Coffee o’clock and watching one of my cats who is teaching me a lot about how to be idle… #Caterday

Another good read for Saturday morning : https://isrf.org/blog/labours-white-paper-fails-higher-education #UKHE

This is a brilliant piece of writing. A very good start to Saturday morning…

Here’s where it gets personal for me. When I was 9, I started experiencing suicidal ideation … disinterested in living, and at least some of the time contemplating death and how it might happen … It’s easy to imagine how I would have used programs like these chatbots.

“Our findings show that ChatGPT not only fails to recognise retracted articles but often evaluates them as high-quality research and claims that their discredited claims are true.”

So I've been reading the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper. There's some good things in there. But when it comes to universities there's very little to cheer. The situation is very tough and will get worse. The last chance to preserve what we've got has passed. Let me explain why. (1/?)

'Artificial intelligence (AI) models are 50% more sycophantic than humans, an analysis published this month has found.' Another reason why human tutors matter (and why 'Rate My Professor' type evaluations of them are problematic).

Because some damn fool asked, here's a thread about Baxter. This was taken on the day I brought home Baxter and threw away all hope of an easy life. Look at him. Absolutely irresistible. And that's how they get you, the utter bastards

Reform UK Councils Council Tax increases Durham: 4.9% Worcestershire: 5-10% Warwickshire: ~5% Leicestershire: 3% Kent: 5% Lincolnshire: 2%+ Staffordshire: ~5% West Northamptonshire: 5% Derbyshire: 4.9% North Northamptonshire: amount TBD Nottinghamshire: amount TBD Lancashire: amount TBD

Oh yes, I remember. Sometimes think I have been in #UKHE too long!

I think what Phillipson *meant* to say was "charging full fees is justified on the basis of *high quality teaching across UK universities, in the face of unprecedented under-funding*” “University tuition fees in England to rise with inflation every year from 2026” www.bbc.com/news/article...

It doesn't matter how many grant writing workshops you put on, or how much pressure you put on academics to apply - if the money isn't there, the money simply isn't there.

How does Bridget Phillipson expect us to deliver “the world-class education students expect if they are going to charge the maximum tuition fee” if we are not supported and funded to do the world-class research that backs up and advances that teaching, and which UK academics are also know for? #UKHE

I do not believe that it is a good thing for research and REF to "deliver government priorities". Ideally academic research should be decided on academic grounds, not political ones. Sigh.

I wrote about the stupid white paper. In summary, with these people in the driver's seat and apparently unbothered by consequences, we're so cooked.

New offers from big five academic publishers ‘still too costly’ for UK universities ‘Significant’ number of institutions predicted to drop deals with main scholarly imprints, leaving journal access much reduced www.timeshighereducation.com/news/new-off...

This person is one hundred percent correct and it’s scary af. We will never “media literacy” our way out of this as a society. We are about to reap the whirlwind when it comes to misinformation, disinformation, and informational warfare.

Breaking: REF team delays research culture pilot results ahead of ‘reset’. Pilot report pushed to December “to avoid pre-empting decisions”, with Research Excellence Framework on pause. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

In today's batch of videos we have deepfaked audio from 5 UK police forces, 3 UK universities, one UK council, and 1 Holocaust survivor attacking the Armenia government and Prime Minister.

further thoughts on this: the idea of ‘prompt engineering’ as a ‘skill’ that requires a mix of technical and linguistic ‘skills’ has been around for a while and doesn’t seem to disappear. what i’m interested in is not whether it’s a well-defined skill (probably not) or ‘valuable’ (probably not) but

I see America is now at the “dissident professors fleeing the regime” stage

Anyone in #UKHE still running Windows 10?

soooooooo.... This government can do no planning about ensuring proper capacity for undergraduate students via a Student Number Distribution system, but it can handpick who gets millions in international researchers? We thought that whole Free Market thing was the be all and end all of #UKHE?

