Tag: academic

  • Universities struggle to recognise leadership beyond the academic template

    Universities struggle to recognise leadership beyond the academic template

    In the shifting terrain of higher education, the figure of the “pracademic” has become increasingly prominent.

    Straddling the worlds of theory and practice, pracademics bring external insight into the academy along with a restlessness about how knowledge is produced, shared, and valued.

    They offer universities the opportunity to widen their epistemic horizons, but in doing so, they expose the inherent tensions in how academic leadership is defined and performed.

    The rise of the pracademic

    Pracademics rarely fit the established leadership templates; instead, they model heterodox approaches, navigating ambiguity, drawing from diverse methodologies, and unsettling conventional hierarchies. Arguably, this is not an accidental disruption, but a generative one. Pracademics challenge the orthodoxy of university life, and in doing so, they invite us to rethink the paradoxes that shape leadership in higher education.

    As institutions seek to embrace diversity and interdisciplinarity, many still struggle to accommodate those whose career paths have not followed the traditional orthodox academic trajectory.

    For second-career academics and pracademics, leadership can feel like swimming against the tide. Their experience and outlook can enrich higher education, but too often their value is under-recognised and under-leveraged. To lead in a heterodox community of contradictions, we must not only tolerate difference but structure our systems to nurture and embed it.

    This leads to the question: are today’s universities ready for leaders who do not fit the mould? As Jill Dickinson and colleagues noted in a Wonkhe article, some academics are seen as more proper than others.

    Not fitting the mould

    University ecosystems are not tidy places. They are heterodox ecosystems populated by the idiosyncratic, the idealistic, the quietly radical, the wildly inconsistent. This is perhaps their greatest strength, but also perhaps their greatest challenge.

    For those of us asked to lead within these environments, the traditional managerial playbook may not suffice. Our colleagues are not staff in the conventional sense. They are academics and professionals, each with their own epistemologies, rhythms, and values.

    It may be tempting to assume there are defined academic personalities. A shorthand often emerges: the aloof theorist, the star researcher, the endlessly enthusiastic educator. But these caricatures are too narrow. In reality, we work alongside colleagues who are motivated by very different things. Autonomy, impact, status, security, social justice, or simply the deep and personal satisfaction of learning. Some are collaborative; others prefer to work in isolation. Some want to change the world; others just want to understand it. To lead effectively in this landscape is not to standardise, but to navigate. Thoughtfully, deliberately, and with care.

    Increasingly we share this space with those whose paths into academia were far from linear. As a self-identified pracademic, I followed that linear progression, culminating in a PhD in entrepreneurship in my mid twenties before taking a right turn and transitioning into a career in industry and consultancy. Re-entering the academy many years later, I found myself in an environment which confused, frustrated and excited in equal measure. A world that both welcomed and resisted difference. As a pracademic I sought to blend my experience of industry with my academic credentials and apply this to teaching and scholarship. I thought this would be a straightforward career move, but it has been less than easy. I am not alone in this. I have several colleagues who have travelled similar paths. This is not a new phenomenon, and is highlighted in a previous Wonkhe article by Jacqueline Baxter.

    Where do pracademics fit?

    The academy is not against us; it simply does not yet know how to include us. And at times, we are not sure how to include ourselves. Recruitment, induction and promotion systems often presume conventional trajectories and narrow definitions of success. CVs weighted towards delivery, leadership and impact can sit awkwardly alongside expectations for peer-reviewed outputs and theoretical depth.

    The result is unease.

    Heterodox colleagues from non-traditional backgrounds are welcomed for their distinctiveness but expected to assimilate. Over time, they become weary; their fresh perspective blunted by institutional habits. And so we risk losing them. Or worse, we fail to attract pracademics in the first place.

    This would represent not only a loss of individual talent, but arguably it is a structural failure to evolve. In an era that prizes engagement, interdisciplinarity and real-world relevance, universities cannot afford to cling to a single model of academic identity. Heterodox colleagues are not silver bullets, but they are essential to the richness and resilience of the sector.

    The compliance trap

    Despite the diversity of perspectives and epistemologies, our systems often reward sameness; uniformity in careers, outputs and leadership behaviours. Interdisciplinarity is celebrated rhetorically but stifled procedurally. Innovation is encouraged but only when it conforms to measurable outcomes. Leadership frameworks borrowed from corporate life bring useful tools, but they are not neutral.

    These models often fail to accommodate heterodox approaches, undervaluing forms of leadership that thrive on difference, improvisation, and autonomy. Performance metrics and standardised objectives often marginalise the creative, the hybrid and the experimental.

    If we value diversity and heterodoxy, we must accept that excellence takes many forms: some measurable, others intuitive; some harmonious, others deliberately disruptive. We need frameworks that flex, processes that adapt, and cultures that embrace the very contradictions they generate.

    Herein lies the paradox: universities demand diversity to survive, yet they reward conformity to preserve reputation. They seek innovation but measure it through established norms. This tension is not a flaw, rather it is the condition of the heterodox university. The question is whether our leadership structures are capable of holding that contradiction.

    This reflects the recent call for a new leadership framework in HE, to address the shifting landscape, the advancements in technology, social and regulatory change. Leadership “is now a crucial component in the higher education sector’s efforts to successfully navigate current challenges”.

