Science and Technology

Can the Research Model Move Beyond its Dominant Patron? The Future of Support for Fundamental Research in US Universities, by Gwilym Croucher

Gwilym Croucher
2018

The United States has been the leader in fundamental research for the last seven decades. Fundamental research is overwhelming undertaken in or in conjunction with research-intensive universities, and since the 1950s they have depended on US Federal funding to make this possible. This support has been consistently championed by Congress, is popular across the political spectrum and enjoys long public backing, in no small part because there remains a widespread trust in the societal benefits it provides. Yet the US now faces a dilemma over the future of this national achievement and the...

Use and Users of Digital Resources: A Focus on Undergraduate Education in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Diane Harley
Jonathan Henke
Shannon Lawrence
2006

The purpose of our research was (1) to map the universe of digital resources available to a subset of undergraduate educators in the humanities and social sciences, and (2) to investigate how and if available digital resources are actually being used in undergraduate teaching environments. We employed multiple methods, including surveys and focus groups. Our definition of digital resources was intentionally broad and included rich media objects (e.g., maps, video, images, etc.) as well as text.

RESTRUCTURING ENGINEERING EDUCATION: Why, How and When?

C. Judson King
2011

There is strong interest in broadening engineering education, bringing in more liberal arts content as well as additional subjects such as economics, business and law, with which engineers now have to be familiar. There are also cogent arguments for balancing against what is now the almost exclusively quantitative nature of the curriculum, adding more elements that relate to the actual practice of engineering, and structuring engineering education so as to provide multiple and later entry points, which should enable more informed career choices and make engineering attractive to a...

Online education platforms scale college STEM instruction with equivalent learning outcomes at lower cost

Igor Chirikov
Tatiana Semenova
Natalia Maloshonok
Eric Bettinger
René F. Kizilcec
2020

Meeting global demand for growing the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce requires solutions for the shortage of qualified instructors. We propose and evaluate a model for scaling up affordable access to effective STEM education through national online education platforms. These platforms allow resource-constrained higher education institutions to adopt online courses produced by the country’s top universities and departments. A multisite randomized controlled trial tested this model with fully online and blended instruction modalities in Russia’s...

Universities and the Entrepreneurial State: Politics and Policy and a New Wave of State-Based Economic Initiatives

John Aubrey Douglass
2006

The convergence of US federal science and economic policy that began in earnest in the Reagan administration formed the first stage in an emerging post-Cold War drive toward technological innovation. A frenzy of new state-based initiatives now forms the Second Stage, further promoting universities as decisive tools for economic competitiveness. State governments have largely become the political environment in which new policy ideas are emerging, influenced by a sense of increased competition among states and other international economies for economic growth. The paper outlines the...

Reforming Doctoral Education: There is a Better Way, by Rachel Spronken-Smith

Rachel Spronken-Smith
2018

The traditional apprenticeship model for PhD education involves supervisors mentoring students through a substantive research project and ultimately into academia. Although about half of PhD graduates enter careers beyond academia, this apprenticeship model, with a narrow focus on thesis research has continued to dominate in many countries. While there are variations in terms of coursework requirements, the main assessment continues to be on the PhD thesis, and, in most countries, an oral defense of this thesis. The aims of this working paper are firstly to critique the dominant models of...

Developing Graduate Students of Color for the Professoriate in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), by Anne J. MacLachlan

Anne J. MacLachlan
2006

This paper presents part of the results of a completed study entitled A Longitudinal Study of Minority Ph.D.s from 1980-1990: Progress and Outcomes in Science and Engineering at the University of California during Graduate School and Professional Life. It focuses particularly on the graduate school experience and degree of preparation for the professoriate of African American doctoral students in the sciences and engineering, and presents the results of a survey of 33 African American STEM Ph.D.s from the University of California earned between 1980-1990....

Artificial Intelligence & Higher Education: Towards Customized Teaching and Learning, and Skills for an AI World of Work, by Grace Ufuk Taneri, CSHE 6.20 (June 2020)

Grace Ufuk Taneri
2020

We are living in an era of artificial intelligence (AI). There is wide discussion about and experimentation with the impact of AI on education/higher education. In this paper, we give a discussion of how AI is evolving, explore the ways AI is changing education/higher education, give a concise account of the skills universities need to teach their students to prepare them for an AI world of work, and talk succinctly about the changing nature of jobs and the workforce.

SAT/ACT Scores, High-School GPA, and the problem of Omitted Variable Bias: Why the UC Taskforce’s Findings are Spurious, by Saul Geiser, 1.20 (March 2020)

Saul Geiser
2020

One of the major claims of the report of University of California’s Task Force on Standardized Testing is that SAT and ACT scores are superior to high-school grades in predicting how students will perform at UC. This finding has been widely reported in the news media and cited in several editorials favoring UC’s continued use of SAT/ACT scores in university admissions. But the claim is spurious, the statistical artifact of a classic methodological error: omitted variable bias. Compared to high-school grades, SAT/ACT scores are much more strongly correlated with student demographics like...

A Defining Time: The California State Geological Survey and its Temperamental Leader, Josiah Dwight Whitney, by Karen Merritt, CSHE 9.20 (August 2020)

Karen Merritt
2020

Josiah Dwight Whitney’s accomplishments as California’s State Geologist and director of the California State Geological Survey from 1860 to 1874 have been well-recognized. Whitney and his associates brought to the Survey the best science of their era that shaped their exploration, mapping, and collection of plant, fossil and mineral specimens. For the first time, they created a comprehensive physical definition of a state only haphazardly explored and described up to that time. Whitney’s self-certainly in his expertise and personal views often led to tumultuous, even self-defeating,...