A senior HE director today: ‘in future HE will be technology and process-led, not academic-led’. So what, exactly, is the point of universities beyond them being a cash machine for senior managers?
Kane Murdoch
@ccguerilla.bsky.social
Higher ed misconduct investigator/ consequence courier. Former professor of cunning at Oxford University Academic integrity "thinkey and talkey man." Otherwise, dog father, record spinner, urban hillbilly. Views my own. https://www.guerillawarfare.net/
a man is singing into a microphone while playing a guitar on stage .
ALT: a man is singing into a microphone while playing a guitar on stage .
media.tenor.com
Glendos Fen@glennmuir.bsky.social · 5mo agoColleges have adopted the mentality of characters like George Murchison in A Raisin in the Sun: "You read books—to learn facts—to get grades—to pass the course—to get a degree. That's all—it has nothing to do with thoughts". You devalue education, you get people coming in acting like it's nothing.
It seems to me that the foundational 'wrong turn' in education was the increasing rhetoric from universities themselves and their supporters that the primary value of a university education was increased earning power. That leads pretty directly to this place we're in now.
Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 5mo agowhat even is the fucking point
I'm very publicly against the use of ai detectors, but I might suggest that most of the stress here is because students are using AI to complete assessments, en masse, let's be real. It's the same stress with exams- "I've done nothing and I'm all put of ideas." Save me the Helen Lovejoy schtick
Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · 5mo agoMajor UK survey finds fear of being flagged by AI detectors drives stress among students https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/fear-being-flagged-ai-detectors-drives-stress-among-students
"large language models such as ChatGPT were consistently advising women to ask for lower salaries than men in recruitment processes,... AI tools already in use by more than half of England’s councils were downplaying women’s medical conditions, potentially resulting in unequal care"
How tech turned against women
As AI-generated sexualised images proliferate and app-facilitated abuse spreads, we are sleepwalking into a new age of gender inequality. It is time to regulate properly
ft.com
This is a new phenomenon and business model exploiting gaps in publishing. The cartel uses fake names to produce AI-written or plagiarised papers. Reference lists contain 100s of paid entries.If papers are retracted, no real authors are punished, and citations still count, even from retracted papers
Dalmeet Singh Chawla@dalmeet.bsky.social · 6mo agoCitation cartels are now using journal waivers and fake author names to target reputed chemistry journals — my latest for @cenmag.bsky.social: cen.acs.org/research-int... @abalkina.bsky.social, @smutclyde.bsky.social, @mumumouse2.bsky.social
She destroyed Adelaide Writers’ Week by, let’s see, oh yes, being invited
History teaches us that the greatest harms often begin with the quiet acceptance of the unacceptable. I have seen where that road leads, and I will not walk it again without resistance.
At least in Australia the main reason teaching is up a certain creek is because it has been used as a cash cow for research. No amount of "research" (*cough learning styles cough*) is going to change that.
a man in a suit and tie is screaming in front of a framed picture of a house
ALT: a man in a suit and tie is screaming in front of a framed picture of a house
media.tenor.com
Wonkhe@wonkhe.bsky.social · 6mo agoNEW on Wonkhe: How can we expect high-quality teaching if we don't fund the research that makes it possible? Nic Labrosse and Alison Voice make the case for evidence-informed teaching buff.ly/djYyDsg
Advertise your account with a gif
a cartoon of a man holding a laptop next to a baby in a diaper that says " pray for mojo "
ALT: a cartoon of a man holding a laptop next to a baby in a diaper that says " pray for mojo "
media.tenor.com
Dr Mark | 北马克 |🍉🇦🇺🇲🇾🇹🇭@ajaanmark.bsky.social · 6mo agoAdvertise your account with a gif
Risk of fraud in HE admissions ‘not evenly distributed’, with those pushing fake certificates and embellished grades finding new ways to mask wrongdoing. Tom Williams reports https://ow.ly/5aje50Yf3X0
Another story where you realise that absolutely no one has any idea how to deal with all the AI papers being cranked out. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
How AI slop is causing a crisis in computer science
Preprint repositories and conference organizers are having to counter a tide of ‘AI slop’ submissions.
nature.com
In academia this often (but not always) looks like assessment and learning outcome word soup where somehow discussion and analysis can be connected via some set of buzzwords to career readiness.
30+ Chrome extensions disguised as AI chatbots steal users' API keys, emails, other sensitive data
30+ Chrome extensions disguised as AI chatbots steal users' API keys, emails, other sensitive data
Are you a good bot or a bad bot? More than 30 malicious Chrome extensions installed by at least 260,000 users purport to be helpful AI assistants, but they steal users' API keys, email messages, and other personal data. Even worse: many of these are still available on the Chrome Web Store as of this writing.…
dlvr.it
a man with a beard is smiling and saying who would 've thought
ALT: a man with a beard is smiling and saying who would 've thought
media.tenor.com
Nathan Garland@n8sci.bsky.social · 6mo agoIronically enough there seems to be somewhat of a slight correlation between student satisfaction and poorer PSC scores! (Comparison to THE rank included also but not as interesting)
Australian Census on University Staff Wellbeing results are out. Every uni recorded scores indicating high/very high psych risk. And in news surprising no one, "only senior execs and deans rated their workplaces as medium or low risk while all other staff groups reported high-risk conditions."
The fact that 82% (of almost 11,500 respondents) ranked high or very high on emotional exhaustion is just awful. And that even after all the focus on wage payment issues in the sector: 71% still report working more than their contracted hours is deeply worrying
Can confirm this is the reality of working at a uni.
Dr Blair Williams@blairwilliams26.bsky.social · 6mo agoAustralian Census on University Staff Wellbeing results are out. Every uni recorded scores indicating high/very high psych risk. And in news surprising no one, "only senior execs and deans rated their workplaces as medium or low risk while all other staff groups reported high-risk conditions."
When I got the contract to write a history of concentration camps in 2014, I hoped to keep the US from ending up here. That didn't work out! But now it's critical to understand how much is already in process and the enormity of what's coming. The sooner we act to stop it, the more people we'll save.
Building the camps
The warehouseification of detention and initial thoughts on stopping it.
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
What would happen here is that company would offer a product specifically because students will pay for the unwatermarked version. I'm not sure if the Chronicle is naive, stupid, or actively aiding the worst actors in higher ed.
a woman in a red dress says yeah that would be dumb
ALT: a woman in a red dress says yeah that would be dumb
media.tenor.com
Chronicle of Higher Education@chronicle.com · 6mo agoWe must figure out a way to reliably detect LLM output and save our students from themselves. https://chroni.cl/4qo79sY
Stop Meeting Students Where They Are What I learned when I finally started assigning the hard reading again. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0... | @theatlantic.com
Stop Meeting Students Where They Are
What I learned when I finally started assigning the hard reading again.
theatlantic.com
A harrowing read, and would be even if only 10% of what students interviewed are saying in this article about AI and Australian universities is true. But this quote is the crux: if we replace the human brain with AI, what will we be doing? www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-aust...