    Leading with empathy

    So what might leadership look like in this context? It means creating the conditions in which individuals can flourish. It is stewardship not control. It involves being comfortable with ambiguity and openness to challenge. It involves intellectual empathy: understanding how colleagues think, not only what they do and recognising the inherent value in other academics. It is about creating the conditions in which others can flourish, even when their values or methods differ from our own.

    University leadership can carry a heavy emotional load. The balance of advocacy with accountability; innovation with institutional demands; scholarship with scheduling. We were not trained for this; we stepped in because we care. We want to fix what frustrates us; to create space for ideas; to support people we believe in. Through listening we discover a form of leadership that builds a shared capacity and nurtures potential even in those who are manifestly different from ourselves.

    Permission to lead differently

    In spite of all the challenges, there is real opportunity. The best leaders I have worked with were not necessarily the most strategic or the most visible. They were the ones who listened well; who noticed when someone was struggling; who quietly, or even loudly, championed a good idea even when it wasn’t their own. They had the confidence to admit when they did not know the answer to something, and the humility to let others shine.

    Leadership of this kind may be less celebrated in glossy strategy documents, but it is deeply generative.

    We need, perhaps, to give ourselves permission to lead differently. To resist the false dichotomies. To stop trying to fix people and instead start asking what might enable them. To see conflict and contrast not as a threat, but as evidence of a living, thinking, thriving, modern institution. Above all, we must remind ourselves that leadership is not something done to others, it is something enacted with them.

    This is not leadership as compliance. It is leadership as contribution. And it is time we gave ourselves permission to practise it.

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  • Higher education governance needs the conflict between academic and business imperatives to be successful

    Higher education governance needs the conflict between academic and business imperatives to be successful

    The sector’s financial challenges have shone a spotlight on governance effectiveness in higher education in England.

    When the incoming government tasked the Office for Students (OfS) with directing more of its energy towards financial sustainability in the summer of 2024, it was only a matter of months before director of regulation Philippa Pickford put forward the view that the sector needed “a conversation” about governance, specifically about how robustly boards had tested some of the financial projections they had been prepared to sign off.

    That signal of concern about governance has clearly manifested in the corridors of the Department for Education (DfE), if these words from the Secretary of State to the Commons Education Committee in May are anything to go by:

    The government is clear that there needs to be a focus on and improvement in providers’ governance. Planning and strategy development within higher education providers, including financial planning, should be supported by the highest standards of governance to ensure realistic planning, robust challenge and the development of sustainable business models.

    The sector has not been unresponsive to these cues – Advance HE in partnership with the wider sector is (taking the conversation metaphor literally) curating a “big conversation” about governance and the Committee of University Chairs (CUC) has pledged to review the higher education code of governance – which for a large number of institutions acts as a reference document for compliance with OfS’ conditions of registration on governance.

    The implicit underpinning premise from OfS and DfE is fairly stark: the government is disavowing any responsibility it might have to come up with a financial settlement that would shore up higher education finances while retaining the current delivery model; nor is it especially keen to have to deal with institutional bailouts arising from institutional inability to manage the changed funding landscape. The strong signal is that it is up to higher education institutions to work out how to survive in this environment – and if boards are not up to the task of finding the answers then it’s the boards that need reforming.

    Business acumen

    I read this communication as part of a discursive stand off between government and the sector in which the lines between the role of government and role of individual institutions in securing the future of higher education is contested. Within that context, the validity of the implied criticism – that boards are insufficiently businesslike and strategic – needs to be interrogated.

    There was a fascinating piece on The Critic last week by University of Buckingham academic Terence Kealey bemoaning the rise of the managerialist board. In Kealey’s analysis, when the balance of power in governance tilted towards the Senate – the governing body of academics – the institution thrived, as evidenced by strong performance in NSS and a financial surplus. But when the Council flexed its muscles, the university faltered, dropping in the league tables and spending more than it brought in.

    Kealey’s core argument – that academics are best placed to steward the core higher education mission of excellent teaching and research – picks up a longer standing critique of higher education governance that perceives organisational strategic objectives as articulated by institutional boards and executive teams as frequently in opposition to the academic endeavour, being far too concerned with financial efficiency, performance management, reputation/league tables, and capturing market share. Echoes of aspects of this critique appear in the recent Council for the Defence of British Universities’ proposed code of ethical university governance, which urges boards to adhere to high standards of transparent, principled, and public-spirited conduct.

    At the other end of the spectrum, the criticism of higher education governance – including sometimes from governors themselves – is that boards are insufficiently businesslike, fail to articulate long-term strategic objectives that will secure the institution’s sustainability, and have limited entrepreneurial spirit that would allow the institution to adapt to adverse headwinds. A more moderate version of this criticism argues that it is very difficult to convene the diverse skillset that could allow for effective board oversight of the wide range of activities that higher education institutions do.

    Thinking about activities like academic and knowledge exchange partnerships, the creation of new campuses or the erection of new buildings, or civic and international engagement, all of these have the the academic endeavour at their core but are mostly about deploying the knowledge and reputational assets of the institution to generate additional value – and they each carry complicated associated legal and regulatory compliance expectations and reputational risk. It’s not clear that developing those strategies and managing those risks and expectations coheres well with academic professional practice – though some academics will obviously have a keen interest and want to develop knowledge in these areas.

