“One-third of UK universities and colleges are awarding firsts to at least 25% of their students, four times as many as five years ago, figures show.”

Surprised this figure is not an input into the TEF……..

• Number of UK degree students receiving firsts soars | Education | The Guardian

Hours later, with Blackburn’s approval, the institute issued comments on the scientific records of the two women. It had “invested millions of dollars” in each scientist, Salk stated, but a “rigorous analysis” showed each “consistently ranking below her peers in producing high quality research and attracting” grants. Neither has published in Cell, Nature, or Science in the last 10 years, it said. Lundblad’s salary “is well above the median for Salk full professors ($250,000) … yet her performance has long remained within the bottom quartile of her peers.” The institute wrote that Jones’s salary, in the low $200,000 range, “aligns” with salaries at top universities, although she “has long remained within the bottom quartile of her peers.”

This is from an article in Science (Gender discrimination lawsuit at Salk ignites controversy). The context is a sex discrimination case, but the account is about an astonishing lack of vision. Short termism of stock markets is not the only way value is being destroyed by a cash-in-hand mentality. The best rugby coaches have rarely been the greatest players. Nobel laureates may not be the best leaders. No (bull) shit here…

So, it is reported that the UK has the best health system in the developed world (according to the Commonwealth Fund). But when you read a little more, the UK comes third (of 11) on access, and 10th (of 11) on healthcare outcomes (mortality and morbidity). The UK also has the second highest rate of deaths amenable to healthcare after the US (Switzerland is lowest). The latter is no surprise if you know anything about Swiss healthcare or hospitals across Europe. Their doctors don’t look so scruffy as the UK ones, either. I guess you can make your composite measures in many ways, but I know what I would choose. (22 July 2017, BMJ 2017;358:j3442)

This year the University of Edinburgh plans to become one of the first big European universities to launch a blockchain course. Aggelos Kiayias, chair in cyber security and privacy and director of the blockchain technology laboratory at the university, says: “Blockchain technology is a recent development and there is always a bit of a lag as academia catches up.”

What interests me is how we think about all the things that universities do first. And why and how we lose that advantage for our students.

Universities add blockchain to course list

This (via the Intercept) is from the US, but….

”IN MAY, A MELBOURNE-BASED real estate mogul’s claim that millennials would be able to afford homes if only they cut back on discretionary expenses such as avocado toast went viral — with many heaping mockery on the suggestion. Now the Federal Reserve has its own hot take to throw on the pile. Except this one is based on empirical research. In a paper published last week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, five researchers offered an explanation for declining home ownership rates among millennials that does not require avocado toast. Looking at nine student cohorts, they concluded that the increase in public tuition and resulting student debt can account for anywhere between 11 and 35 percent of the decline in home ownership for 28- to 30-year-olds in the years between 2007 and 2015.”

• It’s Not the Avocado Toast: Federal Reserve Finds Student Debt Reducing Millennial Home Ownership

My mother in law has two ‘Italian’ cats. One has worms, the other apparently not. Medication time. The diseased cat refuses the medication, whatever enticements are on offer. The undiseased (or cat at ease) scoffs not only his own medication, but that of his partner.

There are plenty of cats in South Wales, and I doubt that coal dust kills off the worms. Julian (Tudor-Hart), where did the idea come from? [ Yes, before you write in, not quite the inverse care as JTH meant it, but metaphors are the viruses of novelty, so who knows.]

I am hard at work on a new version of skincancer909, so odd breaks from blogging will occur, as my deadline is fast approaching. Instead, a few images, to assuage my guilt, will follow. It won’t compare with the quality of the masters (below), but the technology allows some of us to stand high on their shoulders.

 

 

Smita Jamdar writing on Wonke about what the OfS changes will mean for universities.

Ever more intrusive and interventionist regulation – all regulators start with a desire to be risk-based and light touch, but it only takes one or two regulatory failures (either a rogue provider, or indeed a sector-wide failure to deliver a desired outcome) and the gloves come off.

These are not features that have typified the approach to the quasi-regulation we have had in the sector to date and, if implemented, they have the potential to change the culture of universities quite substantially, not least because they will focus so strongly on teaching, rather than research. They may (perhaps almost inevitably, will) push universities towards a more centralised, command and control model of management than many have adopted to date.

Those who run many UK Universities have almost willingly embraced the darker side of corporatisation. Many students will — reasonably in my opinion — think it is payback time.

Via Bruce Schneier:

The trouble began last year when he noticed strange things happening: files went missing from his computer; his Facebook picture was changed; and texts from his daughter didn’t reach him or arrived changed. “Nobody believed me,” says Gary. “My wife and my brother thought I had lost my mind. They scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist for me.”

But he built up a body of evidence and called in a professional cybersecurity firm. It found that his email addresses had been compromised, his phone records hacked and altered, and an entire virtual internet interface created. “All my communications were going through a man-in-the-middle unauthorised server,” he explains.