraduate education. Each issue is focused on a specific topic, provides comprehensive analysis, and features campus perspectives.

The new Spring/Summer edition will cover Student Political Engagement and examine how the academy engages students in their learning today to help them grow as engaged citizens for tomorrow. It focuses on democratic civic engagement rather than service and in what some call civic agency. (This issue will be out soon on our Databases)



Some of the past topics covered are:

Academic Advising Winter 2008
This issue addresses the role of academic advising in undergraduate education with a special focus on general education goals and the documentation of the achievement of student learning outcomes.



Faculty Development: Finding Balance in Changing Roles Fall 2007
Faculty development will play a critical role in efforts to achieve essential learning outcomes for all students. This issue features the key challenges and pressures facing faculty members and institutions as they work to orient new faculty and build the skills of existing faculty.

Bringing Theory to Practice Summer 2007
The Bringing Theory to Practice (BTtoP) project seeks to advance engaged student learning and determine how it might improve the quality of students' education, development, health, and commitment to civic engagement. This issue provides a brief project overview as well as several campus examples that offer specific forms of engaged learning and how they are contributing to students' health and well-being.



Assessing Student Learning Spring 2007
As campuses implement more complex assignments, community placements, internships, student research programs, and other engaged learning practices, the opportunity for students to demonstrate complex capacities will be increased. This issue addresses a variety of approaches to achieving and assessing the advanced learning outcomes derived from these practices. It includes a special focus on developing and assessing capstone courses.

Learning and Technology Fall 2006
This issue examines a range of current issues concerning the role and use of technology in student learning and also addresses how these technologies can advance liberal education learning outcomes. Topics addressed include using technology to advance humanistic ideals, teaching through blended learning environment, engaging faculty in a technological age, and learning through the deployment of innovative technologies in informal spaces.

Auditor General briefing to Parliament

Copyright by miamiamia

The Auditor General and his Deputy briefed the Parliamentary Monitoring Committee on Finance extensively on the 2007/08 Annual Report. Here is the presentation they made. Highlights include:

• The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) was engaging more positively and proactively with stakeholders.
• Interventions with the provincial MECs of Finance had shown good results.
• Engagement with local municipalities was also proving useful, showing improvements in motivation and commitment and planning.
• The OAG did, and would continue to, contract out work to private audit firms, many of them newly emerging black firms, and was in this way improving capacity, training and transformation in the profession.
• Its international participation was described, and it was reported that OAG would assume the Chair of the international body of Auditor Generals from October.
• The financial statements showed a deficit of R8.3 million instead of the anticipated surplus. This was largely as a result of more work being contracted out than anticipated. OAG did not earn a profit margin on such work, and although it recovered its fee output, it did not in fact recover the administrative costs. Full details of the income were tabled and explained.
• There had been high provision for debt – much owed by municipalities – and further cleaning up of the balance sheet had revealed several further small non-recurring amounts to be written off or corrected, totalling R3.9 million.
• A comparison of performance against budget was tabled, as well as a comparison of projected and actual targets. OAG had achieved an unqualified audit, and was working hard to maintain this and to ensure that governance remained strong in every business unit.
• Debt collection for national departments had improved, although it was still problematic at municipal level. Funding bottlenecks had been addressed.
• There would be ongoing challenges in capacity, because of the shortage of skills in the whole profession, but the OAG would both safeguard its own position and continue to involve private audit firms.

Audit Outcomes of Municipalities: Auditor-General & Accountant-General reports 2006-2007

copyright bylusi

Here is a summary:
The Accountant-General and the Auditor-General briefed the Parliamentary Monitoring Group for Finance on the 2006/2007 audit outcomes of municipalities.

It was noted that of the nine provinces, only four provinces (Western Cape, Gauteng, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga) had submitted their financial reports on time. Limpopo (53%) recorded the lowest percentage of submissions.

The Accountant-General said that many municipalities did not have the internal capacity to adequately manage their financial reports, but did note that there had been a slight improvement by provinces in terms of adverse opinions and disclaimers.

He said that the interventions made in Western Cape and Gauteng had been important as delegated municipalities were no longer in existence, regular workshops were held, strong leadership and support was forthcoming from the provincial government and National Treasury, and in Gauteng retired experienced officials were deployed to municipalities to provide assistance.