    The worst of both

    There has always been an expectation that higher education institutions need to be simultaneously academically excellent and sufficiently business savvy to make sure the institution remains financially stable. Both academic and institutional governance can fail – the latter often more spectacularly and with greater reputational impact – but the impact of academic governance failure is arguably greater overall both on the long term health of the institution and on the lives of the staff and students affected.

    So you could argue that it’s odd and/or problematic that the sector has witnessed the erosion of the power of senates and academic boards as part of a wider set of trends towards a more executive style of higher education leadership, the rise of metrics, league tables and more managerial approaches to institutional performance, the intensification of regulatory expectations, and the steady withdrawal of direct public funding from the sector. It’s telling that under the current regulatory regime in England institutional boards have had to master new expectations of oversight of academic quality, on the presumption that all institutional accountability should sit in one place, rather than being distributed – suggesting that quality is now seen as part of the wider business imperative rather than a counterweight to it.

    But simply pivoting the balance of power back to senates and the academic community doesn’t necessarily address the problem. It’s possible, I suppose, to imagine a relatively benign or at least predictable funding and regulatory environment in which some of the pressing strategic questions about institutional size and shape, partnerships, or external engagement are answered or moot, and in which knowledge stewardship, academic excellence, and (one would hope) student learning experience are the primary purpose of higher education governance.

    But even if that environment was plausible – I’m not sure it has ever existed – it doesn’t really address the more existential contemporary questions that governments and the public seem to be putting to higher education: how does the country see, and experience the value of all this knowledge stewardship and academic excellence? To realise that value and make it visible in more than an ad hoc way – to be institutionally accountable for the systematic manifestation of public value from academic knowledge – requires knowledge and professional practice beyond individual teaching and research excellence. And, more prosaically but equally importantly, buildings, infrastructure, and systems that create the environment for effective knowledge stewardship. Without a functioning institution there can be no knowledge stewardship.

    There’s a reason, in other words, even if you strip out all the neoliberal value propositions from higher education governance, why higher education institutions need a “business” arm and associated governance structures. And that’s before you confront the actual reality of the current situation where the funding and regulatory environment is neither benign nor predictable – and the need for effective external relationship-building and systematic collaboration is greater than it has been in decades.

    On the other hand, some of the business decisions that are made to secure financial sustainability or long term institutional success put the academic imperative at risk. Rapid growth in student numbers, redundancy programmes, departmental or services cuts or new strategic partnerships can compromise quality, as we have seen in a number of recent cases. There may be mitigations or the impact may be worth the reward, but there can be no meaningful strategic decision without being able to weigh up both.

    Yet where we have ended up, I fear, is in the worst of both worlds – institutional boards that are neither sufficiently academically robust to have a grip of academic excellence nor sufficiently strategic and entrepreneurial to ensure institutions are able to thrive in the current higher education landscape. This is no shade to the immense talent and knowledge of the individuals who take up roles as higher education governors – it is a structural critique.

    Creative tension

    Where I end up is with the question – if there is really an inbuilt tension between the academic and business imperatives of higher education institutions, what would it look like for that tension to be a productive one in higher education governance rather than a source of toxicity?

    I suspect – though I’ve not (yet) asked – many vice chancellors and their executive teams would argue that in their individual experience and team skillset they manifest both academic and business imperatives – that in fact, it is their job to reconcile these two aspects of institutional leadership in their daily practice, decisions, and communications.

    Yet if that reconciliation of two competing imperatives is the job of leadership, arguably it’s not going all that well. While this experience is by no means universal, it’s clear that at times both academic and professional staff can feel sidelined and disempowered in the tug of war for day to day resource – but also at a deeper level for a recognition of their purpose and contribution to the higher education endeavour. Each can feel subordinated to the other in the institutional hierarchy – yet while there are outliers on both sides I’d put money on the majority of individuals on both sides accepting and embracing the value and contribution of the other. Yet at the same time the real tensions and contradictions that manifest in the pursuit of the two parallel imperatives are deeply felt by staff yet not always acknowledged by leadership.

    What if the job of leadership and boards of governors was not to seek to reconcile academic and business imperatives, but to actively manage the conflicts that arise at times? Where strategic questions arise related to either opportunities or risks, boards need to understand the perspective of both “sides” before being able to judge whether the executive team’s decisions are appropriate. And for institutional staff (and students, to the extent they have a role in institutional governance) there needs to be confidence that the governors have the skills and understanding of the value and importance of both imperatives and the relationship between them – so that there is the trust that decisions have been made in the most effective and transparent way possible.

    There might even be a case for institutions to convene internal business strategy boards as part of the governance structure as a counterweight to academic boards – actively empowering both equally as sites of knowledge, expertise and influence – and potentially reducing the strategic burden on institutional boards through creating a more transparent and maybe even more democratic or at least representative forum for internal governance of strategic business development.

