Total disclosure a sign of the academy's time-and-motion sickness
Thomas Docherty examines the transparency culture, its political uses and the dangerous implications for scholarly freedom
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What are you reading?
A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers
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Off Piste: Dream date with Carrie's Big (Apple)
When Joanna Lewis finally got to meet the city she had watched for years on the screen, she found that, like many long-anticipated rendezvous, it did not all go to plan
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Leader: Shared scholarly passions
Who'd marry a single-minded, career-focused academic? Other academics, it seems. But such a relationship can have downsides
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From where I sit - Measuring the unmeasurable
Assessment and impact: these are the new watchwords in higher education. We have assessment indicators in the social sciences, the physical sciences and our business and law schools, which ask: "What...
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William Birch, 1925-2009
William Birch, a leading geographer who had a decisive impact on the development of Bristol Polytechnic, has died.He was born on 24 November 1925 and educated at Ranelagh School in Berkshire,...
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'Impact' assessment must look at learning 1
Your recent news story on the research excellence framework quotes Graeme Rosenberg, REF project manager at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, saying that the proportion of the REF...
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'Impact' assessment must look at learning 2
You report that the importance of academic research may be judged in part by its impact on the wider world. Do I sense Max Clifford's entry into the academy, with the first scholar to get their work...
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Duty to contract lecturers
I was moved to read that four London institutions have agreed to pay their cleaners and caterers more than the minimum wage ("Group reminds institutions of duty to help lowest paid", 23 July). I hope...
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Creativity is a must
While welcoming 10,000 additional university places, the decision to restrict them to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects alone ignores the coterminous nature of arts and...
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Learn to stand alone
Kevin Sharpe hits the nail on the head ("Teach them how to think", 16 July). Broadly speaking, pupils have learnt to be taught, whereas students are learning to learn, to study under guidance. They...
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Moved on from Mao
As your correction makes clear, Mao Zedong died in 1979, not 1976 ("From where I sit", 9 July). It is a rather comforting reflection of how much China has changed that your correspondent, Hong Bing,...
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By George, take that
Workers facing redundancy at City University London might reply to Malcolm Gillies, their Summertime-quoting ex-vice-chancellor, with other Gershwin lyrics ("Summertime, but living's not easy for...
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Classics mistakes
Three observations on your list of "Highly cited papers in classical studies since 2000" (Research, 23 July). First, the ten papers attracted on average 1.5 citations a year. Such small numbers are...
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Video kills the jet-set star
I noted with interest the letter from Bruce Lloyd suggesting that universities should invest in video-conferencing equipment to slash the environmental impact of staff air travel ("Keep them grounded...