Altered states for the lawmakers of the new measurement frontier
Citations and impact factors are old hat, says Matthew Gamble; the Web 2.0 generation needs metrics to match today’s scholarship

Citations and impact factors are old hat, says Matthew Gamble; the Web 2.0 generation needs metrics to match today’s scholarship
Is this a godless age? No, say 'post-secularist' academics, who argue that the world outside the liberal West is 'furiously religious'. But such scholars overstate the number of believers, contends...
It is not just the prayerful who can be religious; by scholarly definitions, they can include fans of football teams and celebrities, says Robert Segal

Apps created by and for the academy could turn smartphones into essential academic tools for everything from teaching and citations to social-science fieldwork. Sarah Cunnane reports
Although it may seem presumptuous of one of those cursorily dismissed "poorer universities and colleges" to take issue with both Simon Blackburn and John Stuart Mill in one letter, might I suggest...
Martin Cohen's unpleasant review of my book Believing Bullshit ("Strong whiff of a weak argument", 21 July) begins: "Do you believe in God? Or even wonder if there might be a purpose to the universe...
The president of the British Academy astutely notes ("Reforms pose danger, but arts and humanities should prosper", 23 July) that the bulk of the White Paper is an attempt to address "issues" arising...
Having read the joint statement from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, Research Councils UK and Universities UK on impact, published undated on the RCUK website, I wondered if Laurie...
As noted in "REF guidance sets up the starting blocks" (21 July), "if an output involves collaborators from more than one university, all institutions may submit it and panels will assess it on an '...
Roger King is right ("Safeguarding quality could soon become a very risky business", 21 July) to urge caution before the sector grabs the notion in the recent White Paper that some institutions might...
Responsibility for the problems in higher education may partly lie with some of the philosophies that prevail in the academic community itself. There is currently a lot of criticism of the...
"The secret to saving our universities" (14 July) reminded me of these lines from John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University."If then a practical end must be assigned to a university course, I say...
It may well be true that "Reading Aristotle can roll back the tide of relativism" (21 July), but I wonder how far Socrates and Plato can be pressed into service in the "struggle against subjectivism...

An ill-disciplined bunch? Academics in the humanities were wrong to claim that their work is 'inherently disruptive' (Picture credit: Kobal)Academics who celebrate "indiscipline" over basic...

Duncan Wu considers how the quiet dignity of a veteran actress creates an impressive drama