    It seems likely that the next academic year will see the higher education sector in England move on from “conversations” about governance into something more systematically developmental, whether that’s via the mechanism of the CUC’s review of the Higher Education Code of Governance, or a policy agenda from one of the sector bodies. This is one of those areas where the sector can help itself with government by taking a lead on reform.

    Yet there’s a risk that the financial pressures on the sector lead to too close a focus on the strategic business imperatives and not enough on the academic excellence imperative. Institutions need both to be successful, and boards and executive teams – as well as any reviewing organisation – need to give deep consideration to how those can – even if not always peacefully – coexist.

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  • Redefining Academic Success: Why Career Progression Must Look Beyond Research

    Redefining Academic Success: Why Career Progression Must Look Beyond Research

    • By Professor Isabel Lucas, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and outgoing Chair of the national Heads of Educational Development Group (HEDG).

    In higher education, prestige and promotion have long hinged on research output. But with growing numbers of academics focused on teaching, educational leadership and knowledge exchange, the old metrics no longer fit. A report by the European Association for Universities places academic career reform at the heart of its 2030 vision, highlighting the need to recognise impact beyond traditional research publications. This shift is not only about fairness – it’s about organisational effectiveness and employee wellbeing.

    Research has long dominated academic prestige, promotions, and funding. Sterling et al. (2023) argue that current academic career frameworks are weighted heavily toward research, often sidelining innovative teaching and educational leadership. Yet, as the higher education sector evolves, so too must our understanding of what counts as impactful academic work.

    The reality is already shifting. Data from HESA (2022) shows a 10% rise in teaching-only contracts between 2015 and 2022, balanced by a 9% decrease in research-related roles. This suggests a growing academic population for whom the current research-heavy promotion pathways simply don’t apply. However, ‘teaching-only’ staff (a problematic term as it is inevitably not only teaching) often find themselves ineligible – or unrecognised – within traditional academic progression systems. The lack of progression routes for these high-quality staff capable of transforming the education and student experience at a strategic level risks undermining job satisfaction and retention.

    What’s more, staff on Professional Service contracts, including roles like educational developers and academic skills support tutors, are engaged in academic work without the benefits or recognition of an academic title. HESA’s own definitions blur the lines: academic function is tied to the contract, not necessarily the work performed. This disconnect creates a situation where talented, impactful educators are ‘othered’ – excluded from meaningful recognition and progression.

    Key findings from sector analysis undertaken in 2024 via the Heads of Educational Development Group (HEDG) showed some alarming disparities among middle managers with institutional responsibility for learning and teaching:

    • Career Blockages:
      • 100% of academic contract holders in the study had access to promotion to Reader/Professor.
      • Only 39% of Professional Service contract holders had similar access—even when doing the same academic work as peers on academic contracts.
    • Misalignment of Identity and Contract:
      • Staff whose professional identity did not match their contract type (e.g. self-identifying as academic but on a Professional Service contract) reported significantly lower satisfaction and empowerment scores.
    • Promotion Criteria Gaps:
      • Respondents noted they could meet academic promotion criteria, but were ineligible due to contract type.
      • Job satisfaction scores were lowest where staff reported that promotion routes existed but were inaccessible due to the nature of their role.

    So, how can HE evolve its career structures beyond research? Establishing clear, visible academic promotion routes to Reader/Professor that recognise leadership in education, curriculum innovation, and pedagogic research would be a good starting point. Making sure promotion frameworks include non-research excellence – impact on student learning, institutional strategy, and sector-wide education initiatives – would be even more inclusive. Neither of these things should pose a significant operational or cost challenge to universities and would reap significant rewards in staff retention and satisfaction.

    Institutions that fail to adapt risk not just losing talent, but falling behind in impact, innovation, and reputation. It’s time to value all forms of academic excellence. The future of higher education, now more than ever, depends on it.

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  • With better coordination we can break down barriers to academic policy engagement

    With better coordination we can break down barriers to academic policy engagement

    How can universities best support the UK’s research base to deliver better outcomes for people? This is becoming an ever more urgent challenge for our sector, in the context of a changing geopolitical landscape and the desire of the UK government for research and innovation to better serve the public good.

    One route to deriving greater public benefit from academic research lies in research better connecting with and informing public policy development. Recent years have seen a growing number of universities establishing policy units – at least 46, at the last count, and almost certainly more now. There has also been increased investment in policy-focused activity from research funders, for example, Research England’s Policy Support Fund, UKRI policy fellowships, and ESRC investments to increase policymaker engagement with research. New mechanisms to strengthen evidence use, such as government areas of research interest and parliamentary thematic research leads, have been introduced, alongside an increased focus on building capacity for evidence use across sub-national government.

    Through the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw the myriad ways in which research evidence informed policy to deliver benefits for people, whether understanding and treating the disease, informing the public health response, or mitigating the wider social impacts.

    You can’t always get what you want

    “Academic-policy engagement” is becoming increasingly mainstream, as part of universities’ wider knowledge exchange or civic engagement strategies. However, considerable barriers to engagement between academic researchers and policymakers remain. These include significant cultural differences, lack of incentives and investment, mismatched timescales and approaches, lack of access to academic research, and difficulties in parsing an ever-growing volume of information.

