Interesting data on international students in the USA (and at the University of Nottingham) The Institute of International Education has just released its ‘Open Doors’ report on international education in the USA. The pr…
Because universities are difficult, but worth it With the latest post, on why administrators really do matter in universities, we are now up to a total of 11 pieces to date in the Imperfect University series. Covering le…
A new interactive map University World News has a piece on a new UNESCO interactive map on global student mobility which shows the inflows and outflows of mobile students across the world. East Asia and the Pacific is th…
The Imperfect University: Some people really don’t think much of administrators Last year I wrote a piece for Times Higher Education on the problem with the term “back office” and the often casual, unthinking use of it i…
US builds up cultural presence in China Perhaps slightly surprising news from Inside Higher Ed on the establishment by the US State Department of “American Cultural Centres” in partnership with Chinese universities. “The…
Preparing for study: a new approach to WP in the US The Chronicle carries a story on a new report about student readiness for higher education in the US. The proposition contained in a new report from the American Associ…
The latest survey of international recruitment agent views Given that I am currently at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus on a brief visit I thought I would focus on an international story. ICEF (an internatio…
A League Table Based on Dropbox Use Not certain this will catch on. It’s a league table of universities based on the number of Dropbox users. The United Kingdom rankings look like this (the number of “space racers” is, I…
Fictional and daft but really rather impressive My attention was drawn recently to the Monsters University website. It is of course an entirely fictional construct to promote a new animated movie from Pixar which is a pr…
Will everyone have free HE in 10 years’ time? Or is this just more MOOC hype? An interesting piece in Time on “Why College May Be Totally Free Within 10 Years”. It’s a report of an interesting (but perhaps rather siniste…
World University League Tables 2012/13 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. The…
More true crime on campus: bet you can’t find me Bizarre things can happen on campus. Fortunately, our excellent Security staff are more than able to cope with just about anything. Even when it involves students hiding f…
The Imperfect University: Staff getting on their bikes One of the things professional services colleagues sometimes complain about is that whereas academic staff can be promoted in post – and indeed can progress all the …
You can now graduate without being able to swim Inside Higher Ed carries the shock news that the University of Chicago has decided to drop its swimming, fitness tests and PE requirements for graduation: The University of…
A lot of fuss over not very much news? I must admit to being both amazed and slightly peeved at the level of publicity generated by the Yale-NUS development in Singapore which is still a year from opening. It is also fas…
The four 2012-13 UK University League Tables A previous post offered the first three UK university league tables of 2012-13 and this one now updates this to include the final one from this year from the Sunday Times. All…
Don’t believe the hype? There has been an extraordinary level of hype in higher education (and beyond) about Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs. Vice-Chancellors and their senior management teams up and down the countr…
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012-13 are out The final ranking of the season is now available from THE. The top 20 looks like this: 1 California Institute of Technology (1) =2 Oxford University (4…
A US University has really gone for personalisation in a big way Lynn University has gone to really quite extraordinary lengths to offer a personalised experience for prospective students visiting its campus. Inside High…
Sunday Times League Table 2013 This is just the Top 20 rather than the full table (which is now available (paid access) on the Sunday Times website). There are some big changes with Heriot Watt and Birmingham Universitie…