ResearchPlus - a new collaboration has been formed by 10 UK universities: "there is no collective voice or visibility for research-focused universities outside the Russell Group. Our collaboration seeks to address this & enable us to work better with each other & with existing groups"

"findings by researchers at leading US & UK universities suggest that medical AI tools powered by LLMs have a tendency to not reflect the severity of symptoms among female patients, while also displaying less “empathy” toward Black and Asian ones" Another reason LLMs shouldn't be used in medicine.

#1 Following on from my earlier thread about claims of “bias” in universities (link below 👇), I was struck by James Marriott’s column in today’s Times. It’s full of anecdote & caricature. The real story of UK universities is structural, financial, and political. 🧵 👉 bsky.app/profile/prof...

Oxford has just become the first UK university to roll out ChatGPT Edu to all students and staff. After a year-long trial with 750 users, they’ve signed a five-year partnership with OpenAI. www.bbc.com/news/article...

As the new academic year begins, here's an important and bracing read on the crisis in UK universities, by Glen O'Hara for @politicalquarterly.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

About time…

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose??? This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

I have a friend who's being threatened with an AI product called 'Teachermatic', which aside from anything else is extremely Wallace and Gromit.

“It comes as part of the Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, coordinated by the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), which was signed in 2022 by Sorbonne University. This agreement recommends “avoiding the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment”.”

‘Upload your tutors’ work to a plagiarism machine, they won’t mind’.

Vacuous, generic and scattershot advice for incoming 1st years on the use of AI at university. Especially liking 'Chin recommends giving it class notes and asking it to generate practice exam questions.' Surely we can't be the only programme that supplies students with past & practice exams?

Great to see @marjonuni.bsky.social at number 9 in this table. Fabulous place to work and study

Interested in PhD education? Graduate Research? The Quality in Postgraduate Research conference is the world's oldest (and best :-)) conference on all thing doctoral (est 1994) and the call for papers for the #QPR2026 conference in Adelaide in April is currently open at www.qpr.edu.au Check it out.

'Pausing the Research Excellence Framework (REF) amid concerns over its controversial environment section could signal the start of more fundamental shift away from an institutional focus on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives, say experts.' 1/x

This>>

The last REF found that 98% of UK research was either "internationally recognised", "internationally excellent", or "world-leading". If you think low-quality research is the noteworthy challenge in UK higher ed right now, you are wilfully looking in the wrong direction

UK universities cut back on crucial research because of reduced funding

Having been through one of these over 20 years ago, these kinds of institutional mergers are torturous. Sending strength and solidarity to all those involved ✊🏼 #highereducation #UKHE #universitites #fundingcrisis www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Oh my goodness, this is huge news! I’ve done some work for both unis and will be fascinated to see how this develops. Hope staff in both institutions not feeling too unsettled by this change.

I remind readers of my plot of pay at the University of #Edinburgh in real terms, and of the blog post showing how I calculated the results: blogs.ed.ac.uk/hughpumphrey... (and its linked predecessors)

My brand news Radio 4 series Universities Challenged - the crisis facing our higher education sector - is on RIGHT NOW!!!

The awesome @amymorrell.bsky.social (who I am privileged to supervise for a #PhD) is looking for new students joining #UKHE #HigherEducation #AcademicSky this year to take part in her online survey about student belonging. If you're teaching first year #undergraduates, please do share with them? 🙏

net immigration fell by more than half last year and the politics has gone in the complete opposite direction. It's not really about the numbers

My university just instituted a new workload model that explicitly states external service work, like journal editing, is not to be considered part of paid workload allocation. Yet such service is still listed on promotion guides. When will academics get fed up with working for free? Join #UCU

Tech billionaire Larry Ellison is transforming Oxford by moving his Ellison Institute from Los Angeles to the historic UK university. With a $1.3 billion investment, Ellison seeks to advance research in AI and emerging technologies. #LarryEllison