The Auditor General had identified six best practices indicators, which he outlined. Many municipalities had problems with compliance as they did not have the relevant capacity to address their challenges. Lack of proper oversight and supervision was also identified as problematic. He urged municipalities to cease their suspicion of deployed officials, and said that political officials should enforce proper management of public funds entrusted to them.

They also mentioned the fact that the local municipalities were not seen as attractive job prospects and political infighting as constraints.

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The mindset of a university student graduating in 2012

Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college.

This month, almost 2 million first-year students will head off to college campuses around the USA. Most of them will be about 18 years old, born in 1990 when headlines sounded oddly familiar to those of today: Rising fuel costs were causing airlines to cut staff and flight schedules; Big Three car companies were facing declining sales and profits; and a president named Bush was increasing the number of troops in the Middle East in the hopes of securing peace. However, the mindset of this new generation of college students is quite different from that of the faculty about to prepare them to become the leaders of tomorrow.

Here are some of the aspects that made it to the list:

• Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.


• For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.


• Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.


• Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.


• GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.


• Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.


• Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.


• Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.


• Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.


• As a precursor to “whatever,” they have recognized that some people “just don’t get it.”


• Grandma has always had wheels on her walker.


• WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.


• The Warsaw Pact is as hazy for them as the League of Nations was for their parents.


• Schools have always been concerned about multiculturalism.


• IBM has never made typewriters.


• There has always been Pearl Jam.


• They may have been given a Nintendo Game Boy to play with in the crib.


• Lenin’s name has never been on a major city in Russia.


• Employers have always been able to do credit checks on employees.

This list makes even me feel old as I still remember Sammy Davis Jr & Freddy and a time before Pearl Jam and GPS's!

University news from the West

GLOBAL: University world rankings/ Geoff MaslenUniversities in the United States have again dominated the world's top 500 in the latest rankings by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It is the sixth year since the Chinese university began listing the world's top higher education institutions and once more, US universities have taken 17 of the first 20 places and 55 of the top 100. This compares with America's main competitor - Britain - which managed to squeeze only two of its universities in the top 20 and a mere 10 in the first 100.

GREECE: Cheque-book higher education / Makki MarseillesThe first step towards privatisation of higher education in Greece has been taken by the government despite strong opposition from the academic community, political parties, educational trades unions as well as parents and students at large.

CHINA: Rise of research in the Middle Kingdom/ Simon MarginsonA notable development of the last decade was the pluralisation of research capacity in the sciences. Between 1995 and 2005, the annual number of scientific papers produced in China rose from 9,061 to 41,596. China was poised to overtake UK and Germany at the top of the EU table though its output remained less than one fifth that of the EU as a whole.


Keeping Track of Students, and Staying in Touch At first, the idea sounds deceptively simple. Software that lets professors manage their office hours and keep tabs on their students? Isn’t a daybook enough? For some faculty members, a pen and paper — or a well-organized e-mail inbox — might be enough. But a new start-up company, Starfish Retention Solutions, based in northern Virginia is betting that its forthcoming services will fill a need that many colleges don’t realize they have — and boost retention and student success along the way.

Five Secrets to Publishing Success/ By Thom Brooks For many young academics (whether graduate students or assistant professors preparing their tenure files), the subject of publishing is a source of anxiety and consternation. In addition, whether or not one has a sound understanding of publishing more often than not is true thanks to being teamed up with a helpful supervisor. Thus, what most young academics know about publishing is only limited to what little they may have heard from helpful — and often not so helpful — mentors. In this essay, Thom will uncover what he believe are five secrets to publishing success. (Secret #1: Finding your voice, Secret #2: The importance of focus;Secret #3: Rejection is the norm;Secret #4; Getting a book contract;Secret #5: Publishing takes time)


Siege mentalityA fortnightly series in which academics step outside their area of expertise. Terence Kealey reveals how hypocrisy, violence and torture in the America of George Washington have helped create the US of George Bush

Filtering tips/ Rebecca Attwood Applications from would-be students are increasingly less likely to be seen by an academic as universities turn to new ways to sieve the burgeoning number of applications.

Grappling with the digital divide / Hannah Fearn Students are increasingly 'transliterate', communicating across a range of technologies. Can academics keep up?


