Two major developments in the financial management of higher education have occurred more or less contemporaneously: incentive or performance funding on the part of government and incentive-based budgeting on the part of institutions. Both are based on fiscal incentives. Despite their several inherent and interconnected similarities, incentive funding and incentive-based budgeting have been viewed and appraised on parallel tracks. This study investigates their convergence. In doing so, it sharpens the definitions of both, identifies their respective track records, and discusses problems that are chronic to both. The study concludes that although incentive funding and incentive-based budgeting are sometimes at cross-purposes, they are func-tionally interconnected. The study uses Canada as an example because it is the jurisdiction that so far has seen the most extensive mutual deployment of performance funding and incentive-based budgeting.
According to the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), immigrants accounted for 21% of Canada’s overall population, and among those who immigrated to Canada between 2001 and 2011, 41% held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Yet immigrants are less likely than the Canadian-born to be employed, and those who are employed are more likely to be overqualified relative to their occupation. They are also less likely to be working in an occupation that matches their field of study. The degree to which immigrants experience these disadvantages varies according to how long they have been living in Canada, with more established immigrants (those who have lived in Canada 10 years or more) showing higher employment rates and education-to-occupation match rates than immigrants who have not been in Canada as long.
At least five Canadian universities have hired sexual violence prevention coordinators in the last two years, with
more to come.
Addressing sexual violence on campus has become a full-time job at several Canadian universities. Since 2015, at least five universities have created and filled jobs with a title such as sexual violence prevention and education coordinator, and three or more institutions have started the hiring process for this role.
The recent decision by the University of California, Berkeley, to restrict public access to free online educational content has raised questions about whether other colleges and universities will do the same to avoid legal action.
The university this month announced it will remove audio and video lectures currently available to the public on platforms such as iTunes U and YouTube. Berkeley said it reached that decision after determining that retroactively making the content accessible to people with disabilities would be “extremely expensive.”
Berkeley has pledged to create new publicly available content that conforms to web accessibility standards, but restocking its online libraries will take a long time -- its decision to remove content encompasses tens of thousands of publications. The university’s YouTube channel, for example, includes 9,897 videos.
The consolidation of the scientific publishing industry has been the topic of much debate
within and outside the scientific community, especially in relation to major publishers’ high
profit margins. However, the share of scientific output published in the journals of these
major publishers, as well as its evolution over time and across various disciplines, has not
yet been analyzed. This paper provides such analysis, based on 45 million documents indexed
in the Web of Science over the period 1973-2013. It shows that in both natural and
medical sciences (NMS) and social sciences and humanities (SSH), Reed-Elsevier, Wiley-
Blackwell, Springer, and Taylor & Francis increased their share of the published output, especially
since the advent of the digital era (mid-1990s). Combined, the top five most prolific publishers account for more than 50% of all papers published in 2013. Disciplines of the social sciences have the highest level of concentration (70% of papers from the top five publishers),while the humanities have remained relatively independent (20% from top five publishers). NMS disciplines are in between, mainly because of the strength of their scientific societies, such as the ACS in chemistry or APS in physics. The paper also examines the migration of journals between small and big publishing houses and explores the effect of publisher change on citation impact. It concludes with a discussion on the economics of
scholarly publishing.
Recently we posted a brief research finding from Stanford math professor Jo Boaler: “Timed math tests can
discourage students, leading to math anxiety and a long-term fear of the subject.” That terse conclusion, from a
2014 article in Teaching Children Mathematics, provoked a torrent of passionate comments as educators and former
students weighed in on the merits of timed testing.
The debate split the audience in half. One side argued that timed testing was valuable because there are real
deadlines in life and careers—and real consequences to missing them. Others felt that timed testing causes a kind
of paralysis in children, throwing a wrench into students’ cognitive machinery and hindering deeper learning. What’s
the point of timed testing, the latter group argued, if the results are as much a measure of fear as aptitude?
On Saturday, April 1, I attended a conference at the University of Toronto for Black university students aspiring to become medical doctors. Student panelists shared their stories of being either the only or one of very few Black students in their classes at the university's medical school. What struck me was that in a city and country as diverse Toronto and Canada, there are not more Black medical students. Throughout the day it was evident how the
representation of Black students at university reflected the poor outcomes for Black students in the education system throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Statistics Canada is moving to reinstate its Full Time-University and College Academic Staff System survey, and to include information on part-timers.
The data it will reveal is bound to shed much-needed light on a growing challenge that is already well-recognized but far too infrequently discussed in academia: the recent surge in numbers of underemployed PhD graduates at Canada’s universities.
Institutions have made their best efforts to encourage graduates to think beyond university jobs, and have directed more toward careers in government and the private sector. Yet serious challenges within the system remain — for recent PhDs themselves, for the renewal of the academy, and for Canada’s future research potential.
This work explores and addresses the programmatic support of doctoral student socialization via
social media.
