Universities

[hash tag]

More depressing news this morning. If uni's do go on line, pastoral care will go out the window. Personally, I would hate on line learning.
There are those that can and those that can't...
Where does this leave the poor old libraries?
"O’Shea divided the UK universities into four categories: those with the capacity and will to develop high-quality online education, including the Open University, King’s College London, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Leeds and Coventry; those with the capacity but not the will, such as Oxford and Cambridge; those with the will but not the capacity, such as Durham; and those with neither the will nor the capacity, such as art schools and music conservatoires. "

No campus lectures and shut student bars: UK universities' £1bn struggle to move online

A potential £1.2bn bill now faces the sector, but the real problem will be maintaining quality for students in a radically altered world this September

www.theguardian.com

 

[Lord Camomile]

Last week got an email from our Chairman (a lord ) saying that from August our principal will take a 30% pay cut, the vice-principals will take a 10% pay cut and they are proposing cancelling the standard incremental pay rises for all staff. This will all be for 6 months, with the option to extend for another 6 months.

They announced that UCU were 'informed', though anecdotally this seems to mean "we mentioned it in passing", while UNISON and Unite weren't told at all. No-one was consulted.

The fact it's just a proposal hopefully suggests there will be consultation and chance to contest. We're obviously going to insist.

They have also asked directors to look into various 'non-salary' savings (no details, naturally), which will be interesting given there's already a bit of a thing brewing about our purchasing budgets in the libraries.

 

[hash tag]

One for the librarians; there is a rumour that Bertram books is going into administration. Anyone?

 

[strung out]

One for the librarians; there is a rumour that Bertram books is going into administration. Anyone?

They, along with their sister companies Dawson and Wordery were bought by a German private equity company a couple of years ago and restructured. It wouldn't have surprised me if they went a couple of years ago, but would be more of a shock now. Who knows though.

 

[Cerv]

so the government’s idea is to decline a bailout but instead is to tell unis to still charge the full rate fees next year even if courses are online in September
that seems designed to please nobody and upset all sides

Government refuses multi-billion pound bailout for universities

Institutions instead allowed to charge full tuition fees during lockdown and £2.6bn to be paid early

www.theguardian.com

 

[redsquirrel]

I think there could be lot of people repeating a year at some unis (for all the teaching online success stories all the metrics show drop-off in attendance/interaction). So students running up even more debt.

 

[cybershot]

There's something on the Telegraph's front page (yeah i know) but I can't find the full article on their site:

 

[Brainaddict]

It's fucking nuts not to bail out universities when they're so fucked. The cost is not that great in coronavirus expenditure terms. I assume the real reason is to use the resulting clusterfuck to 'restructure' universities to reduce arts and humanities subjects and have less decently paid academic positions, plus getting the private sector in there more I expect.

The actual solution is not just a bailout but making universities independent of international tuition fees in the long term, but of course decades have been spent building that dependency, because marketisation is good.

I fear academia will be unrecognisable in ten years time if we get a further term of Tory rule. I have to say I think PhD students thinking about academic careers should probably start looking for other careers.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's fucking nuts not to bail out universities when they're so fucked. The cost is not that great in coronavirus expenditure terms. I assume the real reason is to use the resulting clusterfuck to 'restructure' universities to reduce arts and humanities subjects and have less decently paid academic positions, plus getting the private sector in there more I expect.

The actual solution is not just a bailout but making universities independent of international tuition fees in the long term, but of course decades have been spent building that dependency, because marketisation is good.

I fear academia will be unrecognisable in ten years time if we get a further term of Tory rule. I have to say I think PhD students thinking about academic careers should probably start looking for other careers.

at least 80% of people who complete doctorates don't end up in academic jobs anyway so by and large people with phds are already taking your advice.

 

[Chz]

Plus it's one of the few job areas that's truly international. A large percentage of UK-trained academics don't work in the UK.

