And now for the photo . . .

Following on from the last post, a very nice picture of Dr Aisling McCluskey receiving her National Teaching Excellence Award from President Mary McAleese is now featured on the NUIG website.

Recent NAIRTL Events

It's been a busy time for NAIRTL, the National Academy for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning. Last week, the NAIRTL annual conference was held at Trinity College Dublin. Quite a few of us traveled from NUIG to be there, including Professor Nicholas Canny who can be seen here participating in an excellent panel discussion amongst the major research funding agencies in Ireland. It was very encouraging to see the research funding agencies so well represented at a conference mainly devoted to teaching, and they all provided valuable insights into the ways in which each organisation views and promotes the integration of research and teaching activities.

On Weds 18 Nov, the NAIRTL National Teaching Excellence Awards will be presented to the winners by President Mary McAleese at a special event in Dublin Castle. We would like to congratulate all of the award winners, but especially our own Dr Aisling McCluskey from NUIG's School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics. Well done and please bring us back some photos to put up on our blog after the event!

Publishing and Open Access

CELT hosted an informative seminar this week on Open Access publishing, facilitated by the research support staff from the library. The seminar focused on the development of ARAN, NUI Galway's open access repository. More universities are developing these types of repositories in order to facilitate access to the publications of academic staff, and it seems as though many publishers and funding bodies are in favour of them.

The main reason that they are seen as a good idea by everyone (and not just those in favour of open access on principle) is that they increase citation counts. Citations are of course fast becoming the key performance indicator for academic researchers. Some of you who work in fields where publishing manuscripts or books used to be the more traditional route through an academic career may well be wondering whether it is time to stop writing books and start publishing journal articles. This is the topic of a discussion happening now on the THE website and it is worth a look if you are interested in this question.

Academic Workloads

I've been watching a debate hot up on the THE website in response to an article about academic workloads. The research for the article suggests that academics' working hours (in the UK, where the study was done) have remained fairly stable over the past few decades, averaging about 55 hours per week. What has changed is the proportion of administrative duties that academics undertake (up now to just over 30% of their workload).

These findings are interesting and are certainly generating much discussion on the website. What is somewhat depressing is to see the old chestnut of the administrative/academic divide generating some sarcastic comments again. There is obviously distrust on both sides with some academics suggesting that an unnecessary layer of middle management is causing the burden, while others are taking pot shots at academics as whinging skivers. You would think there would be some way to help bridge this perception gap.

from the papers

Iain Macwhirter, Rector of Edinburgh University, highlights the need to keep firm on free higher education.

NUI Galway is this year's Irish University of the Year.

Clear your desk and head for the airport.

Ok, it has been quite some time since we posted here. This is in part a reflection of the frenzied activity that takes place in universities in late August/early September, wrapping up the newly ended academic year, supervising and marking projects, rushing to complete research commitments, upgrading facilities, hosting summer-schools and conferences and then the final burst to get ready for a new cohort of thousands of new students in September. Date-wise of course it coincides with politicians' holidays and so it permits the continued persistence of the long-summer-vacation myth of the ivory tower. Not all of us have the contractual conditions of parliamentarians or some others, but despite the pressures we do the work, and often in blatant disregard for the European working directive (particularly when the new semester kicks in).

For some though, this particular new academic year marks a devastating period in their professional lives as with contracts due for renewal, the public sector moratorium tramples on their hopes, disregards their experience, their productivity and their talent and brutally casts them aside to join the ranks of the unemployed and the world of mortgage arrears. Its scattergun approach across the whole sector shows a complete lack of foresight, strategy and logic. The 'smart economy' is unlikely to be built on dumb decisions.

This may sound like a somewhat bitter posting, but its high time someone acknowledged the work of contract staff and their situation puts in perspective some of the fretting of those of in permanent posts about relatively minor issues (as frequently voiced at academic meetings and elsewhere), with the scale and impact of the recruitment freeze perhaps not yet fully appreciated.

If only it was in our power to do something about the situation. Of course there is talk that the moratorium may be challenged given that it is counter to the 1997 Universities' Act in denying autonomy to the institutions, but whether such will have any real traction remains to be seen.

In the bleak midwinter..oh no hang on it's summer...

As the recruitment moratorium begins to bite in Irish Higher Education, with no new contracts allowed and potential staffing shortfalls in academic and support posts looming; the news from across the water in the UK (particularly England in the devolved structures) is also gloomy. The recent edition of the Times Higher warns of impending bankruptcy of some institutions as well as detailing the crassness of someone's approach to dealing with staff dismissals at Imperial College.