“There have been a number of thoughtful stories and opinion pieces on scientific fraud recently. There was Brian Deer in the Sunday Times of London last month …” (more)
[Ivan Oransky, Retraction Watch, 17 September]
“Linguistic inconsistencies in translating and spelling out the names of Iranian universities in international publications may be lowering the positioning of the country’s universities in global ranking systems, according to a study …” (more)
[Rasha Dewedar, SciDev.Net, 17 September]
“This Saturday, the newly formed Irish Research Council will be holding a symposium for PhD and post-doctoral researchers at the career event Career Zoo in Dublin …” (more)
[Carmel Doyle, Silicon Republic, 17 September]
“Having spent some time exploring new ways of using innovative technologies to deliver better access to education, I have spent some time working on a website that might be of some assistance to Irish second-level and third-level students …” (more)
[James McInerney, 17 September]
“President Michael D Higgins is to meet with representatives from the Union of Students in Ireland and its member Students’ Unions tomorrow in Áras an Uachtaráin at 4.30pm. The meeting is intended to give student representatives a chance to discuss the President’s Being Young and Irish 2012 initiative …” (more)
[Union of Students in Ireland, 17 September]
“The GCSE exam in England is going to be replaced by a qualification called the English Baccalaureate Certificate …” (more, video)
[BBC News, 17 September]
“Oxford University Press (OUP) is pleased to announce that Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP) has been identified for participation in SCOAP³ (Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics), a new collaborative initiative for open access (OA) publishing in high-energy physics …” (more)
[Oxford University Press, 17 September]
“I doubt the ‘cheating scandal’ at Harvard – in which about 125 students were rounded up for allegedly sharing answers to an open-book take-home exam – will teach us much about the grand moral themes raised in several recent commentaries …” (more)
[Harry Lewis, Huffington Post, 17 September]
“Changes in how universities and research are funded has meant that there are fewer permanent, full-time posts available. In addition to the reduction in the number of posts, the perceived value of having a career in higher education has changed over the last 30 years …” (more)
[Claire Arnold, Guardian Professional, 17 September]
“Fine Gael Dun Laoghaire Deputy, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, has today (Sunday) questioned the fairness of the HPAT (health professionals’ admission test), saying it has become a revenue generator for online coaching courses and is further skewing the points system …” (more)
[Sarah Meade, Fine Gael, 17 September]
“One of the reasons science librarians prefer subscription-based databases (ie SciFinder or Web of Science) or those offered as a service of the government (ie PubMed) is the nonstandard behavior of Google Scholar when compared to those resources …” (more)
[Michelle C Hamilton and others, Impact of Social Sciences, 17 September]
“When news spread last week about a Colorado State University job ad for an assistant professor of English that specifically asked for candidates who earned their PhDs in 2010 or after, many academics felt that this was discrimination against those who have been on the market for several years …” (more)
[Kaustuv Basu, Times Higher Education, 17 September]
“Britain’s first private dental school will open next September. The school, which will take 100 students a year on a five-year course costing £180,000, is expected to be the forerunner of many more private institutions offering specialist degree courses …” (more)
[Richard Garner, Independent, 17 September]
“There are plenty of reasons to worry about whether scientists exaggerate their results, including direct evidence and indirect evidence that they do (suspiciously lumped p-values and problems with reproducibility) …” (more)
[Kent Anderson, The Scholarly Kitchen, 17 September]
“Sir, – While I agree with the authors of the article on project maths (Opinion, September 10th), that a knowledge of calculus, vectors and matrices and sequences and series is essential for students entering third-level science and engineering courses …” (more)
[Sara McMurry, Irish Times, 17 September]
“Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told his ministers to squeeze the Croke Park deal by finding more savings from the public sector sick pay bill and voluntary redundancies …” (more)
[Michael Brennan, Independent, 17 September]
“… Dr Rolf Landua, head of education and public outreach at the nuclear research centre CERN, on the French-Swiss border, said science needed to become a ‘more fun subject’ in schools in order to get teenagers interested …” (more)
[John Fallon, Irish Times, 17 September]
“Traditional universities allow students too much time to sleep or go to the pub, AC Grayling has said …” (more)
[Donna Bowater, Daily Telegraph, 17 September]
“Sir, – It is regrettable that much of the discourse on the public service (Croke Park) agreement is poorly informed and that some within the commentariat seem intent on keeping it so …” (more)
[Gerard Craughwell, Irish Times, 17 September]
“More than two thirds of Britons want to see a limit imposed on the number of foreign students coming to the country, a survey has found. Study is the most common reason for people coming to the UK for more than a year …” (more)
[Belfast Telegraph, 17 September]