 

[hash tag]

This Caps on university student numbers to return to avoid 'scramble' for undergraduates

 

[hash tag]

Here it is Bertram's Books faces uncertainty over coronavirus lockdown
Suppliers to uni libraries and the likes of Waterstones. Another one down to Amazon?

 

[kabbes]

Apologies for the irrelevant diversion, but I was quite excited to see in the wild a fantastic example of where “less” vs. “fewer” makes a genuine difference to the meaning of a sentence.

,.. and have less decently paid academic positions,

The above means a different thing if you replace less with fewer.

This shall become my standard example of when it matters!

 

[Roadkill]

so the government’s idea is to decline a bailout but instead is to tell unis to still charge the full rate fees next year even if courses are online in September
that seems designed to please nobody and upset all sides

Government refuses multi-billion pound bailout for universities

Institutions instead allowed to charge full tuition fees during lockdown and £2.6bn to be paid early

www.theguardian.com

It's designed to stop a wholesale collapse of the sector but to nudge some institutions into shrinkage, merger or closure. In other words, here as elsewhere, the crisis is being used to further the government's agenda.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It's designed to stop a wholesale collapse of the sector but to nudge some institutions into shrinkage, merger or closure. In other words, here as elsewhere, the crisis is being used to further the government's agenda.

"Never let a good crisis go to waste"

 

[Roadkill]

"Never let a good crisis go to waste"

Yes, and that saying could be used to summarise the government's entire response to covid-19.

 

[hash tag]

Yes, and that saying could be used to summarise the government's entire response to covid-19.

Or even a whole new thread...for covering stuff up, hiding bad news...

 

[Roadkill]

Or even a whole new thread...for covering stuff up, hiding bad news...

I'd be prepared to bet that a lot of bad/discreditable news has been sneaked out while everyone is looking the other way.

 

[hash tag]

The shut is going to start hitting the fan this weekend. Any volunteers?

 

[retribution]

Interesting to see that Cambridge University have announced they will be keeping lectures online for the 2020/21 academic year (although with the pretty big caveat that the decision "will be reviewed should there be changes to official advice on coronavirus". Presumably doing so now means that they can focus on creating some compelling online resources for next year rather than just transferring a 45 minute lecture to Zoom.

There's clearly an opportunity for the rona to cause some positive disruption to the way teaching and learning is delivered. We've had roughly the same model for decades now without really taking advantage of some of the opportunities offered by developments in technology. With investment in digital learning teams and training for staff, perhaps something good can come out of this for HE?

 

[redsquirrel]

Well, investment is the key word there.

Let's be clear a large part of this is in the continuing drive of university managements to attack workers both by partially neutralising the effect to strikes, a way to reorganise businesses and cut staff, and as a means to increase workloads. Both employers and workers are already gearing up for the fight over redundancies over the summer/early autumn and the four fights and pensions disputes are both still ongoing.

As I said on another thread, from a pedagogical level I'm quite a strong proponent of flipped classroom, certainly for my subject where classes are not typically the huge ones who see for some other subjects, and with the right investment and structures in place would be a good thing. But the push of online learning from managements is not about improving learning, or even really safety, but as a means to attack workers.

 

[kabbes]

We've had roughly the same model for decades now without really taking advantage of some of the opportunities offered by developments in technology.

I just want to point out that there is an exception to this — the Open University. That’s been running its degrees entirely online (with physical tutorials an optional alternative to online ones) for a long while now. The quality of the pedagogical materials it has produced on the course I’ve been studying for the last four years are orders of magnitude better than what I was given as an undergraduate on my original degree 20-some years ago.

 

[frogwoman]

Saying online teaching only until june 2021 seems a bit extreme tbh. Unless the rona really isn't under control by then?

 

[youbeauty]

It's easier to plan to do the same thing for a year than to have to make plans to change from one method of teaching to another if the situation changes.

 

[Cerv]

Saying online teaching only until june 2021 seems a bit extreme tbh. Unless the rona really isn't under control by then?

right now every applicant for Sept 2020 entry is sitting there with no clue what the plan is. I think it's probably the right move by Cambridge to give them that certainty. there's a lot of people in limbo not knowing if they want to enrol at all or should defer till 2021.

the buildings are still there, so part way through the year they do still have the option to start doing in person lectures again, as long as the online version is also maintained for anyone expecting to rely on that.