Suicidal Thoughts Are Common Among College Students, Study SuggestsA study of 26,000 students at 70 colleges and universities suggests that suicidal thoughts are not rare among that population, with more than half of the responders reporting they have thought about suicide and 15 percent reporting they have seriously considered ending their lives. More than 5 percent reported attempting suicide sometime in their lives. .

British Universities Offer Cash to Get Students to Enroll in Unpopular ProgramsSeveral British universities apparently are offering cash incentives to students to induce them to enroll in unpopular degree programs.

Finland, Like Sweden, to End Free Study for Some ForeignersSome foreign students in Finland will be charged tuition beginning in 2010, if a new university law drawn up by the government is approved and goes into effect, as expected, in late 2009.

University News from Africa

AFRICA: Three universities in global top 500, two out / Karen MacGregorTwo African universities have slipped from the top 500 identified by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, leaving only three - the universities of Cape Town, the Witwatersrand and KwaZulu-Natal - in the elite global list for 2008. South Africa follows Ireland into 25th place in terms of percentage distribution of top universities by country, ahead of Europe's Greece, Hungary, Poland and Portugal as well as India.

CAMEROON: New Maroua university due to open President Paul Biya has fulfilled an 11-year promise and the University of Maroua, Cameroon's seventh, is about to open. The new institution will consist of faculties yet to be created, and two grandes écoles, the Ecole Normale Supérieure and the Institut Supérieur du Sahel.


SENEGAL: Students punished for protest against minister Fifteen students at the University of Ziguinchor have been punished for protesting against the Minister for Higher Education, Professor Moustapha Sourang, during his visit in July. The most severe penalty was immediate exclusion from the university for up to two years.


ZAMBIA: Students riot over lecturer strike Nine University of Zambia students have been arrested following rioting aimed at pressing the government to resolve a crippling strike by lecturers at the country's oldest institution. Similar protests two months ago resulted in police shooting and injuring two students.

ZIMBABWE: Lecturers warn of university closures / Clemence ManyukweAcademics in Zimbabwe have warned President Robert Mugabe that all state-controlled higher education institutions face closure as a result of poor working conditions, the brain drain and other problems arising from the country's political and economic crises. With inflation now at 42 million percent, lecturers said their salaries no longer covered transport costs and that they had not been working since June.


BOTSWANA: Lecturer on Zimbabwe sanctions list deported / Clemence ManyukweThe Botswana government has deported a media studies lecturer at the University of Botswana who is on the latest Zimbabwe sanctions list of the European Union. Ceasar Zvayi, former political editor of the Harare-based state-owned newspaper The Herald, had moved to Botswana to take up the lecturing job shortly after President Robert Mugabe's controversial re-election in a one-man poll on 27 June - prompting a public outcry in Botswana.

SA has 3 universities in Shanghai's Top 500

Each year Shanghai's University rank the World's Top 500 Universities by several indicators of academic or research performance and for the 2008 rankings South Africa reached 25th place in the country rankings with UCT, WITS and UKZN in the top 500.

The indicators include:

• alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, (The total number of the alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics and Fields Medal in Mathematics)
• highly cited researchers,
• articles published in Nature and Science,
• articles indexed in major citation indices, (Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index in 2007. Only publications of article type are considered.)
• the per capita academic performance of an institution. (The weighted scores of the above five indicators divided by the number of full-time equivalent academic staff.)

There are many methodological and technical problems with the ranking. Methodological problems include: the proportion of indicators on teaching and services, the weight of per capita performance, the type of institutions (comprehensive or specialized), the language bias in publications, the selection of awards and the experience of award winners. Technical problems include: the definition of institutions, the attribution of publications and awards, and the history of institutions.

Top world universities in Science, Engineering, Medicine & Social Sciences

Each year the Jiao Tong University brings out their Top 100 World Universities in Broad Subjects list. (Not a single African country managed to get on the list)

The ranking list includes every institution that has any Nobel Laureates, Fields Medals, and Highly-Cited Researchers. In addition, major universities of every country with significant amount of articles indexed by Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) are also included.

Institutions are ranked by five broad subject fields, including:

• Natural Sciences and Mathematics (SCI),
• Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences (ENG),
• Life and Agriculture Sciences (LIFE),
• Clinical Medicine and Pharmacy (MED),
• Social Sciences (SOC).

