Doing research in a public university and with philanthropic money, is like mining with public money. Publishing that knowledge in closed access journals is privatizing knowledge that was produced for the public good. Open Access is fundamentally about social justice and the democratisation of knowledge. This is an advert for the University of the Western Cape (UWC) Open Access Research Repository.
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Research is like Mining: Open Access
Doing research in a public university and with philanthropic money, is like mining with public money. Publishing that knowledge in closed access journals is privatizing knowledge that was produced for the public good. Open Access is fundamentally about social justice and the democratisation of knowledge. This is an advert for the University of the Western Cape (UWC) Open Access Research Repository.
Tuesday, 3 September 2013
Friday, 26 July 2013
Function to Honour Prof Philip Altbach upon his retirement
Dr. Laura Rumbley & Dr. Alma Maldonado-Maldonado recognize Dr. Philip Altbach's work.
Thursday, 18 July 2013
Friday, 28 June 2013
Thursday, 28 March 2013
The Role of Higher Education in the Democratization of African politics
Finally, it is out: HERANA's capststone publication on work done over five years on the contribution of higher education to democracy in Africa.
The great disappointment since the first study by Mattes and Mughogho: higher education's contribution to increasing support for democracy as a political system is minimal; the big contributions of education are made at lower levels of the educational system. Literacy, the ability to read and process news, is crucial; higher education in Africa, in contrast, only marginally increases support for democracy among citizens in Africa and, as the student surveys of HERANA showed, even among the general student body or student leaders at key African flagship universities (i.e. University of Botswana, University of Cape Town, University of Dar es Salaam and University of Nairobi).
The current round of HERANA studies now takes a much more differentiated look at higher education and citizenship: on the one hand, specific activities that students engage in - in and out of classroom, on and off campus - are investigated, as well as specific characteristics of democratic citizenship are measured. Now the big question is... will the funders come to the party!
Monday, 25 March 2013
Student affairs in Africa to become more professional
The Journal of Student Affairs in Africa (JSAA) has just released its first Call for Papers. According to its Mission Statement, JSAA strives to be the foremost academic journal dealing with the theory, policy and practice of the student affairs domain in universities on the African continent.
The Editor-in-Chief, Prof Teboho Moja from New York University, was excited to receive first unsolicited submissions even before the JSAA website went live in March 2013.
JSAA seeks to contribute to the professionalization of student affairs in African higher education - both the study of it and its practice.
For a free subscription of the journal, register at www.jsaa.ac.za
More about JSAA:
The Journal of Student Affairs in
Africa (JSAA) is an independent, international, peer-reviewed,
multi-disciplinary, open-access academic journal that publishes scholarly
research and reflective discussions about the theory and practice of student
affairs in Africa.
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
100 African Universities in for a Comprehensive Governance Screening
A new University Governance Screening Card (UGSC) that was developed and applied for universities in North Africa and the Middle East is set to be applied soon in sub-Saharan Africa. A joint team from the World Bank and the British Council, together with colleagues from UK universities, are in Cape Town at UWC to introduce a group of academics and researchers / higher education governance experts from Africa to the new tool. Check: http://cmimarseille.org/highereducation
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Noma Summer School 2013
It is on right now - with students and academics from five continents at UWC, linked to the HEMA programme. Details see http://www.facebook.com/pages/NOMA-Summer-School-2013/415266605216909
And at http://www.chet.org.za/news/noma-summer-school-2013-principles-practice-higher-education-policy-and-research-project
And at http://www.chet.org.za/news/noma-summer-school-2013-principles-practice-higher-education-policy-and-research-project
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Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Scottish Students Leading the Way
It is inspiring to see how the Scottish student movement is being re-born intellectually through the efforts of students, academics and workers. They have just published the first edition of their new Student Journal "We are not rats". I commend them and hope
to see their ideas, debates and formats fertilize the South African and African student movement.
Patrick Olden Grace Loncraine, Editors of the new "Scotland's Students' Left Review: We Are Not Rats" write: "Students in Scotland today are crucially important. They have the responsibility of being at college or university at a time when colleges, universities, and indeed the country itself have recently been or could soon be reshaped, redirected or altogether restarted anew. That the character of these new institutions will be determined by the dominant voices involved in their redesign is certain. Who these dominant voices will be representing, however, is not. It is therefore important for us as students to ensure that we are active, mobilized and making a case for the progressive character of these institutions – within our campuses, in print and on the streets. How effective have we students been in the past at directing the discussion?"
to see their ideas, debates and formats fertilize the South African and African student movement.
Patrick Olden Grace Loncraine, Editors of the new "Scotland's Students' Left Review: We Are Not Rats" write: "Students in Scotland today are crucially important. They have the responsibility of being at college or university at a time when colleges, universities, and indeed the country itself have recently been or could soon be reshaped, redirected or altogether restarted anew. That the character of these new institutions will be determined by the dominant voices involved in their redesign is certain. Who these dominant voices will be representing, however, is not. It is therefore important for us as students to ensure that we are active, mobilized and making a case for the progressive character of these institutions – within our campuses, in print and on the streets. How effective have we students been in the past at directing the discussion?"