    Policymakers often express a desire for a streamlined, “one stop” interface with academics to enable them to quickly and easily reach the right expertise at the right time. Given such barriers, this is much easier said than done.

    Too often, where interaction does happen, it is short-term, ad hoc, dependent on individual contacts, and enabled through fixed-term funding rather than sustainable approaches. Many institutions lack both the capacity and the necessary capabilities to respond to policy needs.

    There is no systematic mechanism for policymakers to engage with universities in order to identify and access the expertise they need, or for universities and researchers to identify policy needs, still less provide a coordinated response. This means that policymakers do not necessarily have access to the best evidence, only that which is most readily available.

    What is now required is a serious focus on establishing a more systematic and sustainable approach. Such an approach requires organisational capacity and individual capability, alongside greater collaboration and coordination across the academic-policy ecosystem.

    The policy connection cavalry is here

    This is where the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN) comes in. Established in 2018 UPEN is a voluntary network of over 120 universities, research centres, and policy organisations across the UK, currently hosted at UCL. Our university members comprise diverse institutions, from large, research-intensive to small, specialist institutions, across all parts of the UK. UPEN provides an interface between all areas of academic research and public policymaking, with strong relationships with the UK’s four national legislatures and 25 government departments and growing links with local and regional policymakers.

    UPEN has until now been powered by the contributions of our members: both financial and, crucially, time. With a new funding award from Research England and ESRC, we now have the opportunity to build a national “connective infrastructure” which can respond to growing policy demand, at multiple levels of government, for academic expertise and evidence.

    Enhancing UPEN’s ability to provide this interface will enable us as a sector to work in a more coordinated and efficient way. It will also foster greater diversity in academic-policy engagement by ensuring a greater breadth of evidence and voices are heard. And it will build on previous UKRI investments to underpin stronger collaboration and collective action to harness the full potential of the university research base.

    Our new programmes of work will focus on three key areas. First, supporting universities to strengthen their academic engagement with public policy by enhancing individual and organisational capabilities. Second, strengthening place-based approaches to academic-policy engagement. Third, developing a national knowledge brokerage function to mobilise academic expertise to respond at the point of policy need.

    The UK government is grappling with multiple complex and cross-cutting policy challenges – from bolstering a weak economy, to improving energy security and sustainability, to tackling problems with the health service, to addressing housing needs. It is time for us, as a sector, to better leverage the knowledge of universities to address these challenges in order to deliver better outcomes for citizens across the UK.

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  • From Intuition to Intelligence: Leveraging Data to Guide Academic Portfolio Strategy

    From Intuition to Intelligence: Leveraging Data to Guide Academic Portfolio Strategy

    In today’s competitive higher education landscape, institutions can no longer afford to rely on instinct alone when it comes to academic program planning. The stakes are too high and the margin for error too slim. 

    Leaders are facing increasing pressure to align their portfolios with market demand, institutional mission, and student expectations — all while navigating constrained resources and shifting demographics. 

    The good news? You don’t have to guess. Market intelligence offers a smarter, more strategic foundation for building and refining your academic program mix. 

    Why program optimization matters now more than ever 

    Most institutions have at least one program that’s no longer pulling its weight — whether due to declining enrollment, outdated relevance, or oversaturated competition. At the same time, there are often untapped opportunities for growth in emerging or underserved fields. 

    But how do you decide which programs to scale, sustain, or sunset? 

    Optimizing your portfolio requires more than internal performance metrics. It calls for an external lens — one that brings into view national and regional trends, labor market signals, and consumer behavior. When done effectively, academic portfolio strategy becomes less about trial and error, and more about clarity and confidence. 

    The first step: Start with the market 

    The strongest portfolio strategies begin with robust external data. At Collegis Education, we draw from sources like the National Center for Education Statistics (IPEDS), Lightcast labor market analytics, and Google search trends to assess program performance, student demand, and employment outlooks. 

    National trends give us the big picture and a foundation to start from. But for our partners, we prioritize regional analysis — because institutions ultimately compete and serve in specific geographic contexts, even with fully online programs. Understanding what’s growing in your state or region is often more actionable than knowing what’s growing nationwide. 

    Our proprietary methodology filters for: 

    • Five-year conferral growth with positive year-over-year trends 
    • Programs offered by a sufficient number of institutions (to avoid anomalies) 
    • Competitive dynamics and saturation thresholds 
    • Job postings and projected employment growth 

    This data-driven process helps institutions avoid chasing short-term trends and instead focus on sustainable growth areas. 

    Ready for a Smarter Way Forward?

    Higher ed is hard — but you don’t have to figure it out alone. We can help you transform challenges into opportunities.

    Data in action: Insights from today’s growth programs 

    Collegis’ latest program growth analyses — drawing from 2023 conferral data — surface a diverse mix of high-opportunity programs. While we won’t detail every entry here, a few trends stand out: 

    • Technology and healthcare programs remain strong at the undergraduate level, with degrees like Computer Science and Health Sciences showing continued growth. 
    • Graduate credentials in education and nursing reflect both workforce need and strong student interest. 
    • Laddering potential is especially evident in fields like psychology and health sciences, where institutions can design seamless transitions from associate to bachelor’s. In fields such as education, options to ladder from certificate to master’s programs are growing in demand. 

