University World News 0140 - 19th September 2010

This week's highlights

GEOFF MASLEN reports on last week's 2010 Times Higher Education world
university ranking, and DAVID JOBBINS compares its methodology with that of the previous week's QS World University Rankings. In the Commentary section YUE MA and MARIUS VERMAAK investigate internationalisation challenges facing universities in China, and in Features SHARON DELL looks at implications of new intellectual property regulations for university research in South Africa.

OECD higher education conference

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Institutional
Management in Higher Education programme held its general conference in Paris from 13-15 September. The title was "Higher Education in a World Changed Utterly: Doing more with less", and delegates investigated a major issue - how, in the context of a global recession, the higher education sector can lead the way to sustainable recovery.

University World News was a media partner to the event and had a team of five journalists there to report on it. Below is a selection of their stories. University World News will also publish a Special Edition on the OECD conference in October - a full edition of the paper featuring numerous additional articles, interviews and commentaries from this key event.

GLOBAL: Universities must "play to their strengths"

Yojana Sharma The global financial crisis means that higher education institutions "need to work smarter", said Barbara Ischinger, director for education at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "We need to ensure institutions play to their strengths," she said at the opening session of the three-day Institutional Management in Higher Education conference.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Higher Education conference attacks rankings
Yojana Sharma
With the international university rankings season underway, higher education policy-makers and leaders have criticised league tables for distorting university priorities during a major global recession. Delegates speaking at the OECD conference in Paris said rankings did not help. Vice-chancellor of California State University, Charles Reed, caused a stir when he described global rankings as "a disease".
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Changes looming in global student market
Yojana Sharma
After analysing international trade data, Angel Calderon of RMIT University in Australia predicts the sun is setting on international students from some East Asian countries, continues to shine on India and China, while sunrise countries such as Chile and the Czech Republic may not yet be visible on the horizon but will be a source of international students in future.
Full report on the University World News site:

BRAZIL: Too few students to fill university seats
Alecia D McKenzie
While universities in many countries are bemoaning the fact that they have too many students applying for too few places, Brazil has the opposite dilemma: the country has an abundance of university seats but not enough qualified students to fill them.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Branch campuses are 'hollow shells'
Yojana Sharma
Many branch campuses where students can earn a degree from another country without ever going abroad are proliferating. However, they were described as "hollow shells" at the OECD higher education conference in Paris on Tuesday.
Full report on the University World News site:

US: Recession leads MIT to consider paywall
Lawrence J Speer
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is considering putting lecture notes and other academic content behind a paywall to raise revenue and make up for funding shortfalls stemming from the global recession, according to Lori Breslow, who runs MIT's teaching and learning laboratory.
Full report on University World News site:

US: America can learn from the Bologna process
Patricia Brett
The US "must adapt and apply the lessons" learned from the Bologna Process if it is to increase the percentage of Americans with high quality degrees, according to Holiday Hart McKiernan, Senior Vice-president of the Lumina Foundation for Higher Education.
Full report on the University World News site:

UNESCO: UN to increase its focus on higher education
Yojana Sharma
The United Nations is to focus more strongly on higher education in developing countries, Qian Tang, UNESCO's newly-appointed Assistant Director-General for Education, said in Paris last week.
Full report on the University World News site:

Global university rankings 'wars'

GLOBAL: Harvard resumes top spot in THE ranking
Geoff Maslen
The latest world ranking of universities by the UK's Times Higher Education magazine has placed Harvard back on top, following its displacement to second spot for the first time since 2004 in last week's QS World University Rankings.
Full report on the University World News site:

GLOBAL: Rankings methodologies in confidence battle
David Jobbins
Hard on the heels of the publication of the QS World University Rankings, former partner Times Higher Education last week published its first league table in conjunction with Thomson Reuters. The methodologies are designed to be poles apart.
Full report on the University World News site:

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report

EUROPE: Universities' income sources diversify
John Walshe
European universities rely heavily on direct public funding, which represents about three quarters (73%) of their overall budgets. But many expect this percentage to decrease and are looking to other sources of income, according to a new study from a European university consortium.
Full report on the University World News site:

IRELAND: Economy, demography drive record applications
John Walshe
Several records were set this year by the Central Applications Office which processes applications and offers for virtually all higher education institutions in Ireland - record applications, especially from adults, a record number of offers of places, and record numbers of acceptances.
Full report on the University World News site:

