“Tracey Bretag is annoyed when the media focus on plagiarism by international students because failures of academic integrity are much larger than that …” (more)
[Stephen Matchett, The Australian, 13 February]
“Over a third of university students meet the criteria for hazardous drinking and almost half exceed thresholds for acute harm at least once a month, an Australian-first study has found …” (more)
[John Ross, The Australian, 23 January]
“Universities should embed Aboriginal knowledge and perspectives across all undergraduate programs under new guidelines released by Universities Australia. But embedding indigenous perspectives in the curriculum has sparked concern that knowledge of a discipline risked being crowded out and curriculum development politicised by ‘culture wars’ …” (more)
[Andrew Trounson, The Australian, 16 January]
“Emigration is expected to continue at a pace next year but migration experts have warned that the prospects of obtaining visas and finding work in two of the most popular destinations for those leaving Ireland are to become more difficult …” (more)
[Steven Carroll, Irish Times, 29 December]
“Visiting British expert David Sweeney could have star appeal for academics frustrated by the bureaucratic inflexibility of Australia’s research auditing system and metrics-based assessments blind to the social impact of their work …” (more)
[Matthew Thompson, The Conversation, 3 November]
“Academics are increasingly grumpy with management and rising workloads, and believe that despite all the extra work their students are being short changed, according to new research published in Higher Education this month …” (more)
[Andrew Trounson, The Australian, 27 October]
“There are ‘tens of thousands’ of jobs to be filled by the Irish in Australia, according to Australian Northern Territory Minister for Business and Employment, Rob Knight, at a Dublin employment conference …” (more)
[Donal MacHenry, StudentNews.ie, 2 October]
“… This attractiveness of university for girls differs from that of boys, most likely reflecting the gendered nature of the labour market. Males have a broader set of opportunities than females. For men there are attractive jobs which do not require a degree. For women, much less so …” (more)
[Stephen Matchett, The Australian, 12 September]
“Fees charged by academic publishers to access research journals have caused no small amount of consternation among readers of scholarly research and fuelled the rise of the Open Access movement …” (more)
[Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation, 11 August]
“… Universities are always working on the ‘research culture’ problem, but all the strategies seem to fail. If students complain about not having space on campus we give them desks, which they rarely use. If students complain about needing more intellectual engagement, we provide them with workshops – which are poorly attended. No matter what we do, we just can’t make them happy. ‘Culture’ is a difficult concept to define of course …” (more)
[The Thesis Whisperer, 9 August]
“Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis has warned that Australia’s egalitarian culture is holding back universities from competing internationally. Professor Davis said unlike in sport, there was little public demand for having world-class Australian universities …” (more)
[Andrew Trounson, The Australian, 30 July]
“Victoria’s Deakin University is facing a revolt from students and staff over plans to hike parking fees next year by in some cases more than three times. Under the plans announced to staff late on Friday last week, the annual cost of an allocated reserved parking space at the outer suburban Burwood campus in Melbourne would next year jump from $461.50 to $1500 …” (more)
[Andrew Trounson, The Australian, 28 July]
“Should governments use scarce public research money to build a small number of brilliant universities that can share and initiate global conversations? Or should they build genuine research capacity in all universities, in provincial cities and outer metropolitan areas as well as sandstone heartlands? …” (more)
[Simon Marginson, University World News, 17 July]
“Dropping rankings from journals for the next round of the Excellence in Research for Australia audit was the correct decision, according to a leading thinker on metrics in higher education. Ellen Hazelkorn, Dublin Institute of Technology’s director of research and enterprise in the higher education policy unit, says the Australian Research Council was right to drop the designated A* to C rankings …” (more)
[Jill Rowbotham, The Australian, 6 July]
“Australian universities are so chronically under-funded in their teaching activities that every domestic undergraduate is effectively subsidised to the tune of $1200 by international student fees …” (more)
[Andrew Trounson and Julie Hare, The Australian, 1 July]
“Caught in limbo between his election in early April as the 44th provost of Trinity College Dublin and stepping into the big chair on August 1, Patrick Prendergast has been doing some homework. He was in Melbourne last week to get a first-hand understanding of how the Melbourne model works, and no doubt take a breather from Ireland’s economic woes …” (more)
[Julie Hare, The Australian, 29 June]
“Spiralling class sizes, overcrowding, tutorials replaced by seminars, few avenues for feedback and interaction, a shift to online and peer-assessment as a cost saving measure – the dire state of teaching in Australian universities emerges from just a cursory glance at submissions to the base funding review …” (more)
[Julie Hare, The Australian, 21 June]
“Australia’s Academy of Science and its international peers are calling on all governments to support collaboration. Creating the conditions for ‘true globalisation’ of knowledge in science and technology means establishing virtual collaborative research centres to advance innovations in education. So says a coalition of peak science bodies supported by the Australian Academy of Science …” (more)
[Jill Rowbotham, The Australian, 13 June]
“The university and research sectors were united this week in vigorously condemning a string of death threats to climate change scientists and policy experts. But there has has also been criticism of the role of politicians and the media in inflaming the debate …” (more)
[Andrew Trounson, The Australian, 7 June]
“I haven’t heard of an academic yet who is sad about the end of the ERA journal rankings, announced yesterday by Minster Kim Carr. Carr said in his press release: ‘There is clear and consistent evidence that the [ERA journal] rankings were being deployed inappropriately within some quarters of the sector, in ways that could produce harmful outcomes …’” (more)
[Skepticlawyer, 31 May]