    What’s most important isn’t the specific programs, it’s what they reveal: external data can confirm intuition, challenge assumptions, and unlock new strategic direction. And when paired with regional insights, these findings become even more powerful. 

    How to turn insight into strategy 

    Having market data is just the beginning. The true value lies in how institutions use it. At Collegis, we help our partners translate insight into action through a structured portfolio development process that includes the following: 

    1. Market analysis: Analyzing external data to identify growth areas, saturation risks, and demand signals — regionally and nationally. 
    1. Gap analysis: Identifying misalignments between current offerings and market opportunity. 
    1. Institutional alignment: Layering in internal metrics — enrollment, outcomes, mission fit, modality, and margin. 
    1. Strategic decisions: Prioritizing programs to expand, launch, refine, or sunset. 
    1. Implementation support: Developing go-to-market plans, supporting change management, and measuring results. 

    By grounding these decisions in both internal and external intelligence, institutions can future-proof their portfolios — driving enrollment, meeting workforce needs, and staying mission-aligned. 

    Put data to work for your portfolio 

    Program portfolio strategy doesn’t have to be a guessing game. With the right data and a trusted partner, institutions can make bold, confident moves that fuel growth and student success. 

    Whether you’re validating your instincts or exploring new academic directions, Collegis can help. Our market research and portfolio development services are built to support institutions at every step of the process — with national insights and regional specificity to guide your next move. 

    Innovation Starts Here

    Higher ed is evolving — don’t get left behind. Explore how Collegis can help your institution thrive.

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  • Five Science-Backed Ways to Improve Academic Writing (opinion)

    Five Science-Backed Ways to Improve Academic Writing (opinion)

    I vividly recall when an editor in chief invited me to publish in a well-known journal. Fresh from defending my dissertation, I still grappled with understanding how publishing worked in academia—like whether I should try to imitate the densely written, abstract sentences that appeared in the journal he edited. I thumbed the latest issue and looked at him. “Do you have a house style I should use?”

    He shuddered and gave a response I’ve since heard echoed by other editors in chief of similarly well-respected journals: “Please don’t! We publish manuscripts despite how they’re written.”

    But this candid advice leaves most graduate students and even seasoned faculty members with another dilemma. If you can’t imitate articles published in the best journals, how do you write up your research so it gets published?

    During my early years of teaching writing courses, I discovered that students seldom revised their work significantly, even when they received extensive feedback from both me and their peers. In fact, students failed to revise even when they received feedback and grades from their peers.

    All writing students also struggle with the idea that both feedback and grades on their writing are subjective, a reflection of how a particular instructor prefers students to write in a specific course. In addition, English literature and creative writing courses teach students that writing is a combination of mystery and art.

    In contrast, researchers in cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics identified the features that make sentences easy or difficult to read decades ago. As a result, we can teach students how to make their sentences clear—no matter how complex the subject—by teaching science-based writing methods. And as a graduate student or faculty member, you can improve your own academic writing—and your chances for publication—by focusing on the five basic principles that cause readers to perceive sentences as clear.

    1. Active voice makes sentences easier to read.

    In studies, researchers have discovered that readers comprehend sentences more rapidly when sentences reflect cause and effect. We can trace this to two factors. First, our brains naturally perceive cause and effect, which evolved as a survival mechanism. Research shows, for instance, that infants as young as 6 months old may identify cause and effect.

    Second, English sentence structure reflects causes and effects in its ordering of words: subject-verb-object. As researchers discovered, participants read sentences with active voice at speeds one-third faster than they read sentences in passive voice. Moreover, these same participants misunderstood even simple sentences in passive voice about one-quarter of the time. While many writing instructors require students to use active voice, few alert students to the specific benefits of active sentences that make them easier to read. These sentences are shorter, more efficient and more concrete, while sharpening readers’ sense of cause and effect.

    Consider the differences between the first example below, which relies on passive voice, and the second, which uses active voice.

    Passive: It has been reported that satiety may be induced by the distention of the gastric antrum due to the release of dissolved gas from carbonated water, which may improve gastric motility, thereby reducing hunger.

    Active: Cuomo, Savarese, Sarnelli et al. reported that drinking carbonated water distends the gastric antrum through the release of dissolved gas, inducing satiety and improving gastric motility, all of which reduce hunger.

    1. Actors or concrete objects turn sentences into microstories.

    Academic writing naturally tackles complex content that can prove challenging even to subject matter experts. However, writers can make even challenging content comprehensible to nonexperts by making cause and effect clear in their sentences by using nouns that readers can easily identify as subjects. When the grammatical subjects in sentences are nouns clearly capable of performing actions, readers process sentences with greater speed and less effort. For actors, use people, organizations or publications—any individual, group or item created with intention that generates impact.

    We unconsciously perceive these sentences as easier to read and recall because identifying actors and actions in sentences aids readers in fixing both a word’s meaning and the role it plays in sentence structure. Furthermore, these nouns enhance the efficiency of any sentence by paring down its words. Take these examples below:

    Abstract noun as subject: Virginia Woolf’s examination of the social and economic obstacles female writers faced, due to the presumption that women had no place in literary professions and so were instead relegated to the household, particularly resonated with her audience of young women who had struggled to fight for their right to study at their colleges, even after the political successes of the suffragettes.