Ranking indicators include:

• alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals,
• Highly Cited Researchers, articles indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).
• percentage of articles published in the top 20% journals of each field
• engineering research expenditure

Arrr you a pirate?

Teleread published an interesting take on pirating of material in their article Talking to pirates: Can e-publishers learn from a game developer’s dialogue? by Chris Meadows .

"There has been a lot of rhetoric flung back and forth between providers of content (be it books, games, music, or movies) and those who “pirate” them, but not a lot of dialogue.Recently, Cliff Harris, an independent game developer decided to change that. He asked for e-mails that would answer the fundamental question: “Why do you pirate my games?”What he got back was partly what he had asked for, but more of the answers seemed to address the broader issues of game piracy in general."

Is your boss a bully?

Ever had the unfortunate experience of being bullied at work? If yes, you are definitely not alone:

Leon Gettler is a contributor to The Age, specialising on management issues and recently wrote about bullying at work in his blog :

" A Workplace Pulse Quarterly Survey suggests that it (workplace bullying) is endemic here. Conducted in June 2008 among a sample of 2146 employees, it found that a massive 30% said they had been bullied in the workplace and almost one quarter (24%) claimed they had been victims of discrimination on the basis of race, gender or a disability. According to the survey, 27% said they had been the victim of workplace bullying or discrimination at least once over the past two years, and 15% said they had experienced this many times. Almost half (44%) said they had witnessed colleagues being bullied at work, and 35% said they had seen colleagues being treated in a discriminatory way. Even more alarmingly, 27% expressed uncertainty about their own rights and 31% were under the wrong impression when it came to who was legally responsible to provide this information."

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Accounting is on fire!

According to the Los Angeles Time Accounting Is The New Hot Major

"It''s become one of the hot courses on campus. Enrollment is up, one of the accounting lecturers has twice been named professor of the year, and several dozen students spent their summer mornings in a class poring over a 3-inch-thick tome titled "Federal Taxation." Part of the answer to accounting''s new popularity may be the inherent romance of business. Then there''s this fact: Even in a downish economy, accounting students are finding jobs -- jobs that just might be the first step toward running their own companies. Enrollment in accounting classes is up 19% since 2004, according to a survey by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants."

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lies, lies and Impact Factors?

The Open Access journal Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics (ESEP) have devoted entire first issues of 2008 to the question of Impact Factors with their theme:
The use and misuse of bibliometric indices in evaluating scholarly performance

Here is the editors' foreword:

Bibliometric indices (based mainly upon citation counts), such as the h-index and the journal impact factor, are heavily relied upon in such assessments. There is a growing consensus, and a deep concern, that these indices — more-and-more often used as a replacement for the informed judgement of peers — are misunderstood and are, therefore, often misinterpreted and misused. The articles in this ESEP Theme Section present a range of perspectives on these issues. Alternative approaches, tools and metrics that will hopefully lead to a more balanced role for these instruments are presented.

Here is the TOC:

INTRODUCTION:
Factors and indices are one thing, deciding who is scholarly, why they are scholarly, and the relative value of their scholarship is something else entirely/ Browman HI, Stergiou KI

Escape from the impact factor/ Campbell P
Makes the argument that the most effective and fair analysis of a person’s contribution derives from a direct assessment of individual papers, regardless of where they were published.

Lost in publication: how measurement harms science/ Lawrence PA
Changes to the way scientists are assessed are urgently needed, and suggestions are made in this article.

Hidden dangers of a ‘citation culture’/ Todd PA, Ladle RJ
A look at one of the areas where citation numbers can be inaccurate in terms of the manner in which papers are cited, indexed and searched for.

The siege of science/ Taylor M, Perakakis P, Trachana V
The academic as author, editor and/or reviewer, under intense competitive pressure, is forced to play the publishing game where such numbers rule, leading to frequent abuses of power. Here, Perakakis and Trachana review the current status of this siege, how it arose and how it is likely to evolve.

The economics of post-doc publishing/ Cheung WWL
This article explores how bibliometrics affect the publication strategy from a point of view of a post-doctoral fellow, with analogy and explanation from simple economic theories.

Chasing after the high impact./ Tsikliras AC
Although young scientists may not always be aware of the advantages and pitfalls of the impact factor system when it comes to the choice of which journal to submit to, journal ranking is among the selection criteria, following the journal’s general scope and rapid manuscript handling but preceding choice of a journal which allows authors to suggest potential referees, and open access journals.

