As my last academic event of the season, I attended Worldviews 2013: Global Trends in Media and Higher Education in Toronto on June 20th and 21st. I’m not going to write about the panel in which I participated (“Who are the MOOC users?”, with Joe Wilson, Aron Solomon, and Andrew Ng), since… Read more…
The proliferation of journalism programmes around the world came under scathing attack at the Worldviews conference for unscrupulously recruiting too many students for the limited jobs available, and for being ossified in their curricula. The attack was made by Adrian Monck, former dean of City University of London’s journalism school… Read more…
Research in Canada has revealed that although women make up a growing proportion of the academy, including in senior positions, men’s voices still outnumber women’s in the media by four to one. Women scholars are being trained to raise their public presence in a project that has wider implications for… Read more…
Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford, wrote an article titled “C’mon India: Freedom must beat tyranny” in The Globe & Mail this January. In it, Garton Ash compares the performance of India and China and asks: “So is China bound to go on winning?” To which he answers: “… Read more…
Universities must address risks to their integrity when embarking on overseas branch campuses and collaborations, and should involve their faculty throughout the planning, delegates at the Worldviews conference agreed. While institutions normally had other motivations beyond immediate profit from such ventures, there were still financial risks, and risks to their… Read more…
Higher education hubs, and particularly those in poorer developing countries in Africa that are set up to attract foreign institutions and international students, could have unforeseen economic and social impacts on surrounding areas, the Worldviews conference heard. In particular, international higher education hubs risked becoming privileged enclaves rather than contributing… Read more…
A prominent member of the open education movement, former Open University Vice-Chancellor Sir John Daniel, has criticised online education provider Coursera for not making its materials available under creative commons licensing. Coursera is one of the largest providers of MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – which allow students… Read more…