A checkup call from the top

Valuable student support measure or a bit of a gesture? In addition to spending what must be a huge amount over the past few months on advertising in the trade press, Boston University has undertaken another big investment, according to The Boston Globe, checking up on new students: With new students wrapping up their first …

Naming internationalisation “will not revive it”

Is internationalisation in need of revival? Hans de Wit, who is a professor of internationalisation of higher education, has published a really interesting piece on University World News on why "naming internationalisation will not revive it". A recent phenomenon in the debate on the future of the internationalisation of higher education is the inclination to …

Tilburg University Economics Ranking

Another University Ranking You Didn't Know You Needed Bit of a one for the anoraks this, and certainly one of which I was, until very recently, unaware. It is, as the title suggests, a ranking of Economics departments, namely the Tilburg University Economics Ranking. It's a pretty straightforward methodology too - they have identified a …

Advice for prospective students – quantity and quality

High quality advice and guidance is key for delivering access An interesting piece by Tessa Stone in the Times Higher Education on the importance of clear, impartial and high quality advice for potential university students. I'd agree with a lot of what Tessa says: So, the schools that already do this well will continue to …

Nottingham Advantage

Impact Campaign: Nottingham Advantage Another update on the Impact Campaign which has launched this week at the University of Nottingham. This theme, Nottingham Advantage, is one which I think is particularly important. On this site you can see a nice video, fronted by Vicky Mann who heads up the Nottingham Advantage Award, all about how …

Impact : Academic Excellence

The Impact Campaign at the University of Nottingham - Delivering Academic Excellence   A previous post reported on the launch of the Impact Campaign. Now we're into a bit more of the detail about why the campaign is important and how our academic excellence has been constantly enriched by philanthropy. Part of Impact: The Nottingham …

Launch of the Impact Campaign at the University of Nottingham

The Impact Campaign launches today at the University     A rather different focus here on the blog for the next few days. The University of Nottingham is launching a significant and important campaign today: About the campaign: By helping us to raise £150 million over the next five years you will be supporting a …

The Three World University League Tables of 2011/12

World University League Tables 2011/12 An earlier post provided links to all of the recently published UK league tables. Now, following the publication of the THE world university rankings, we can put the three world league tables together, and in particular the UK placings, in a handy reference guide. Here they all are: The Times …

Engineers in charge?

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a piece on an interesting development at Georgia Tech. The argument here is that we should deploy the skills of the engineer in running our universities in order to properly to address the problems we face: So what if engineers tackled those problems using their reasoning skills and tested …

How to create a world-class university

Is there really a recipe for creating a world-class university? University World News carries a piece on what looks like a fascinating new publication from the World Bank on the making of world class universities. The report looks at a number of case studies, particularly from East Asia, and draws out several common characteristics of …

The Branch Campus Bubble?

Do branch campuses have a future? A thoughtful piece by Philip Altbach this for Inside Higher Ed on the sustainability or otherwise of branch campuses. An earlier post on this topic covered similar ground with both pieces asking questions about how many such ventures would ultimately succeed. Branch campuses seem to be the flavor of …

True Crime on Campus §15: Freshen up!

For the new arrivals The start of the new session and the arrival of thousands of eager freshers brings with it additional challenges for our ever-responsive and capable Security Team. All of the following are freshly reported incidents from the first week or so of the new academic year here at Nottingham. Let's hope things …

THE World University Rankings 2012


The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are out The last rankings of the season are now available from THE. Not yet done a comparison with last year but the top 20 looks like this: 1 California Institute of Technology
 =2 Harvard University
 =2 Stanford University 
4 University of Oxford 
5 Princeton University
 6 University …

Cheating: Only a Click Away

Another plagiarism concern Previous posts here have covered related matters including online plagiarism, plagiarism in admissions essays and a video attempting to advise students on plagiarism. A recent piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at students cheating through the use of clickers. Kevin D. Livingston, an associate professor of biology at Trinity University, …

True Crime: the US campus edition

Another True Crime on Campus USA It's a bit like those US versions of top rated UK reality TV shows. Except it obviously isn't. And they did it first. However, as a cursory examination of some of the highlights from this edition (featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education) will show, the UK version is …