Reasons to be grateful

For-profit journal giant Elsevier is messaging researchers who published in its journals last year, with “heartfelt thanks”

“Less ‘heartfelt’ as ‘walletfelt,’ “ a learned reader remarks.

Elsevier’s business model is based on researchers contributing articles without payment, to journals the company variously charges people to read or publish in. The division of Elsevier’s owner, Relx, that includes the publisher had an operating profit of £1bn in 2021.

There’s more in the Mail

In Features this morning

Merlin Crossley asked ChatGPT for a blog on issues facing Australian universities (don’t use it for an O’Kane Review submission)

plus Frank Larkins reports the remarkable strength of university balance sheets, despite the pandemic HERE.

with the pitch for merging Uni Adelaide and Uni SA is it would, “unlock benefits far beyond collaboration and scale, making transformational investments in both teaching and research,” (CMM December 8). It might well work for research – as Nicholas Fisk and Daniel Owens (UNSW) explain HERE.

and Robert Vanderburg and Anthony Weber (both CQU) on students as partners against cheating. Sally Kift’s first 2023 selection for her series, Needed now in learning and teaching, HERE.

as well as Amanda Janssen (Uni SA) and Amy Milka (Uni Adelaide) report on academic integrity experts responding to the challenge of ChatGPT.

No deal at Charles Darwin U

Management had a big bargaining win in November -it’s now a loss

CDU staff backed management’s proposed enterprise agreement, which was fiercely opposed by the National Tertiary Education Union (CMM November 21).

But the union questioned whether the agreement was genuinely adopted and the Fair Work Commission decided it wasn’t.

The problem is the university let fixed term contract staff vote, who were not employed on the days of the ballot – and if all 150 of them voted for the agreement, without their votes the win was invalid.

“On that basis, I do not believe that the proposed agreement has been genuinely agreed within the meaning of the … Act,” Commissioner Platt concluded.

CDU now assures staff that the pay rise already passed on will continue and points out that 63 per cent of staff voted for the agreement.

“We are carefully considering our next steps, which may include an appeal,” VC Scott Bowman says.

New VET agency, same VET data

New peak federal agency, Jobs and Skills Australia is charged with providing “reports and analysis of of current, emerging, and future labour market, and workforce, skills and training needs”

It’s first report, on VET in regional, rural and remote Australia.  JSA finds, (who would have thought), “training is driven to a large extent by local industries with higher enrolments in agricultural and engineering-related training when compared with major cities.”

The report relies heavily on data from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, which makes CMM wonder why JSA did not outsource the report to the NCVER itself – which has researched VET for 40 year plus years.  Perhaps because the JSA, like its predecessor, the National Skills Commission, is a Commonwealth agency, while the NCVER is owned by the federal, state and territory governments.

Ah federalism, aint it grand!

Todays Headline Story

Jig is up for gaming the research system

The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency finalises its advice on research performance, closing a debate on how to measure research needed for existing institutions to keep their university title and new ones to qualify

Universities older than a decade must meet quality benchmarks for research in 50 per cent of fields of education (minimum three). Others must get there in a decade.

The measure of research performance will be world (or Australian specific) standard.

“World standard” as now set by the Australian Research Council is pretty average (CMM November 6 2020). But this could be about to change, depending on what the present Sheil Review of the Australian Research Council recommends for performance measurements for the Excellence in Research for Australia metric.  Whatever happens, TEQSA, “processes obviously will adapt to any research regime changes implemented by the Australian government.”

There has been speculation that some teaching-focused unis may struggle to meet the minimum research field requirement but what could be harder is maintaining the research governance culture – which TEQSA will look for. The tests will be meeting the legislated research threshold standards, including, research staffing and oversight, integrity and oversight, productivity, or “other evidence of sustained research quality.”

And lest anybody think smoke and mirrors can disguise what isn’t being done, the regulator sets out seven strategies of which it will take a dim view, including; “insufficient investment of resources in research necessary to maintain research quality over the period of a provider’s registration … for example, casual employment of high-profile researchers for part of a year to augment the provider’s research profile and output when the researcher is under the auspices of another provider.”

Which strikes CMM as TEQSA speak for the jig is about to be up for anybody who hopes to game the research system.

Australia Day top honours

Researchers/HE leaders include

AC

Peter Hannaford – experimental physics (Swinburne U) * Melissa Little – STEM cell research (Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Stem Cell Medicine)

AO

* Michele Allan – ag and food sectors (Charles Sturt) * Warwick Anderson – health/medical research – (Monash U) * Michael Berndt – haematology (Curtin U) * Matthew Colless – astronomy (ANU) * Clare Collins -nutritional health (Uni Newcastle) * Steven Collins – medical research (Uni Melbourne) * Mark Cook – neurological medicine (Uni Melbourne) * Rhonda Faragher – Down Syndrome research/education (Uni Queensland) * Mary-Jane Gething – biochemistry (Uni Melbourne) * Jane Hemstritch – medical administration (Walter and Eliza Hall IMR) * David Hume – biological science (Uni Queensland) * Peter Jennings – strategic and international policy (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) * Merran Kelsall – financial accounting (UNSW) * Susan Kurrle – geriatrician (Uni Sydney) * Jane Latimer – public health (Uni Sydney) * Jie Lu (engineering/computer science) UTS * Jill McKeough – IP law (UTS) * Jack McLean – motor safety research (Uni Adelaide) * Robert Manne (political and social commentary) – La Trobe U * Robert Morgan (Indigenous community and tertiary education) – Uni Newcastle and UTS * (the late) George Patton – psychiatry (Murdoch Children’s RI, Uni Melbourne) * Anthony Press – the environment (Uni Tasmamia) * Ian Ramsay – law (Uni Melbourne) * John Smits – aerospace engineering (Princeton U) * Bruce Tonge – psychiatric medicine (Monash U) * Anne Tonkin – medical professional regulation (Uni Adelaide) * Heddy Zola – immunology (Uni SA)

Appointments, achievements

Nigel Andrew becomes discipline chair for science at Southern Cross U. He moves from Uni New England.

Michael Dagostino will join Uni Sydney in March as director Museums and Cultural Engagement. He moves from the Campbelltown Arts Centre and replaces David Ellis, who retires.

Alex Furman becomes VP Advancement at ANU. It’s an internal appointment.

Tālis J. Putniņš (UTS) wins the Graham and Dodd Award from CFA, (“the global association of investment professionals”). It’s for his article, “Free markets to FED markets: how modern monetary policy impacts equity markets, (Financial Analysts Journal).

Natasha Simons (Australian Research Data Commons) joins the steering group of the 102 000 member around the world Research Organisation Registry.