The Risky Business of Doctoral Management

Universities are under no less pressure to adopt risk management strategies than other public and private organisations. The risk management of doctoral education is a particularly important issue given that a doctorate is the highest academic qualification a university offers and stakes are high in terms of assuring its quality. However, intense risk management can interfere with the intellectual and pedagogical work which are essentially part of doctoral education. This paper seeks to understand how the culture of risk meets the culture of doctoral education and with what effect. The authors draw on sociological understandings of risk in the work of Anthony Giddens (2002 Giddens, A. 2002. Runaway world: How globalisation is reshaping our lives, London: Profile Books.  [Google Scholar]) and Ulrich Beck (1992 Beck, U. 1992. Risk society: Towards a new modernity, London: Sage. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]), the anthropological focus on liminality in the work of Mary Douglas (1990 Douglas, M. 1990. Risk and blame, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]), and the psychological theorising of human error in the work of James Reason (1990 Reason, J. 1990. Human error, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]). The paper concludes that risk consciousness brings its own risks—in particular, the potential transformation of a culture based on intellect into a culture based on compliance.     

The role of peer review in Norwegian quality assurance: potential consequences for excellence and diversity

The article analyses the role of peer review within broader external quality assurance schemes. Based on an analytical framework emphasising that modern quality assurance schemes are designed as a balancing act between standardised guidelines and professional judgement, the article uses data from a recent evaluation of NOKUT, the Norwegian Quality Assurance Agency, to investigate whether and how the peer review process has maintained its central role in quality assurance, not least with respect to promoting excellence and diversity. The findings indicate that what is presented as judgements based on peer expertise, turn out to be a rather technical process in which pre-defined rigid criteria and standards are imperative. In the conclusion, the role of peer review is discussed in relation to developments in European higher education.     

The Cultural Roots of Professional Wisdom: Towards a broader view of teacher expertise

Perhaps the most pressing issue concerning teacher education and training since the end of the Second World War has been that of the role of theory—or principled reflection—in professional expertise. Here, although the main post-war architects of a new educational professionalism clearly envisaged a key role for theory—considering such disciplines as psychology, sociology and philosophy as indispensable for reflective practice—there are nevertheless well-rehearsed difficulties about crediting such disciplines with quite the (applied) role in educational practice of (say) physiology or anatomy in medical practice. This paper argues that while recent developments in professional teacher education and training may have moved on from erstwhile instrumentalist and/or applied science (competence and other) perspectives, there may yet be a case for further progress towards a rather more sophisticated philosophical psychology of teacher knowledge and expertise.     

走向全球：开放与远程教育所面临的危险与前景

过去十年以来,电子学习、远程学习技术,以及精细化的教学设计、方法和支持服务等的发展表明,这些创新革新了高等教育的国际化阶段.而且,全球化正在驱动国际经济、社会、政治、文化、政治生活等相互关联的方方面面,这又进一步表明电子学习(或者是远程、混合学习、分布式学习或过几周又会有新的术语)已经创造了一个新的世界.确实,这只是刚刚开始(Olcott,2008,2008a).本文将探讨国际化、跨境高等教育、远程学习等一系列问题,有些评论可能会引起争论、有争议的.但生活就是这样!而且,这些评论直接针对学院和大学的校长.这又是为什么呢?就像杜鲁门所说的"责任到此,不能再推."     

Patently Obvious: The place for patents in information literacy in the sciences

Patents are an underutilized source of scientific information, particularly in the life and health sciences. Patents and patent applications usually contain the first disclosure of new technologies and processes and serve to link theory with practice, providing ‘real world’ examples of the application of scientific research. Increasingly, scientific discoveries are reported first in the patent literature, rather than in academic journals. To ensure that science students have the skills that match the information resources they will use as professionals, patent searching must become part of their information literacy instruction. This article will discuss how valuable the patent literature can be to students, and how to incorporate patent searching into library instruction. By way of illustration, a case study will document how students in one class, Biochemistry 561, were introduced to patents.