Links for 6/21/10

Catherine M. Haeck and Frank Verboven

based on the personnel records of a large Belgian university…

In many other countries promotions or tenure decisions are awarded through “tournaments”, but in Belgium the tournaments have two interesting specific features; they are held on an annual basis and decided within the university. The tournament implies that eligible candidates compete for a limited number of slots and winners are selected based on various aspects of performance, including research and teaching…

the university is characterised by a strong and persistent internal labour market. As a result, careers within the university tend to be long…

both research and teaching performance significantly contribute to the promotion probabilities, but there are important differences across the three university groups (exact sciences, medical sciences, and humanities). An increased teaching load of 1 course significantly increases the promotion probability by about 1-2%. An extra publication raises the promotion probability by a comparable amount in exact and medical sciences, but by a much larger amount of 9-16% in humanities…

Ben Miller

One can make an argument that the accreditation process almost worked in this issue. The accreditor clearly reviewed the courses enough to realize that a 9 credit course should really only have been worth about 3 credits. They found the mistake and identified it, calling the whole thing “egregious.” If accreditation is supposed to review standards and ensure quality, that seems to have been fine.

Instead, the issue is that the accreditation process basically walked up to the line of action and then backed down. Rather than taking action against what appears to be some egregious policies, the accreditor allowed for a minor rap on the knuckles and a visit or two. It didn’t do anything about the fact that inflated course credits would have resulted in overcharging of the federal student aid programs.

Clearly that’s insufficient. Even the NCAA acts in the face of egregious penalties. And that’s what ultimately must be addressed...

Caterina Fake

College works on the factory model, and is in many ways not suited to training entrepreneurs. You put in a student and out comes a scholar.

Entrepreneurship works on the apprenticeship model...

Tim Pawlenty via Steve Kolowich

“Do you really think in 20 years somebody’s going to put on their backpack, drive a half hour to the University of Minnesota from the suburbs, haul their keister across campus, and sit and listen to some boring person drone on about econ 101 or Spanish 101?” Pawlenty asked Stewart, host of "The Daily Show."

“Can’t I just pull that down on my iPhone or iPad whenever the heck I feel like it, from wherever I feel like it?” he said. “And instead of paying thousands of dollars, can I pay $199 for iCollege instead of 99 cents for iTunes?”