Challenges for scientometric indicators: data demining, knowledge flows measurements and diversity issues/ Zitt M, Bassecoulard E
This article describes some of the challenges for bibliometric indicators (data ‘demining’,knowledge-flow measurements and diversity issues) underlying, among other applications, reliable evaluation procedures.

Google Scholar as a new source for citation analysis/ Harzing AWK, van der Wal R
Traditionally, the most commonly used source of bibliometric data is Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge, in particular the Web of Science and the Journal Citation Reports (JCR), which provide the yearly Journal Impact Factors (JIF). This paper presents an alternative source of data as well as 3 alternatives to the JIF to assess journal impact.

Re-interpretation of ‘influence weight’ as a citation-based Index of New Knowledge (INK)/Pauly D, Stergiou KI
The INK method for assessing the ‘influence weight’ of journals is re-interpreted as a potential citation-based indicator of the impact of scientific and other publications.

Benefitting from bibliometry/ Giske J
Within a department, the evaluation of performance may be one of several incentives for improving scientific quality and productivity. However, used alone, performance evaluation can lead to destructive competition and marginalization of potentially valuable staff members.

Using a balanced approach to bibliometrics: quantitative performance measures in the Australian Research Quality Framework/ Butler L Erratum
Within a department, the evaluation of performance may be one of several incentives for improving scientific quality and productivity. However, used alone, performance evaluation can lead to destructive competition and marginalization of potentially valuable staff members.

Citation counts for research evaluation: standards of good practice for analyzing bibliometric data and presenting and interpreting results/ Bornmann L, Mutz R, Neuhaus C, Daniel HD
Here Bornmann et al present standards of good practice for analyzing bibliometric data and presenting and interpreting the results.

Validating research performance metrics against peer rankings / Harnad S
In and of themselves, metrics are circular: They need to be jointly tested and validated against what it is that they purport to measure and predict, with each metric weighted according to its contribution to their joint predictive power.

Top universities' ranking on the web - UJ not in Top 10

Webometrics has just released their 2008 World Universities's ranking on the web , and UJ is listed as the 14th Top African University , and 3,704th in the world.

Objectives of the Webometrics Ranking of World's Universities
"The original aim of the Ranking was to promote Web publication, not to rank institutions. Supporting Open Access initiatives, electronic access to scientific publications and to other academic material are our primary targets. However web indicators are very useful for ranking purposes too as they are not based on number of visits or page design but global performance and visibility of the universities.As other rankings focused only on a few relevant aspects, specially research results, web indicators based ranking reflects better the whole picture, as many other activities of professors and researchers are showed by their web presence.
The Web covers not only only formal (e-journals, repositories) but also informal scholarly communication. Web publication is cheaper, maintaining the high standards of quality of peer review processes. It could also reach much larger potential audiences, offering access to scientific knowledge to researchers and institutions located in developing countries and also to third parties (economic, industrial, political or cultural stakeholders) in their own community."

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The top ten consisted of:
(the number is brackets is the university's world ranking)
1 University of Cape Town (385)
2 Stellenbosch University (654)
3 Rhodes University (722)
4 University of Pretoria (734)
5 University of the Witwatersrand (831)
6 University of the Western Cape (1,218)
7 University of Kwazulu Natal (1,313)
8 University of South Africa (1,499)
9 American University in Cairo (1,654)
10 Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (2,145)

University news from the West

SIDESTEPPING THE CRANKS Professors are often magnets for crackpots bearing pet theories and searching for validation.

PLEASE DON'T GO Administrators at public universities are devising new strategies to keep key faculty members in an era of increased poaching.

THOSE WHO DO, TEACH Harold and Kumar's Kal Penn at Penn prompts Mark Oppenheimer to ask: Do celebrity profs energize or cheapen a university?

AUTHOR, AUTHOR? Two Case Western Reserve University professors say Routledge recycled their work without credit or royalty.

'SCORES DESCRIBE BUT DON'T EXPLAIN' When used without regard for their complexities, Daniel Koretz says, the results of standardized tests can be misleading.