PANAMA: Quality initiative to strengthen universities
Eileen Travers
Panama's commitment to higher education has been thrust forward with the launch of the first nationwide initiative to evaluate and accredit tertiary institutions, aimed at strengthening programmes offered by a flourishing number of foreign and local post-secondary institutions.
Full report on the University World News site:

EUROPE: Resigning ERC head says exit was planned
Alan Osborn
The secretary general of the European Research Council has told University World News that his surprise resignation on 1 September was not a sudden decision but part of a planned "reintegration to my academic position".
Full report on the University World News site:

AFRICA: Higher education funding promises broken
The Commission for Africa, established by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2004, has called on the donor community to increase funding to Africa's higher education system, saying there has been no improvement in resources channeled towards the sector in the past five years.
Full report on the University World News site:

ZIMBABWE: University leaders threatened with jail
Kudzai Mashininga
Zimbabwe's government has threatened to fire or jail university vice-chancellors and principals accused of expelling students who have failed to raise higher education fees. The higher education managers are in violation of a government decree issued earlier this year.
Full report on the University World News site:

N IGERIA: Planned higher education deregulation slated
Tunde Fatunde
The N igerian government is putting the finishing touches to an elaborate plan to deregulate public universities that includes an end to government's commitment to substantially fund public higher education. A key aspect of the proposed deregulation is a projected astronomical increase in student fees.
Full report on the University World News site:

FRANCE: One-stop advice service for foreign students
Jane Marshall
A 'one-stop' advisory service has opened in Paris for foreign students arriving for the first time in the French capital. Open until 15 December, it brings together in one location information and advice on all the authorities and administrative agencies with which new students need to register, and services that will help them settle in.
Full report on the University World News site:

EUROPE: New software preserves digital data for future
Emma Jackson
Researchers say they have secured the future of Europe's huge volumes of digital data, having created open source software that will protect digital data from becoming unreadable or unusable because of incompatibility with newer technologies. The European Union-funded programme, CASPAR, developed the software.
Full report on University World News site:

EUROPE: Transatlantic ties strengthened
Alan Osborn
Higher educational ties between the European Union and the United States and Canada have been strengthened with the launch of a new slew of transatlantic education partnerships involving 160 universities and training institutions and thousands of students on both sides of the ocean.


Full report on the University World News site:

GERMANY: Go-ahead for new grants scheme
Michael Gardner
A new national grants programme is to be introduced in Germany from the next summer semester. Some 10,000 students will be supported by the scheme in 2011-12 following approval by state governments.
Full report on University World News site:

COMMENTARY

CHINA: Universities face internationalisation dilemma
Yue Ma and Marius Vermaak
Just imagine that the US Department of Education announced to the world that it had 3,000 scholarships on offer for study at college level in the United States, open to any applicant with proficient English. The number of applicants from China alone would undoubtedly be in the millions. In fact, just such a highly unlikely offer was made recently, but by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China.
Full report on the University World News site:

FEATURES

UK: New universities push for graduate tax, not fees
David Jobbins
A think tank representing newer UK universities is attempting to head off the prospect of higher tuition fees for undergraduate students by reviving the case for a graduate tax through which students would contribute to the cost of their education over their working lives.
Full report on the University World News site:

SOUTH AFRICA: Jury out on intellectual property laws
Sharon Dell
Will South Africa's Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development (IPR) Act incentivise or bureaucratise innovation at public universities? Some academics are concerned about the law's impacts on international collaboration and open access to research, among other things. But it seems only time will tell.
Full report on the University World News site:

SCIENCE SCENE

GLOBAL: Reform of UN climate panel
Kudzai Mashininga
The InterAcademy Council has recommended reforms to a UN climate panel - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC - following errors in some of its assessment reports. A council review committee said in a report that the process used by the IPCC to produce its periodic assessment reports had been successful overall but that fundamental reforms were needed to its management structure.
Full report on the University World News site:

AUSTRALIA: Bees warm up with a hot drink
Geoff Maslen
Humans are not the only ones to enjoy a hot drink on a cold morning. Bees have the same idea when the weather is chilly and the discovery could be highly significant with the advent of climate change. And not just to bee keepers.
Full report on the University World News site:

UK-US: Plastic residue affects s ex hormone
An international group of researchers led by the Peninsula Medical School and the University of Exeter have for the first time identified changes in s ex hormones associated with Bisphenol-A exposure in men, in a large population study. BPA is a controversial chemical commonly used in food and drink containers.
Full report on the University World News site:

