Web Exclusives

Are the Stars Aligned? Will Canada finally create an international education strategy?

  |  By Roopa Desai Trilokekar & Glen A. Jones

In its 2011 budget, the Government of Canada announced an allocation of $10 million over a two year period for the development and launching of Canada’s first international education strategy.  To achieve this goal, it struck an Advisory Panel of six experts who produced an extremely comprehensive, strategic, and expansive report in August 2012.  The report, entitled International Education: A Key Driver of Canada’s Future Prosperity, provides recommendations organized under five core themes: targets for success, policy coordination and …

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Final Observations of Canadian University Rankings: A Misadventure Now Over Two Decades Long

  |  By Stewart Page, Ph.D

In November, 2012, Maclean’s published its  21st annual rankings of Canadian universities. Indeed, the ranking of universities has become a popular exercise with which to assess and promote higher education in North America. The ranking approach is similar to that used by publications such as Consumer Reports, in which goods or services are assigned scores based on rational parameters, and then assigned relative rank standings. Rankings of universities continue to be advertised annually as required reading for prospective students …

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Thunderstorm 4/9/2011

Influencing Universities to Embrace Learning Outcomes: Why JOBS is a Dirty Four Letter Word

  |  By Steve Joordens

“Looming low and ominous, in twilight premature, thunderheads are rumbling in a distant overture” (Neil Peart, from the RUSH song Jacob’s Ladder). 

As a 16 year old New Brunswick boy listening to these words I always imagined impending chaos as the power of nature crept slowly upon an earth that refused to change in any but superficial ways.  Now, as a 46 year old professor returning from a conference focused on “Learning Outcomes” these lyrics again come to mind as …

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The Myth of the Academic Generation Gap: Comparing Junior and Senior Faculty in Canada’s Universities

  |  By Julian Weinrib and Glen Jones

It is commonly assumed that junior (pre-tenure) professors work much harder and have lower levels of job satisfaction than their more senior (tenured) peers.

A new study of Canadian university faculty, titled ‘Academic Work in Canada: the Perceptions of Early-Career Academics’ and published in Higher Education Quarterly (Jones, Weinrib, Metcalfe, Fisher, Rubens0n & Snee, 2012, volume 66, no. 2) concludes that not only is this assumption incorrect, but also that, despite the rhetoric that junior and senior academics are experiencing …

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Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller

Coursera, or Socrates was not a Content Provider: The University of Toronto and Coursera Agreement

  |  By Craig Butosi

The Globe and Mail reported recently that the University of Toronto was the latest signatory to an agreement with Coursera, a Web-based educational content provider aiming to “give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few”. Created by two Stanford computer scientists, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Coursera offers Internet users free access to academic material created by volunteer instructors from various public and Ivy League universities from the United …

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Zen and the Art of Metacognition: Quality-Based Discrimination, Peer Assessment & Technology

  |  By Steve Joordens, Dwayne Pare, Lisa-Marie Collimore & Tim Cheng

In 1974, Robert M. Pirsig wrote a book entitled “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, within which he provided a philosophical argument for the primacy of quality.  Quality is described as a metaphysical underpinning of , well, just about anything; an underpinning from which other characteristics can be derived.  I read this book for the first time about 2 years ago, after I had become passionate about using technology to better support the development of meta-cognitive skills in students.  …

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Expanding graduate programs and renewing the professoriate: What’s the connection?

  |  By Ian D. Clark, David Trick and Richard Van Loon

Does Ontario need to expand its master’s and doctoral programs in order to supply the professors who will teach these additional students? Ian Clark, David Trick and Richard Van Loon argue that in all fields of graduate study, the government should take into account the best available evidence to ensure that the number of graduate spaces is sufficient to meet the needs of the workforce, but not higher.

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Lost in Translation after Graduation?

  |  By Pamela Cushing, Ph.D. & Kimberly Ruiter, B.A., King’s University College at Western University

What students do after leaving the academy can be impressive, surprising, and, as one department found out, useful for universities interested in improving the student experience.

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Drummond Will Likely Have Little Impact on Universities

  |  By Paul Axelrod, Faculty of Education, York University

How would post-secondary education be affected by the recommendations of the Drummond report, and is Drummond’s approach advisable? Professor Paul Axelrod suggests that in an environment of instituional autonomy, the effects will be minimal. As has been the case for many years, Drummond continues the trend of expecting universities to teach too many students with too few resources.

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"Approved" stamped in red

To SSHRC or not to SSHRC?

  |  By Todd Dufresne

SSHRC is converting scholars into bureaucrats and scholarship into government reports, but all is not lost. Faculty must act to ensure their concerns are heard and debated.

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