CHINA: Olympics - low-key involvement by universities Michael Delaney University sports are a big deal in China, followed with great fervour by students and alumni, and many universities boast excellent sporting facilities and stadiums. Yet historically there has been a great distance, even antipathy, between the state administration and university sports departments. As a result, the nation's centralised sports system means universities have largely been left out in the cold when it comes to preparing athletes for the Olympic Games.

GLOBAL: Liberalisation shelved as talks collapse Keith Nuthall Proposals to sweep away some restrictions preventing private universities and higher education service providers from teaching, researching and examining in foreign countries have been put on ice at the World Trade Organization.

GERMANY: Plans to create more leeway for research Michael Gardner Germany's federal government has adopted a five-point plan to create more autonomy for public-funded research institutions. In future, they will enjoy considerably more scope in terms of budgets, staff, networking, construction measures and procurement. The new measures will ultimately lead to a special law on academic freedom agreed to by the government last year.

SPECIAL REPORT: E-Learning
E-learning is one of the buzzwords of 21st century higher education, with academics around the world increasingly relying on technology to communicate with their students – and transmit their lectures. But as University World News writers report in this special on E-learning, as some designate it, although a great boon to many lacking easy access to education, technology must be used intelligently as a tool for learning and not be regarded simply as a panacea.

SOUTH AFRICA: Universities not far behind the curve Karen MacGregor The use of information and communication technologies to support learning in South African universities is booming and they are "not very far behind the curve" of developed countries in e-learning, says Stephen Marquard, learning technology coordinator for the University of Cape Town.
AUSTRALIA: Online studying for the remote and on-the-move Geoff Maslen

UK: Virtual lectures? No thanks, say students Diane Spencer The British government is keen to promote e-learning, as are UK universities. Yet research shows that students still prefer face-to-face learning.

FRANCE: Universities lag 'digitally native' students Jane Marshall French universities must urgently catch up with information and communication technologies if they are to satisfy the higher education demands of the advancing generation of 'digitally native' students.

BRITISH COMMONWEALTH: Big changes in small states Nick HoldsworthThe Commonwealth of Learning - the world's only intergovernmental agency solely dedicated to promoting and delivering distance education and open learning - is working with 30 of the British Commonwealth's smaller states to create a 'virtual university'.


Call Your PR Director, Fast When a production company tells your president or dean it wants to profile your college or school in a national television documentary, the offer may not be what it seems

Game Over The University of Florida is the latest to call for an end to beer pong and other popular college drinking games.

Game Over The University of Florida is the latest to call for an end to beer pong and other popular college drinking games.

Accredited journals - the missing piece of your research puzzle?

Quite a few lecturers have been asking me how they can limit their results in a database to accredited journals only.

It is important to remember that you can limit your searching in a database to include only scholarly, peer-reviewed or academic journals - accredited journals is not a searching option.

Some of the reasons for this are that accreditation changes year on year and while there are international lists, countries also have their own local list of accredited journals. This makes it difficult for databases to keep such lists as search options.

How do you go about getting articles from accredited journals then?

To only search in accredited journals, you would have to have the names of those journals and then limit your searches in the databases to those specific journals only. (You simply add the name of the accredited journal in the search box and choose Journal title/Publication title/Source from the field box.)

The list of SA accredited journals is not too long and it fairly easy to read through and then identify the journals that would suit your topic.

The internationally accredited journals (ISI or IBBS), however, present a problem as the lists has over 15 000 journals covering all research disciplines and is searchable only with the ISSN, title or part of the title of the journal.

In other words it is extremely difficult to identify all the journals within a specific topic. It is much easier if you already have a reference to a journal to then look up the title in the accreditation list.

So in a nutshell:

• get the name of accredited journals from the lists and search by that journal only, or
• get articles you like and then check if they journals they are published in are accredited

Unfortunately, as with research, there is no easy or quick way.

The Big Four - big changes?

TomorrowToday.biz has an interesting article on the Big Four Accounting firms and what they are doing (and should be doing) to attract talented (younger) staff.

In The Accounting Profession: Power, Pressure, Perfection and People Jude asks the question:

"If talented people are the key to differentiation for each of the (Big Four) firms, why and how should they change and structure themselves in order to capitalize on this critical resource? How can they each use their people to differentiate from each other?
In spite of the new networked, knowledge economy, increased regulations and changes to the profession, the organisational design and way audits are staffed and performed has generally remained the same.
Is it time for the Big Four to change?"