Nothing particularly interesting

Over the years I have had many different managers.  Some I have thought to be good, some bad - and some downright awful.  At UEL we have just appointed a new VC - and it will be interesting to see what happens - but one of the debates that always seems to emerge when new managers are appointed, is whether an educational manager need to be an experienced educator? Of course they should, one argument goes.  Anyone put in the position of deciding policies and practices within an educational institution needs to understand the roles, demands and challenges of those doing the actual job.  How can an educational manager have any clear understanding of the stakeholders in their business, if they have never been exposed directly to those stakeholders? Don't be ridiculous , says the other side, surely a good manager is one who knows how to find the right information to make the most effective decisions relating to those stakeholders?  A manager with no teaching...

Picture by Michael Coghlan: https://flic.kr/p/dtgg4h There's a wrapper in my pocket. It's from a chocolate bar I got a long, long time ago, From a local Spar. I ate it in a country park, Sitting by a tree, Soaking in the morning Sun: The sounds of birds and bees. It's Winter now. I'm back at work. And many months have gone Since that blissful country park, And that warm Summer Sun. I really should throw away This wrapper in my pocket. Although it brings fond memories, My pocket's gone all mockett.

Satire on corporate monopolies in 19th-century America, targeting a railway owner who once famously said "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." At my University we are currently discussing how to provide support for software that can help students and staff manage their references and sources.  There are of course many different options available on the market - some free, and some not.  During discussions I have made no secret of my preference for Zotero - which I believe offers the most intuitive and comprehensive functionality.  To this end, I have done some showcases of Zotero for various academics - which appear to illicit one of three responses from them: Oh, brave new world that has such software in it!  I had no idea - and I want it now! We already use it.  Have been for years.  So why are you telling us about it now? But don't we already have Mendeley in our official software catalogue? I fully expected ...

The other week I blogged about the myth that Moodle looks rubbish compared to for-profit VLE systems .  Along a similar vein, I have begun to wonder just how many people using Moodle realise the power they have right at the end of their typing digits?

It's TEF day .  A day that few people have really been looking forward to, mainly because there are unlikely to be many winner - but there sure as hell will be a lot of losers. When the whole TEF idea was announced, there were many aspects of it that I wholeheartedly supported.  The idea that Universities should be at least as concerned about their teaching quality as their research output was something that I cheered along with merrily.  Very quickly though, the whole plan became infected with compromises designed to over-simply a complex process by relying on just the data that already exists - rather than data actually designed to measure the very thing you are interested in. So. In just the same way that Ofsted can downgrade a school where pupils have a less than 100% attendance (thereby penalising schools that accept sick children), the TEF measures teaching excellence on the basis of: Dropout rates (penalising Universities committed to widening particip...

People working in low-paid jobs want more than just a pay rise from a degree The release of the Longitudinal Earnings Outcomes (LEO) always tends to cause groans and head-scratching among some academics.  The picture presented is a familiar one: Graduates who go for degrees in Business or Economics are more likely to earn bucket-loads, while those who go for Sociology will be - quite assuredly - not.  Those who teach courses on the lower-paid half of the scale suddenly begin to fear their courses will be closed down as a consequence. The problem is that when data like this is reported, it encourages us to think that salaries are more important to students than things like job security or job satisfaction - and this idea, I fear, is misleading.

It was interesting, but not entirely surprising to read Phil Hill's blog on e-Literate suggesting a dramatic slow-down in the take-up of Moodle in HE Institutions.  Not surprising because there seems to be a myth about Moodle that has always flickered in dark corners and is fanned into flame by for-profit LMS providers at the nearest opportunity. This myth is that Moodle looks rubbish. Other LMS providers set up a course content page filled with as many html5 gadgets as they can imagine, and compare it to the most basic topic-format Moodle page.  "There we are!" they declare, "Look how rubbish Moodle looks compared to our system!  And in the modern world where students are using tablets and mobile phones more and more, isn't it important that your University LMS looks smart and contemporary?" And so Universities look at these other LMS systems and think: 'Ooo, it has this, or it has that!  Our Moodle doesn't have them!'  Which in turn ...