The Ethics of Research Excellence

We here analyse the ethical dimensions of the UK's ‘Research Excellence Framework’ (REF), the latest (2014) version of an exercise which assesses the quality of university research in the UK every seven or so years. We find many of the common objections to this exercise unfounded, such as that it is excessively expensive by comparison with alternatives such as various metrics, or that it turns on the subjective judgement of the assessors. However there are grounds for concern about the crude language in which for example all relevant scholarship becomes called ‘research’ and publications become ‘outputs’. The focus on the impact of research, which was a new feature of the most recent exercise, is particularly problematic, creating as it does a tendency to what Aristotle called alazony, self‐aggrandisement, on the part of academics. We conclude that the REF is a mixed good from an ethical point of view, and that more could be done to mitigate its more unfortunate features.     

Martyrdom and Crusading in the Thirteenth Century: Remembering the Dead of Louis IX's Crusades

Death and remembrance of the dead were of great significance to Christians in the Middle Ages, and those men and women who were believed to have died as martyrs for the faith were worthy of particular renown. In the context of the crusades, during which thousands of Christian participants placed their lives at risk, the possibility that those who died were martyrs was therefore inevitably raised. Belief relating to the martyrdom of crusaders has interested historians for some time. Thus far, though, attention has largely been focused on the earliest stages of the crusade movement and the first crusade in particular. These studies suggest that after this time a popular belief that crusaders could be, and often were, martyrs was firmly established. This paper is intended to extend this debate, which has largely ignored how ideas relating to Christian martyrdom developed beyond the initial stages of the crusade movement. For, while the possibility that crusaders might achieve martyrdom is consistently present in our source material for later crusades, this does not necessarily mean that the issue had become uncontroversial. This subject will be tackled through an examination of material relating to the campaigns of the French king Louis IX (d. 1270) in North Africa and the Levant during the mid- and later-thirteenth century. The first part of the paper is intended to illustrate some of the inconsistencies present in approaches to the subject of the martyrdom of crusaders in this period. The second part will focus on a specific text, the Vie de saint Louis of John of Joinville (d. 1317), in order to show that the lack of clarity which characterises the wider picture concerning martyrdom and crusading should not deter us from trying to explore and explain the attitudes of individuals.     

Videos Versus Role Plays to Increase Counseling Self-Efficacy in Prepractica Trainees

A brief mock counseling session was potentially more risky but more potent than a brief videotaped counseling session as an intervention for increasing counseling self-efficacy in prepractica trainees.