24 Juli 2010

China and US Attract World's Top Researchers

Top Chinese, North American and European universities are offering salaries and access to laboratories and facilities of a size and on a scale that universities in smaller countries cannot match, says a report commissioned by the Australian government.The report says that given the size of the Australian university sector relative to these nations, local institutions cannot offer similarly attractive packages. It warns that universities face difficulties in attracting overseas researchers to counter a looming shortfall.Published by Allen Consulting, the report says Australia will find it increasingly difficult to attract researchers from these countries as their economies continue to expand and funds flow into their domestic innovation and university systems.The report, Employer Demand for Researchers in Australia, bases its conclusions on responses from a survey of 72 organisations, including universities, big business, industry and the Commonwealth Scientific, Industrial and Research Organisation.Federal Science Minister Kim Carr commissioned the report as part of the development of a workforce strategy on future demand for researchers over the next decade.It notes an Australian Council for Educational Research study found that demand for employees with higher degrees by research will expand 50% over the next 10 years. The report says 70% of its respondents expected an expansion in their annual demand for researchers during the next five years.Half the 72 respondents said demand for researchers would exceed supply for the next 10 years. But there are doubts about Australian universities' ability to meetl the demand.The number of PhD graduates "will be insufficient to meet the needs of Australian institutions over the next decade", the report says. "Australia has a shallow domestic talent pool and researchers in Australia do not have the breadth and depth of those in Europe, North America and northeast Asia."
geoff.maslen@uw-news.com
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0133, 18 July 2010

Social Science Expanding

Social science from Western countries continues to have the greatest global influence but the field is expanding rapidly in Asia and Latin America, particularly in China and Brazil.In Sub-Saharan Africa, social scientists from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya produce 75% of academic publications. In South Asia, barring some centres of excellence in India, social sciences as a whole have low priority. These are a few of the findings from Unesco's World Social Science Report 2010: Knowledge divides. Produced by the International Social Science Council and co-published with Unesco, the report is the first comprehensive overview of the field in more than a decade. Hundreds of social scientists from around the world contributed their expertise to the publication. The report was presented during its official launch at Unesco Headquarters in Paris last month.
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0133, 18 July 2010

12 Juli 2010

US: Stopping Student Cheats by Learning Trickery

The US frontier in the battle to defeat student cheating may be at the testing centre of the University of Central Florida, writes Trip Gabriel for The New York Times. No gum is allowed during an exam: chewing could disguise a student's speaking into a hands-free cellphone to an accomplice outside.
The 228 computers that students use are recessed into desk tops so that anyone trying to photograph the screen - using, say, a pen with a hidden camera, in order to help a friend who will take the test later - is easy to spot. Scratch paper is allowed, but it is stamped with the date and must be turned in later. When a proctor sees something suspicious, he records the student's real-time work at the computer and directs an overhead camera to zoom in, and both sets of images are burned onto a CD for evidence.
Taylor Ellis, the associate dean who runs the testing centre within the business school at Central Florida, America's third-largest campus by enrolment, said that cheating had dropped significantly, to 14 suspected incidents out of 64,000 exams administered during the spring semester. As the eternal temptation of students to cheat has gone high-tech, educators have responded with their own efforts to crack down.
Full report on The New York Times site, July 5, 2010

Ethics not a Priority for MBA Students

Cayley Dobie
A tiny proportion of MBA students feel ethics courses are a necessary part of MBA programmes and qualifications, according to a recent survey by London based business education specialists CarringtonCrisp.
The survey Tomorrow's MBA polled over 700 prospective MBA students from 91 countries worldwide last November and December, in the aftermath of the world's toughest recession in decades. Despite the fact business malpractice had deepened that slump, only 5% of the students who responded thought it would be important to learn specifics about ethics as part of their MBA education.
But, as ever, the message of statistics depends on how they are interpreted. "It's not that people don't want ethics, but that they expect it to be embedded in everything they learn rather than as a stand-alone course," says Andrew Crisp, author of Tomorrow's MBA.
Instead of offering courses that focus directly on ethics, Crisp says schools should ensure that their programme as a whole incorporates ethics into all types of business courses.
"For business schools the message is that selling a programme on the back of specific ethics courses may not work well; rather, prospective students are interested in courses that can be practically applied," Crisp says.
More on the University World News site
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0132, 11 July 2010

06 Juli 2010

Science Metrics

The value of scientific output is often measured, to rank one nation against another, allocate funds between universities, or even grant or deny tenure. Scientometricians have devised a multitude of 'metrics' to help in these rankings. Do they work? Are they fair? Are they over-used? Nature investigated this key higher education issue in a series of articles published in its June edition.
Assessing assessment
Transparency, education and communication are key to ensuring that appropriate metrics are used to measure individual scientific achievement.
Metrics: Do metrics matter?
Many researchers believe that quantitative metrics determine who gets hired and who gets promoted at their institutions. With an exclusive poll and interviews, Nature probes to what extent metrics are really used that way.
Metrics: A profusion of measures
Scientific performance indicators are proliferating, leading researchers to ask afresh what they are measuring and why. Richard Van Noorden surveys the rapidly evolving ecosystem.
Science economics: What science is really worth
Spending on science is one of the best ways to generate jobs and economic growth, say research advocates. But as Colin Macilwain reports, the evidence behind such claims is patchy.
How to improve the use of metrics
Since the invention of the science citation index in the 1960s, quantitative measuring of the performance of researchers has become ever more prevalent, controversial and influential. Six commentators tell Nature what changes might ensure that individuals are assessed more fairly.
Let's make science metrics more scientific
To capture the essence of good science, stakeholders must combine forces to create an open, sound and consistent system for measuring all the activities that make up academic productivity, says Julia Lane.
Source: University World News, Issue No: 0131, 04 July 2010