AFT: Teacher Accountability

OECD report shows need to move away from test fixation—away from our obsession with a punitive accountability approach that uses high-stakes standardized tests as its centerpiece and towards a more supportive accountability approach that continuously improves teacher performance and student learning.

http://www.aft.org/about/world/trends/teacheraccountability.cfm 

QS UNIVERSITY RANKINGS: ASIA 2013

Top Asian Universities:

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2013?utm_source=social&utm_medium=infographic

Top Malaysian Universities:

http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/asian-university-rankings/2013?ugrad_course=&pgrad_course=&loc=Malaysia&field_ranking_scores_1024011=0.3&field_ranking_scores_1024016=0.1&field_ranking_scores_1024021=0.2&field_ranking_scores_1024026=0.15&field_ranking_scores_1024031=0.03&field_ranking_scores_1024036=0.02&field_ranking_scores_1024041=0.15&field_ranking_scores_1024046=0.03&field_ranking_scores_1024051=0.02&custom_ranking=&save_my_rankings_data_sort=2%2Casc%2C0&save_my_rankings_data_limit=50&save_my_rankings_data_search=&save_my_rankings_data_start=0

Inside Higher Education: Scrutiny of QS Rankings

Many educators question the value of rankings and argue that they can measure only a narrow slice of what quality higher education is about. QS’s methodology seems to be particularly controversial, however, due in large part to its greater reliance on reputational surveys than other rankers. Combined with a survey of employers, which counts for 10 percent of the overall ranking, reputational indicators account for half of a university’s QS ranking. By comparison, a university's teaching and research reputation, as gauged by an invitation-only survey of academics, accounts for a third of the Times Higher Education ranking; the ARWU doesn't use reputational surveys at all, relying instead on objective metrics related to citations and publications and the numbers of alumni and faculty winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals. Reputational data are "cheap and easy to collect, especially if one is not worrying too much about how respondents are selected ...........

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/methodology-qs-rankings-comes-under-scrutiny#ixzz2VvIN0cQm
Inside Higher Ed, 29 May 2013

Varsity reform - returning academia to the people

Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi
Malaysiakini 27 May 2013
There is no honour any more. Just numbers and rankings and labels and the perpetual race of vice-chancellors outdoing one another to please the political ‘masters’ for their own selfish greed. In turn, the deans and deputy VC would also try their level best to outdo one another to please the VC. 
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/231275

A future without tenure

With increasing proportion of non-tenured academics, are Malaysia universities heading in this direction too?
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/09/florida-polytechnic-u-offer-multi-year-contracts-not-tenure-faculty

Read the outcome of an earlier, similar attempt:
http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/HE/Tenure1Lessons.pdf   

The Potential of Late-Career Professors

Are late-career faculty a financial burden for institutions and a barrier for aspiring faculty who are prevented from entering the academic profession by aging professors who increasingly postpone retirement?

Read more: 

http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2013/05/10/tapping-potential-late-career-professors-essay

NATURE Special: The future of Publishing

Nature 23 April 2013

Scientific publishing is being thrust into a fast-paced online world. Our extensive coverage in this special issue looks at the questions raised by the appearance of cheap open-access journals, including some that may be on the dark side – or even scams that impersonate real journals. Other articles look at how libraries are trying to keep up with the changes; at objections raised about the Creative Commons licences; at the next push to hasten open access; and more.

http://www.nature.com/news/specials/scipublishing/index.html?WT.ec_id=NEWS-20130423