Teaching and learning

Even if university leaders are not experts in the technology, the potential is clear – and they might be able to draw on the ‘wisdom of ignorance’

Sector predicted to grow significantly in next decade, spurring a flurry of research and start-up activities

AI agents are what they ingest. Rather than scraping the internet, better to confine their diets to books and encyclopedias, says Sorin Adam Matei

Campuses across the country tightening in-class rules, seeking to boost student engagement

Funding and focus on job training blamed as five major European languages lose around a fifth of their enrolment in five years

Lack of clear guidelines may put instructors on ‘defensive’ over students’ use of ChatGPT, researchers say

Saudi Arabia’s KAUST leads table for the first time, driven by its research performance

Conference attendees discuss how to respond to the ‘600-pound gorilla in the room’ on university teaching

Event hears how even the best performing students can struggle to get a job if they lack soft skills

Recruitment of domestic school-leavers is stagnant amid concerns over rising graduate debt levels and weak employment outcomes. With ministers keen to turbocharge enrolment to upskill the nation, John Ross examines how higher education institutions can win back a disaffected generation

Australian study highlights gap between ‘statistically significant’ and ‘meaningful’

Lancet report says learning about medics’ role in the Holocaust could help students develop their own moral reasoning

Potsdam president foresees shift to focus on prompt engineering in teaching – but another AI expert thinks it is just another professional skill to rank alongside ‘can use Excel’

I tell students that I want to make them my academic integrity collaborators, upholding the quality of their own education, says Kenneth Worthy

Bizarre riffs about The Karate Kid or the Wu-Tang Clan may irritate his students, but ‘strategic vexing’ can promote the more adventurous educational mindset that undergraduates require in the age of ChatGPT, says Jose Marichal 

Academics could cooperate to decommercialise publishing so that all students have affordable access to reliable information, says Michael Wynn-Williams

Ventilation issues have forced Sheffield to move away from offering students the chance to work on donor bodies. Can virtual reality replace a centuries-old tradition?

Extensive comparison of course descriptions to actual syllabuses shows persistent silos, with highest cost for science students

Nurturing investigative skills will make for a better democracy – even if it embarasses campus administrators in the process, says Harvey Graff

Amid concerns about value for money and the supposed liberal bias of certain humanities and social science subjects, conservative politicians are increasingly intervening in curricular decisions. Do such subjects still have a place at public universities – and who should get to decide, asks Paul Basken

Women are given less time on equipment and more administrative duties than men in mixed gender laboratory groups, new research indicates

While academics may be dismissive, the process helps their professional colleagues recognise their own scholarly contributions, say four of them

Hesa figures suggest uptake has hit record high, with more scholars on teaching and research contracts having a teaching qualification than those employed as teaching-only

Michael Fung, a former deputy chief executive of Singapore’s SkillsFuture programme, takes his methodology to Mexico and the developing world

Decision might be politically motivated but will do little to help science graduates, researcher suggests

Upskiling staff to thrive in clean-energy industries could mostly benefit graduates and high-skill workers, Andreas Schleicher tells conference

Teaching students how to best use ChatGPT and other tools will be core to universities’ future, leaders tell THE summit

Students want to be on campus but they still need a reason to go there, summit hears

Metaverse campuses may be needed to alleviate loneliness of ‘personalised learning at scale’ driven by AI, Anant Agarwal tells THE summit

Using AI, a teacher with little coding experience could design a virtual environment to deliver a specific lesson to a specific student, says Nick Clegg

We support the idea but it needs funding, New Zealand universities say

Focusing on the quality of in-person teaching is only one way to make returning to physical campuses more appealing, says Carolyn Evans

After accreditor allows tests of shorter bachelor’s degree programmes, officials say they see no federal mandate on time or credit hours

Authors of Swedish study caution that one experiment should not be used as basis for ‘radical overhaul’ of education policy but urge ‘more informed discussion’

So far few oppose the inclusion of climate change sociology and economics in university-wide undergraduate courses, but support is thinner for their integration into other curricula

English regulator expresses concern about staffing levels and academic misconduct protections on business and management courses

University of Southern Queensland head makes case for teaching students in remote towns regionally to keep them and their skills in the community

Some fear anti-Anglicisation politician will stick to hard line if he wins big, but even milder consensus to limit non-Dutch teaching to a third of each programme would bring major disruption to many departments

Project 101 based around classroom observations and development of home-grown educational resources

Academics should be aware of how cohorts are structured so they can enable students to better distribute their emotional labour, says Miriam Johnson

For now, premier US university sees few good options beyond in-class assignments – at least among faculty taking the threat seriously

Truncated undergraduate degrees require between 90 and 94 credit hours instead of the standard 120

Major annual survey shows quality of remote teaching improving but enthusiasm for hybrid options cools

US universities look to alternative ways of ensuring diverse views are respected, reflecting differing approaches to the ‘crisis’

Period of relative stability offers chance to reassess discipline but also risks world losing interest, says director

If AI can perform or simulate a competency being assessed, is it really appropriate for students to use it, asks Andrew West

Review of surveys involving more than 4,600 participants suggests rates of academic misconduct rocketed during Covid-19 pandemic

Unless something is done, teaching and learning risks becoming a completely inauthentic spectacle, says Dan Sarofian-Butin

Following the removal of a question on overall satisfaction, Times Higher Education analysed the results to produce an overall ‘positivity measure’

It is easy to be consumed by the daily addressing of students’ needs but, for their sake, faculty need to hold the line, say Colleen Wynn and Elizabeth Ziff 

Those who took only pass/fail assignments in first year went on to achieve similar marks as their peers but levels of anxiety remained the same

Three hundred mathematicians expected to have retired by middle of the century

Cambridge-based chipmaker Arm warns of ‘clear mismatch’ between graduate skills and industry needs

Studies claiming how technology can ‘transform’ educational systems require more academic rigour, finds new report

Keith Brown likens academics taking part in ‘shameful’ industrial action to those who ‘build their lives on the shattered dreams of others’

Half of firsts cannot be explained by changes in prior attainment or choice of subject, sector regulator claims, although this is down from Covid-era peak

At risk to their careers, women teaching sciences shown in nationwide survey to be more willing to admit struggles with depression, poverty and attainment

Single department or minister should cover both teaching and research elements of universities, says Nicola Dandridge

Assessment rationales have not kept pace with AI translation and writing support tools, conference hears

Based solely on a Turnitin report, Emily was condemned for using ChatGPT to write her essay. Except that she hadn’t, writes Daniel Sokol