UNI-LATERAL

AUSTRALIA: Ministerial mess for higher education
Geoff Maslen
For a brief time last week, Australia was without a federal Minister of Education. It was yet another weird byproduct of the most bizarre election in Australian history and media commentators pointed to the peculiarity of Australia joining Canada as the only two countries that had universities in the top 100 rankings but no education minister with that title.
Full report on the University World News site:

US: College attempt to block social media fails
The Harrisburg University of Science and Technology made waves last week when it announced it would block access to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and AOL Instant Messenger from its campus wireless network for one week, writes Steve Kolowich for Inside Higher Ed.
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FACEBOOK

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WORLD ROUND-UP

MALAYSIA: Asia-Pacific shows steep research growth
While researchers at universities and institutes in many Western countries fret about budget pressures, scientists in many Asian nations are translating huge investments in research and development into impressive gains in research output, writes Liz Gooch for The New York Times.
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US: Women doctoral graduates outstrip men
For the first time, more women than men in the United States received doctoral degrees last year, the culmination of decades of change in the status of women at colleges nationwide, writes Daniel de Vise for The Washington Post.
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US: Graduate applications spiked in economic crisis
A new report by the Council of Graduate Schools shows that the number of people applying to America's graduate schools spiked after the economy tanked in 2008, writes Peter Schmidt for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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PAKISTAN: No bailout package for 72 universities
In a meeting with vice-chancellors, Pakistan's Ministry of Finance has ruled out any possibility of a financial bailout package for 72 public sector universities, owing to financial constraints and failure to reach a consensus on meeting budget requirements for higher education reforms, reports Sajid Chaudhry for The Daily Times.
More on the University World News site:

UK: Financial pressures 'will shut down' a university
A survey suggests that nine out of 10 university leaders believe a UK university will shut down because of financial pressures in the next decade, reports Sean Coughlan for BBC News.
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INDIA: Professor whose hand was chopped-off is fired
A union at Mahatma University in India has slated the dismissal of Professor TJ Joseph as illegal and demanded he be re-hired, reports SperoNews. Joseph, who headed the department of Malayalam, lost his job after students claimed some of his exam questions contained words offensive to Muhammad. Despite a public apology, he was attacked by activists who chopped off one of his hands and part of his arm.
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TURKEY: University headscarf ban debate may resurface
Turkey's ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves in universities and state institutions could rise up the political agenda again if the ruling AK Party wins a key referendum on constitutional reforms, reports BBC News.
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INDIA: Lost Buddhist university to rise from ashes
The chance of intellectual life returning to Nalanda University in India has come one step closer after the parliament in New Delhi last month passed a bill approving plans to re-build the campus as a symbol of India's global ambitions, writes Rupam Jain Nair for Associated Press.
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US: Yale plans college in Singapore
Yale University announced last week that it was planning to create a liberal arts college in Singapore that would be financed entirely by the government there and could, in time, establish a new model for higher education in Asia, reports Lisa W Foderaro for The New York Times.
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JAPAN: Nagoya baits US state with lower fees
Japan's Nagoya University is dangling economic bait to American parents in North Carolina worried about how they'll afford college tuition, reports News Observer.
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VIETNAM: Universities struggle to recruit lecturers
Low salaries have made it difficult for universities in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City to attract lecturers and meet the target for new hires in 2010 set by the Ministry of Education and Training, reports Viet Nam News.
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IRELAND: Maths and science rankings slip
The Global Competitiveness Report published by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is likely to raise concerns about dropping maths and science standards in Ireland, reports Sean Flynn for the Irish Times. The report ranks Ireland 24 out of 139 countries for maths and science, down 10 places since last year.
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SCOTLAND: Poor still 'struggle to access higher education'
The education secretary has defended the Scottish National Party's record on higher education after a new report suggested there are fewer students from poorer families in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK, reports Andrew Whitaker for the Scotsman.
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US: Columbia's invite to Ethiopian leader criticised
Columbia University likes to invite world leaders to campus when they are in New York City for United Nations meetings, and has defended invitations to some particularly controversial leaders. However, the university's latest invitation - to Meles Zenawi, Prime Minister of Ethiopia - is providing new ammunition for those who question some of Columbia's choices, reports Inside Higher Ed.
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CANADA: Windsor law dean candidate alleges racism
A Canadian law professor is asking the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to force the University of Windsor to appoint her dean of law, after her candidacy was spoiled by accusations of plagiarism and, she claims, racism and s exism, reports the National Post.
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