    Actor as subject: In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf examined social and economic obstacles female writers faced. Despite the political success of the suffragettes, writers like Woolf battled the perception that women had no place in the literary professions. Thus Woolf’s book resonated with her audience, young women who had to fight for the right to study at their colleges.

    1. Pronouns send readers backward, but readers make sense of sentences by anticipating what comes next.

    If writers imitate the academic writing they see in print, they typically rely on pronouns as the subjects of sentences, especially “this,” “that,” “these,” “those” and “it.” However, pronouns save writers time but cost readers significantly, for two reasons.

    First, readers typically assume that pronouns refer to a single noun rather than a cluster of nouns, a phrase or even an entire sentence. Second, when writers use these pronouns without nouns to anchor their meaning, readers slow down and frequently misidentify the meanings of pronouns. Moreover, readers rated writing samples with higher numbers of pronouns as less well-written than sentences that relied on actors as subjects—or even pronouns like “this” anchored by nouns like “outcome.”

    Pronoun as subject: Due to the potential confounding detrimental effects of sulfonylureas and insulin in the comparator arms of the trials evaluating anticancer effects of metformin/thiazolidinediones, it is difficult to draw any firm conclusions from prior studies.

    Actor as subject: In trials to assess the anticancer effects of metformin/thiazolidinediones, we had difficulty drawing any firm conclusions from prior studies due to potential confounding detrimental effects from sulfonylureas and insulin.

    1. Action verbs make sentences more concrete, efficient and memorable.

    Open any newspaper or magazine and, even in just-the-facts-ma’am hard news stories, you’ll find action verbs, like “argues,” “reinvents,” “writes” and “remakes.” In contrast, most writers overrely on nonaction verbs. These verbs include “is,” “has been,” “seems,” “appears,” “becomes,” “represents” and that evergreen staple of academic writing, “tends.”

    Action verbs enable readers to immediately identify verbs, a process central to comprehending sentence structure and understanding meaning alike. Furthermore, action verbs make sentences more efficient, more concrete and more memorable. In one study of verbs and memory, readers recalled concrete verbs more accurately than nonaction verbs.

    When we read action verbs, our brains recruit the sensory-motor system, generating faster reaction times than with abstract or nonaction verbs, which are processed outside that system. Even in patients with dementia, action verbs remain among words patients with advanced disease can identify due to the semantic richness of connections action verbs recruit in the brain.

    Nonaction verbs: Claiming the promotion of research “excellence” and priding oneself in the record of “excellence” has become commonplace, but what this excellence is concretely about is unclear.

    Action verbs: Research institutions claim to promote faculty on the basis of research “excellence,” but institutions define “excellence” in many ways, with few clear definitions.

    1. Place subjects and verbs close together.

    When we read, we understand sentences’ meaning based on our predictions of how sentences unfold. We unconsciously make these predictions from our encounters with thousands of sentences. Most important, these predictions rely on our ability to identify grammatical subjects and verbs.

    We make these predictions easily when writers place subjects and verbs close together. In contrast, we struggle when writers separate subjects and verbs. With each increase in distance between subjects and verbs, readers exert greater effort, while reading speeds slow down. More strikingly, readers also make more errors in identifying subjects and verbs with increases in the number of words between subjects and verbs—even in relatively short sentences.

    For example, in this sentence, readers must stumble through two adjective clauses, noted in orange below, before encountering the verb “decreases,” paired with the underlined subject, “rule”:

    Specifically, a rule that indicates a reduction in delay that precedes an aversive consequence decreases procrastination in university students.

    But this separation strains working memory, as readers rely on subject-verb-object order to identify sentence structure. Ironically, as academic writers gain sophistication in their subject-matter expertise, they frustrate readers’ mechanisms for comprehension. Your urge to immediately modify the subject of your sentence with phrases and clauses slows reading and increases readers’ sense of conscious effort.

    On the other hand, reading speeds increase while effort decreases when subjects and verbs appear close together. Introduce your main point with a subject and verb, then modify them with clauses or phrases:

    Specifically, university students decrease procrastination when they face aversive consequences immediately for failure to meet deadlines.

    These principles will work in any discipline, enabling writers to control how editors and peer reviewers respond to their manuscripts and proposals. These changes can help make an academic career successful, crucial in today’s competitive environment.

    Yellowlees Douglas is a former professor of English at Holy Names University and was a director of five writing programs at universities including the City University of New York and the University of Florida. She is the author, most recently, of Writing for the Reader’s Brain: A Science-Based Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

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  • How prize named in honour of Tracey Bretag shows academic integrity is changing

    How prize named in honour of Tracey Bretag shows academic integrity is changing

    ***HEPI and the UPP Foundation will host a free webinar on 4 June at 1pm on service learning, how universities can integrate community service with academic studies. Register for your place here.***

    • This HEPI blog was authored by Isabelle Bristow, Managing Director UK and Europe at Studiosity. Studiosity is AI-for-Learning, not corrections – to scale student success, empower educators, and improve retention with a proven 4.4x ROI, while ensuring integrity and reducing institutional risk.

