Ties that bind
BBC NEWS | Health | Doctor ties ‘to go in MRSA fight’
So all doctors are men, apparently?
Bloody Hell!
This is another of Owen Barder’s fantastic spoofs – trouble is, they are getting ever closer to reality. I think we are arriving at a point where the government will be beyond parody…
Trouble at t’Mill
BBC NEWS | Education | Academics vote for strike action
Well, it had to happen. Don’t you think Jocelyn Prudence is the perfect name for the employers’ negotiator?
Intute indeed…
Just had an email from the RDN – Resource Discovery Network – a name which means what it says. It’s a network by which you can discover resources. That isn’t good enough, though. Oh, no. They are going to change the name. So here’s the reasoning behind it:
The RDN has taken specialist advice and, with the approval of the JISC and the RDN Board of Management, has decided to relaunch the service with a new name. The RDN will become Intute and the Hubs will take the name of their new subject group. Whilst Intute is not an existing word or acronym we hope it will develop its own set of associations matching the service’s vision.
Humbul and Artifact will join together, led by Oxford in partnership with Manchester Metropolitan, to become Intute: Arts and Humanities.
As if the examples of Accenture, Consignia and the rest weren’t warning enough…
Cut ‘n’ paste
I’m currently dealing with a plagiarism case where a student has copied all of two pieces of work – and, rather cunningly, I thought, used books not easily available physically or as e-books, but ones which feature whole pages on Google book search and Amazon “Look inside”. The student can’t actually cut and paste, but has retyped the passages word for word. A couple of sections are cut and pasted from online articles. Not a word of the student’s assignments is original. Like every other institution, we have a policy on coursework that requires the student to sign a declaration that work submitted has not been plagiarised. So I’m not surprised by this item in today’s Nick Cohen column in the Observer:
How to succeed the cut and paste way
Each year, ever more illiterate and innumerate undergraduates go to university and demand to be spoon-fed answers, revealed the Times Higher Education Supplement last week.
The 250 admissions tutors, who confessed to their despair at standards in secondary schools, weren’t completely without hope. They thought their remedial courses might knock them into shape. I’m not so sure. According to the Plagiarism Advisory Service – and, yes, such an outlandishly named body exists – one quarter of students admit to cutting and pasting from the net. Universities have computer programmes to detect lifted work, but have to confront students who can’t see what’s wrong with plagiarism. Many got through school exams on the strength of course work parents and teachers ‘helped’ them complete. The concept of cheating is a novel one for them.
On top of that are the pressures on the university authorities to cheat themselves. Overseas students are a lucrative source of revenue and the manner in which universities guaranteed cash flow by giving dim foreigners degrees has been an open scandal for years. Lecturers are now facing similar pressure to reward British students unjustly because of New Labour’s demand for ‘inclusive’ higher education.
I asked Susan Bassnett, pro-vice-chancellor of Warwick University, if it was possible to go from nursery to university in this country without learning anything. She replied: ‘You can certainly get a 2:1 without demonstrating the capacity for independent thought and without acquiring basic skills.’ Foreign students are now abandoning Britain for countries with serious universities with worthwhile degrees. Perhaps, Bassnett added, the loss of their money will force our authorities to face the disaster they’ve created.
What’s really depressing is that a pro-VC of one of our most prestigious universities can admit that a 2:1 can be had without, essentially, doing anything like higher level study. I can confirm, though, that the concept of cheating does seem to be a novel one for many students. I’ve had to patiently explain in words of one syllable to several students this year that no, it is not OK to simply copy something and hand it in as your own work…
A Big Ask…
According to BBC Sport, “Wayne Rooney has agreed a five-book deal that will earn him at least £5m from publishers Harper Collins” It’s a lot to ask of the lad, but I’m sure with Coleen’s help, he’ll manage to read those five books in time to collect the money. I think they should make sure there are lots of pictures in them, though...
Simply yuk!
I always disliked Mick Hucknall. Something to do with the hair and the support for that Stretford team, I expect. Now the Observer’s profile of him confirms that, as I suspected all along, I was right. He says things like “I am one of the best singer-songwriters this country has produced. Ever. If people don’t like me saying that, tough shit. People should deal with facts. You can’t sell 50m albums without something.” Brilliant logic Mick. By the same token, Jeffrey Archer is one of the best writers ever and Jack Vettriano one of the best painters. The great joy of this piece, though, is the picture, for which you need the print edition. Old Mick in his late middle age looks uncannily like Charlie Drake. Well, it made me laugh…
It’s a Wrap
The Observer | Magazine | One family, one month, 50kg of packaging. Why?
This article illustrates the problem I mentioned some time ago – and it’s a problem that won’t go away until we make the manufacturers do something about it. I like the idea, mentioned in the article, of a co-ordinated dumping of packaging at a supermarket, but that is no more than a publicity stunt. It needs to be followed up by a campaign. It seems to me that the more people who join Friends of the Earth, or write to their MP, or go for weekly organic box schemes, or badger the supermarkets about their policies, the more likely it is that something will happen. Otherwise, we are just going to drown in this stuff.
PFI shambles
Allyson Pollock’s article doesn’t tell you much you didn’t already know, but it’s an impressively detailed demolition job on the government’s most shameless sell-out of a noble institution that was once the envy of the world.
Irony bypass…
BBC NEWS | Education | Students bemoan ‘unhip’ lecturers:
I don’t whether to laugh or cry at this item. I was particularly struck by the magisterial sweeping generalisation of
“They always look down on students, they always judge and have a lack of hygiene… most discussions in seminars revolve around the academic’s new book. In short, every aspect of their measly little lives irritates me.”
So, obviously, this student doesn’t “judge” then…