Category: Policy

Teachers professional development as an NSS action?

I read our recently issued NSS action table in the context of preparation guidance for staff annual Performance and Development Review (PDR): For academic and other student facing staff, are they adhering to the Brookes Charter (Regulation E3) and the 8 NSS Principles. One of the NSS actions (dressed up as principles) and echoing the UK PFS … Continue reading Teachers professional development as an NSS action?

Where risk lies for HEIs: the conflation of regulation, reputation and enhancement

I had a conversation with our head of QA about the consultations current in HE regulation. Her pragmatic approach is refreshing. I thought I might share the gist of my side of the conversation. I am working through documents at a more leisurely pace than the folk at Wonkhe. And I did read David kernohan's  A game of … Continue reading Where risk lies for HEIs: the conflation of regulation, reputation and enhancement

Pay gaps, gender gaps and other crap

Money is power. More particularly, money is patriarchal power. Now here is the rub. If you use the powerful's form of power to overthrow the current power, you simply replicate power as it is. You do not transform it. OK, it is a little more complicated, but that is about it. If you use hierarchised … Continue reading Pay gaps, gender gaps and other crap

Interlibrary loan or Sci-Hub? A short saga

What follows is a short saga. Journal price inflation also adds significantly to staff time costs or reduced efficiency. I was searching for: Ashwin, P, Deem, R, & McAlpine, L 2016, 'Newer researchers in higher education: policy actors or policy subjects?', Studies In Higher Education, 41, 12, pp. 2184-2197 Our online subscription to Studies in … Continue reading Interlibrary loan or Sci-Hub? A short saga

Back to the really hard stuff

I am doing, in a way, what I have always wanted to do: teaching in a university, running an academic conference, editing a journal, supervising dissertations, some consultancy. And now I seem to have found the time and space to develop the two items that have been hardest for me to achieve and for which … Continue reading Back to the really hard stuff

Lots to do: thoughts on the task ahead

The task, for me, the lots to-do is to transform theory to practice. That is, education development aims not just to bring about correct understanding but to create social and political conditions (that is, community) more conducive to human flourishing than the present ones. I became a Football Coach last winter and now help run … Continue reading Lots to do: thoughts on the task ahead

Backpacks, badges and epistemology: an interesting conversation that leads to happily ever after

Grant (2014) asks in the title to her book about digital badges, "What Counts as Learning?" This succinctly expresses the question of higher education and explains the continuing interest in badges, and in learning technologies in general. The fact this is less explored, gives me an opportunity to explore both learning technology and epistemology. I have developed … Continue reading Backpacks, badges and epistemology: an interesting conversation that leads to happily ever after

Usurpation of the University?

Transcendence - transgression - is the modality of human being in the world… The urge to transcend is the most stubbornly present … attribute of human existence (Bauman 2002, 222-23). Last August I discussed a symposium to be held at the Australian Philosophy of Education Society with David Aldridge. That never happened but this note … Continue reading Usurpation of the University?

Academic Practice in practice?

What is the model and purpose of academic practice development? Producing 21st C Cardiff graduates in your discipline? There are two pillars of Welsh Government policy: Social justice is as important as a buoyant economy. Nationality is an issue. Language is an issue. A concept of privilege pervades the process. Much is made of the Welsh context. A … Continue reading Academic Practice in practice?