 

[redsquirrel]

Saying online teaching only until june 2021 seems a bit extreme tbh. Unless the rona really isn't under control by then?

Note it is lectures not all teaching. So small group teaching will probably be done in some form. And there will have to be practicals for some subjects - though organising them is going to be an f'ing nightmare.

 

[chilango]

Looks like Reading are planning for a "mixture" of f2f and online. No official word yet though.

 

[retribution]

Well, investment is the key word there.

Let's be clear a large part of this is in the continuing drive of university managements to attack workers both by partially neutralising the effect to strikes, a way to reorganise businesses and cut staff, and as a means to increase workloads. Both employers and workers are already gearing up for the fight over redundancies over the summer/early autumn and the four fights and pensions disputes are both still ongoing.

As I said on another thread, from a pedagogical level I'm quite a strong proponent of flipped classroom, certainly for my subject where classes are not typically the huge ones who see for some other subjects, and with the right investment and structures in place would be a good thing. But the push of online learning from managements is not about improving learning, or even really safety, but as a means to attack workers.

Agreed - where increasing online learning is used as a means to reduce staff, then we should push back. But if universities are looking to distinguish themselves atm, then investing in staff to create quality online learning experiences is an obvious route to follow. Of course, the government makes it really difficult for them to do this by not propping up the sector financially, and VC's with huge capital expenditure plans based on shiny massive lecture theatres might find it...difficult to pivot to a more online-focused strategy. But there's some really good pedagogy around online learning which as kabbes notes, can create great learning.

 

[kabbes]

I should note in addition that I get a more focussed experience of tutor attention at the OU than I did at Cambridge. The OU actually invest in a really string network of dedicated tutors that I’ve always found really responsive to questions and discussion. Cambridge supposedly has something similar for its small group tutorial system, but my experience of it in the late 90s was of PhD students that (understandably) were totally distracted by their own study and were reluctantly holding some tutor groups un order to make some survival money. They had no background or training in being tutors and didn’t really know how to explain things, so it could be a stressful experience.

My point is that an online experience doesn’t necessarily mean using less resources to deliver the student learning. It can actually mean using more resource, if you want to do it right.

As for lecturers: they are definitely the least effective way to teach anything anyway.

 

[Roadkill]

Interesting to see that Cambridge University have announced they will be keeping lectures online for the 2020/21 academic year (although with the pretty big caveat that the decision "will be reviewed should there be changes to official advice on coronavirus". Presumably doing so now means that they can focus on creating some compelling online resources for next year rather than just transferring a 45 minute lecture to Zoom.

They won't be alone in doing this. We are planning on the assumption that some small-group tuition may be possible, but that if social distancing remains a priority it won't be possible to deliver lectures in the traditional way because there simply isn't enough space. Tbh I think that, under the circumstances, clarifying that all lectures will be online is a pretty sensible move, and now Cambridge have done it I reckon much of the sector won't be be too far behind.

Let's be clear a large part of this is in the continuing drive of university managements to attack workers both by partially neutralising the effect to strikes, a way to reorganise businesses and cut staff, and as a means to increase workloads. Both employers and workers are already gearing up for the fight over redundancies over the summer/early autumn and the four fights and pensions disputes are both still ongoing.

As I said on another thread, from a pedagogical level I'm quite a strong proponent of flipped classroom, certainly for my subject where classes are not typically the huge ones who see for some other subjects, and with the right investment and structures in place would be a good thing. But the push of online learning from managements is not about improving learning, or even really safety, but as a means to attack workers.

Yes - this. Well, except that my experience of the flipped classroom has not been encouraging and I've spent a certain amount of time recently pouring cold water on some colleagues' high expectations. In the ordinary way of things I'd be very anti it, but this isn't the ordinary way of things...