Friday, 26 October 2012
US University Visit: On Rankings and Running
Many American universities are on international league tables of university rankings far ahead of the rest of the world.While university rankings have all kinds of biases built into them and can be pretty meaningless (except for marketing purposes and below institutional level, especially at subject level; for those interested in this, there is a growing literature on rankings), it is nonetheless fascinating to visit universities that are apparently in the top league of globally ranked universities (... and here I already fell for it LOL). It is interesting to see how they look and operate, especially since so far I have only had opportunity to study and teach at three high ranking universities - the University of Olso, the University of Cape Town, and the University of the Western Cape.
Of these three, the University of Olso is the highest ranked by ARWU (Rank 67 & best in Norway) and QS (rank 111) but not by THES (201-225); UCT is ranked ahead of UiO by THES (rank 103) but not by ARWU (but, best in Africa) and not by QS (156). UCT is also one of the "Big 5" research-intensive universiteis in South Africa (together with Wits, UP, UKZN, and Stellenbosch). UWC is ranked by ARWU as 7th best in Africa; it is also typically ranked number 6 or 7 in South Africa, trading places occasionally with the much smaller Rhodes University. These are 2010/11 rankings. (So, if you had to make up your mind where to study Higher Education Policy, would you find them helpful?)
I have of course had the opportunity to visit many other great (and highly ranked) universities in the world, especially for research, conferences or workshops, and the occasional guest lecture too. Among them in South Africa I have visited the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) in Jozi, Fort Hare University, University of Pretoria, University of Johannesburg, Stellenbosch University, University of Venda, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Free State University, Cape University of Technology, UNISA etc. etc., and I've done research at some of the greatest African universities, like the University of Ghana at Legon and the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. In Europe too, I've had the chance to work at the Institute for Education of the University of London, I've visited the University of Lancaster, the Universities of Basel, Zurich and Lausanne, and the famous Federal Institute of Techology (ETH) in Zurich, which is the top ranked continental European university. I've even once spent three weeks at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg (guess where that is). What has always struck me, is that from the outside, the various universities look remarkably similar. Sure there is the historical and the historicist as against the ultramodern and the 70s concrete bunker; nonetheless, as Prof Peter Maassen from Olso University puts it so well, you will always recognise a university when you see one! There is a certain Wittgensteinian family resemblance that they all share, whether well-resourced or resource-deprived, rural or urban, campus-based or spread all over town, university architecture, university students, and university academics, are somewhat .... unmistakable.
Now two weeks ago I presented a paper at UC Berkeley and then had some meetings in NY and visited NYU and Columbia University. I thus had the opportunity to observe from the outside and very superficially how these very top ranked American universities look and operate. A website can give you only so much of an impression - albeit, with no offence, there is already a huge gap between the webpresence of, for example, UCT and UWC, and again UDSM.
Now, UC Berkeley is ranked by ARWU 4th in the world, it has THES rank 9 and QS rank 21. Columbia University is supposedly, according to ARWU No. 8 in the world, QS however ranks it 10th and THES 12th. And lastly, NYU is 27th in the Shanghai ranking, 43rd by QS and 41st by THES. As I said, unless we can compare specific subject fields this is all pretty meaningless information. What is perhaps more meaningful as a superficial impression is what I gained in this week in the USA. Namely that while Berkeley looks just like Wits or UCT, and so does Columbia University - except that all is a bit bigger, but that's New York in general, of course, not Columbia in particular - and, apart that NYU doesn't have a distinct campus like many of our stunning African flagship universities like UDSM on Mlimani hill, they operate in one distinct way very differently from what I am used to. And here I speak specifically about the Humanities. What was so remarkable is that most academic staff offices were locked up and closed. The time-honoured
American faculty is in absentia. They, so I've been told, only come to campus when they absolutely must: to lecture, for consultation times (absolute minimum) or faculty meetings. Thanks to ICT they now 'hide (?)' and work mostly from home (or an off campus office).
American faculty is in absentia. They, so I've been told, only come to campus when they absolutely must: to lecture, for consultation times (absolute minimum) or faculty meetings. Thanks to ICT they now 'hide (?)' and work mostly from home (or an off campus office).
Having been responsible for a Master's programme this year, I can understand why they do so... We are greatly encouraged to have an open-door policy, but you just can't get good research done when every 5 minutes someones barges in. Hmmm. Here I felt guilty for most of this year when I went to 'hide' for a day of 'research day' per week in the CHET's Wynberg offices. Now I felt strangely affirmed. Academic life is stressful as it is and wanting to keep up a good research programme along with time to supervise and teach requires time for contemplation. To push that into afterhours and weekends during term is just not an option, and to defer serious research work to the off-term weeks is just not going to sustain world-class research. So, the American academics in research universities have clearly found one way of keeping them rankings up,up. Run from your students and chatty colleagues, run.
The conference I attended was looking at studying the undergraduate student experience in research universities. I am very much looking forward to studying the data and what it says about so-called "student-faculty interaction" in those top-ranked universities.
Thursday, 12 July 2012
African Minds Publishers is now an open access, not-for-profit, publisher. As a trustee and commissioning editor of African Minds, I am extremely happy that the publisher has taken this route and opens up its publishing expertise to a wider range of quality academic authors and readers. African Minds covers a wide range of subjects mainly in the Arts, Humanities and related fields. see http://www.africanminds.co.za/
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