Leader: Brown must get in on the Act
After all the histrionics of last winter and spring, the Higher Education Bill became an Act with barely a whimper. Even the Lords' rebellions produced only a gap year concession that will cost the...
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Leader: New stars for old
The brain drain is a perennial concern of politicians and university leaders, but it is never as simple as the headlines make out. The academic labour market has become so international that no...
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Fiddling while education burns 1
There is an interesting juxtaposition in Kieron O'Hara's "Conflict overrules consensus" and Alan Smithers' "Set free to do the job" (Soapbox, June 25). Both argue that outside pressures are harming...
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Fiddling while education burns 2
There is a certain ironic symmetry in Smithers' complaint that university education departments are being forced to act as if they are doing research in physics. Our new academic staff are made to...
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Fiddling while education burns 3
We have just survived exam time again. Lecturers waded through mountains of scripts, wielding their red pens in despair or, occasionally, delight. But, for them, grading exams and assignments is no...
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Mobile risk - return call 1
In your article "Review by peers 'good for science''' (News, June 25), the following appears: "In 1998, self-employed researcher Roger Coghill released research straight to the media saying that the...
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Mobile risk - return call 2
Many of your readers will have an old mobile phone or printer cartridge tucked away in a drawer at home or at work. These unwanted items can benefit cancer research. Old mobiles and printer...
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Lapse in space
The Declaration of Helsinki says that "it is unethical to conduct research which is badly planned and poorly executed". Where scientific project management is concerned, and as shown by Richard...
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A losing politics
Karen Gold and David Bell get too bogged down in whether nationalism is a deep structural or a modern-day phenomenon (Features, June 25). They underplay its role as a political project, its success...
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Teaching takes time
Plagiarism is commonly combated by using different assessment methods. My department, for instance, combines examinations with assessment of coursework exercises and oral presentations and the use of...
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Cutting comments
I am amazed at the stupidity of anti-vivisectionists, exemplified by Marlene Thomson's letter (July 2). How does she think so much progress has been made in medical science in the past century -...
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Servicing the 'Shits'
After long being annoyed at being regarded as a "human resource" by our former personnel office, I now find that our university library has a director of customer services and that, at last, I have...
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Prize possession
None of the judges for your Humanities and Social Sciences Writing prize is a social scientist. Perhaps it's all about good writing: "Now in it's (sic) third year, (it) aims to encourage writers of...
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Extremists are winning war of words
If academics who are engaged in controversial research want to combat intimidation from fanatics, they need to get the public on their side, writes Anna Fazackerley. Getting into the office in the...
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Why an ideology received its marching orders...
'Fascist!' may survive as a term of abuse, but current neo-Nazi and clerical thuggery cannot disguise the fact that fascism is dead, says Michael Mann. In the early 20th century, fascism dominated...