The Commission for the Future of Graduate Education, the Council of Graduate Schools, and the Educational Testing Service have deemed the study of historically marginalized students as being critical to address vulnerabilities with our approach to supporting these learners and strengthening our national capacity for innovation (Council of Graduate Schools and Educational
Testing Service 2010; Sowell, Allum, & Okahana, 2015). There are many milestones to celebrate regarding the experiences of marginalized students including the increase of racial and cultural diversity among doctoral students and degree completers, and the various programmatic efforts supporting them. Remarkably, the Survey of Earned Doctorates reports that African American doctoral degree attainment has increased 70% between 1993 and 2013 (National Science Foundation, 2015).
However, there is a paucity of literature qualitatively evaluating these students’ experiences as well as ways to engage
programmatic efforts to critically manage the doctoral process. Empirical evidence-based strategies are needed to examine marginalized doctoral student perceptions of their engagement with these programs as well as their usefulness in supporting degree attainment nationally. This commentary aims to identify and explore programmatic efforts supporting the socialization of historically marginalized students with an s the marginalized doctoral fluenced by social movements and the issues being addressed within the context of social media. s the marginalized doctor fluenced by social movements and the issues being addressed within the context of social media.
Algonquin College teachers call for closure of Saudi Arabia campus.
Ontario universities are integral to the health and social development of the province, says a new report that positions postsecondary institutions as an important element in the upcoming provincial election.
Governments, employers and universities must partner to ensure the province has a strong talent and research pipeline, says the report that is being released Tuesday morning. It commits postsecondary institutions to working more closely with employers and asks the province for sustained funding to ensure small and medium-sized companies can offer experiential training.
Universities are getting mixed grades when it comes to how they deal with sexual violence on campus, according to
the members of Our Turn, a student group that's analyzed more than a dozen provincially mandated sexual assault
policies across the country.
Many people question the need for special scholarships and bursaries specifically targeted at certain demographic roups, but the need for these scholarships goes beyond levelling the playing field for all students. The costs of iscrimination are not just shouldered by those on the receiving end; discrimination imposes costs to us all when it prevents some of our most productive members from playing an active role in society.
At least one university has explicitly restricted students’ use of editors for their assignments.
Over the last several years, staff members at the Centre for Academic Communication at the University of Victoria
reported to administrators some curious conversations taking place around editing. The centre offers free services
to students to assist them with reading comprehension and writing, but staff members are instructed not to correct
students’ work, only pose questions. Students, however, had different expectations and complained when centre
staff wouldn’t “fix up” their papers.
Professors, too, misunderstood the role of the centre; some sent students there because they wanted staff to
improve their students’ work. What’s more, the centre received calls from parents asking how much editing they
could do on their children’s papers without it being considered cheating.
Well-written course outcomes and lesson objectives are the critical foundation of a successful course. Course outcomes and lesson objectives are essential from a standards alignment standpoint, as well as for an overall quality measure of the course.
A learning outcome is a formal statement of what students are expected to learn. Learning outcome statements refer to specific knowledge, practical skills, areas of professional development, attitudes, higher-order thinking skills, etc. that faculty members expect students to develop, learn, or master during a course (Suskie, 2004). Learning outcomes are also often referred to as “expected learning outcomes”, “student learning outcomes”, or “learning outcome statements”.
Students' performance in online learniong environments is associated with their readiness to adopt a digital learning approach. Traditional concept of readiness for online learning is connected with students' competencies of using technology for learning purposes. We in this research, however, investigated psychometric aspects of students' preparedness for online learning.
It’s hard to believe that we have less than a month left until September. The beginning of the month of August marks the acceptable time to get ready for back to school. For many this may simply involve picking up some pencils, notebooks, a new backpack, and possibly some fresh new kicks.
However, for those joining the 447,000 Ontarian undergrads, this checklist goes way beyond object necessities. Being a fifth year student, I pretty much got the drill locked down when preparing for the upcoming year. Look over my class schedule and plan accordingly, check in on my finances and budget for the upcoming year, and finally list out methods in which I plan to upkeep my personal wellness. At this point, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert in fulfilling each step, but it is nice to be moving towards a general direction. This definitely was not the case in my first year.
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) recognizes that all members of the University community should be able to work, tach, and learn in an environment where they are free from harassment, discrimination, and violence. Sexual activity without consent is sexual assault. Sexual assault is a criminal offence in Canada.
On university campuses across Ontario, students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, trans, two-spirit, non-binary, questioning, or who otherwise identify as Queer (LGBTQ+) face varying levels of discrimination, harassment, and exclusion. Without pathologizing being LGBTQ+, it is important to recognize the increased mental and physical health concerns associated with the marginalization these students routinely face.
Mount Royal University (MRU) has a long-standing history of student-centered leadership and learning. We are known to be an institution that cares about the success and the health of our students, and we have strong services that support mental health promotion and respond well to mental health issues and concerns. In addition to excellent service providers, MRU has many positive practices and policies in place to support students. Recent trends suggest that the prevalence of mental health issues is on the rise among young adults. More students are entering into university with pre-existing mental health conditions, more are seeking help, and often issues are complex and multifaceted. Given that rates of mental illness are on the rise, and given that our student population has reported stress levels higher than other students at post-secondary institutions in North American, a review of our student mental health practices and procedures was warranted.