Rice University football players were at the University of Sydney yesterday, preparing for the weekend US college competition season opener against Stanford, being played in the Harbour City (sorry, no idea). But Rice U president David LeeBron, was not with them, he was at the University of Melbourne meeting Provost Margaret Sheil. CMM suspects they were not discussing the merits of their two footy codes.

The university launches massive online courses that cost

Monash U, in partnership with the UK Open University’s FutureLearn subsidiary, will launch fee-paying MOOC format courses in healthcare practice.

The first of five, “Food as medicine: fertility and pregnancy” targets doctors, nurses and other people in healthcare looking for a course for credit. It starts tomorrow.

The following four are “Talking abought weight,” Food and our genome” Food, exercise and the gut” and “Food and inflammation.” Monash academics have created the courses, with UK input.

According to FutureLearn various UK and Australian agencies accredit the courses.

The first unit in the series costs $214.

Music producer and engineer Mark Opitz  has joined ANU’s music school as a visiting fellow where he will work with staff and students in the ANU‘s new “world-class high-end recording facility.” Mr Opitz has worked with bands including Cold Chisel, AC/DC and the Divinyls, (people under the 30 check YouTube).

The International Astronautical Association convenes in Adelaide next month. For delegates arriving on the east coast after 18 hour flights and then finding they have two hours to go it will only seem like Adelaide is on Mars.

UWA announces Owen Davies is its new chief marketing officer. Mr Davies joins after a decade at Crowns Resorts, most recently at Crown Perth, celebrated for its casino. He replaces Karen Carriero who resigned in April to move to the University of British Columbia.

“The appointment of Mr Davies comes at an important time for the university as we seek to enhance our external brand and grow our student numbers.” CMM hears he will have a significant increase in resources (there is talk of 50 more staff) to help.

Plagiarism attracts attention in academic integrity but exam cheating is still out there. So the University of Melbourne built a system to address it  

At this week’s assessment integrity conference, Richard James and Neil Robinson set out the University of Melbourne demonstrated how the university responded to a case of exam tampering by identifying 11 stages in the exam process and coming up with ways to improve security for each of them. “There’s no stopping some students from cheating but you can make it harder for them,” they say.

Quite a bit harder.

The research listed every stage in the exam lifecycle, from preparing questions to students scrutinising their scripts to check they were fairly treated and found potential problems in all. They identified five generic risks; policy and procedures are unclear or not followed, local practice creates opportunities for cheats and their agents, IT is used differently in various stages of the cycle, physical storage and security varies and electronic security, including CCT is not always comprehensive.

In essence there are inevitably too many people and too much handling to assure security. But focusing on three areas can improve it. First people, screen staff for integrity and ensure they are right for their stage of the process. Second keep material physically safe and make sure it is monitored. And always ensure that university IT systems involved are secure.

No, it will not keep Oceans 11 out if they want to steal the Accounting 101 exam but a culture of security means university management can adapt, as the thieves do. “Ways to cheat will constantly evolve and we will need to similarly evolve what we do to reduce the opportunities available,” James and Robinson say.

The new UNSW education-focused carers programme has launched, with scheme sponsor DVC E Merlin Crossley hosting an event for some 75 or so staff, around half the number of a academics who have moved into EF roles. The university is looking to have 20 per cent of the university’s 5000 or so academics in the programme by 2025.

Education does have employment powers just ask the ABS

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released data on the qualifications of Newstart recipients (thanks to the ultra-learned Andrew Norton for the pointer). People with no (55.1 per cent) or low (certificate holder, 23 per cent) post school qualifications account for most of recipients. People with all levels of diplomas account for 7 per cent, the same for those with bachelor degrees while Newstart recipients with postgraduate qualifications make up just under 2 per cent. While it’s newly released, the data dates from 2011, making this a rough guide to what is going on, but a guide nonetheless.

The ABS also records the proportions of people on Newstart with a post school qualification by field. The worst areas for collecting Newstart were management and commerce (22.6 per cent), engineering and related technologies (18.8 per cent) and society and culture (17 per cent). The best were natural and physical sciences (3.4 per cent), IT (3.8 per cent) and, go figure, creative arts 4.1 per cent.

“Paris, new friends, a study abroad experience and completing UNCC300 in two weeks! Why wouldn’t you do it… “ the Australian Catholic University asks yesterday. Well, not knowing what UNNCC300 is would be one reason.