    During September 2020, Studiosity launched the Professor Tracey Bretag Prize for Academic Integrity – an annual commitment to those who are advancing the understanding and implementation of academic integrity in the higher education sector, in honour of Tracey’s work as a researcher in the field of educational integrity.

    Tracey was one of the world’s leading experts on academic integrity, founding the International Journal for Educational Integrity and serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Handbook of Academic Integrity. She spoke widely and publicly on the importance of universities taking a strong stand on educating their students about academic integrity and enforcing the rules with vigour and strong sanctions.

    Tracey also came to work alongside the team at Studiosity, providing advice, guidance, and sharing her research at events. When asked for her permission to create an annual Academic Integrity award named in her honour, this was Tracey’s response:

    I am so deeply honoured by your suggestion that I am almost speechless. Thank you so much for coming up with such a fabulous idea, and especially for putting it in my name. … Thank you again for this incredible recognition of my very small contribution to the field of academic integrity. As I work hard every day to try to demonstrate the type of bravery I’ve always advocated, this certainly gives me a great deal of comfort.

    Tracey prematurely passed away on 7 October 2020. In February 2021, she was honoured posthumously with a Career Achievement Award from the Australian Awards for University Teaching.

    Entrants over time – a five-year overview

    Looking at the Award’s previous entries, we can see a clear shift in how institutions approach educational integrity:

    • from a more broad-based education about what constitutes misconduct in 2020;
    • towards more specialised training of large student groups;
    • to a significant pivot in 2023 towards integrity projects that address the challenge of AI – specifically led by assessment redesign and the use of whole-institution frameworks.

    Another change over time is certainly who and where integrity nominations are coming from – there are more dedicated institutional units for managing educational integrity now in 2025 than we saw in 2020-2021.

    Tracey earned a great deal of respect globally for her evidence-based, systemic, and students-first approaches to educational integrity. It is fitting that these approaches are gaining interest and momentum in higher education at this moment. We look forward to seeing another year of evidence-based nominations, and thank our Academic Advisory Board for their time and energy once again in judging.

    Feeling inspired?

    As senior leadership look for ways to ethically embed generative AI within their institutions, academic integrity – the original owner of the AI acronym – is paramount. And so for this year’s prize submissions, the expectation is that the 2025 shortlist will acknowledge gen-AI as part of the challenge, show evidence of impact, and help answer the question: How can the sector keep educational integrity, humanity, and learning at the heart of the student experience?

    Last year, the University of Greenwich won the UK prize for their initiative ‘Integrity Matters: Nurturing a culture of integrity through situational learning and play’. Staff there designed an interactive e-learning module (available to all education institutions under licence) designed to raise awareness of academic integrity. You can learn more here. 

    Sharon Perera, Head of Academic and Digital Sills who led the initiative said:

    We are thrilled to have been awarded the Tracey Bretag prize for advancing best practice and the impact of academic integrity in higher education. Thank you Studiosity for championing this in the sector.

    At the University of Greenwich our goal is to raise awareness of the academic conventions in research and writing and to create a culture of integrity. We are doing this through our student communities – by sharing best practice and learning about the challenges we face in the GenAI era.

    Academic integrity is at greater risk than ever in the age we live in, and we need to work together to celebrate integrity and authenticity.

    While sharing your initiative is for the good of the sector and a personal recognition of your tireless efforts to protect and nurture academic integrity – the prize also comprises a financial reward! You can enter this year’s prize here – nominations close 30 May. Evidence might be at the level of policy, implementation, measured student or staff participation, and/or other evidence of behaviour.

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  • Tufts PhD Student Released After Six-Week Detention Raising Academic Freedom Concerns

    Tufts PhD Student Released After Six-Week Detention Raising Academic Freedom Concerns

    Rümeysa Öztürk with her attorneyAfter six weeks in federal detention, Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk was released last Friday following a federal judge’s ruling that her continued detention potentially violated her constitutional rights and could have a chilling effect on free speech across college campuses.

    U.S. District Judge William K. Sessions III ordered Öztürk’s immediate release, stating she had raised “substantial claims” of both due process and First Amendment violations. The 30-year-old Turkish national, who was arrested on March 25 outside her Somerville, Massachusetts home by masked federal agents, had been detained at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana—more than 1,500 miles from her university.

    “Continued detention potentially chills the speech of the millions and millions of individuals in this country who are not citizens. Any one of them may now avoid exercising their First Amendment rights for fear of being whisked away to a detention center,” Judge Sessions stated during Friday’s hearing.

    Öztürk’s legal team argued that her detention was directly connected to her co-authoring a campus newspaper op-ed critical of Tufts University’s response to the war in Gaza. During the hearing, Judge Sessions noted that “for multiple weeks, except for the op-ed, the government failed to produce any evidence to support Öztürk’s continued detention.”

    The Trump administration had accused Öztürk of participating in activities supporting Hamas but presented no evidence of these alleged activities in court. Öztürk, who has a valid F-1 student visa, has not been charged with any crime.

    Öztürk’s case is part of what appears to be a growing pattern of detentions targeting international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Her arrest by plainclothes officers, captured on video showing her being surrounded as she screamed in fear, sparked national outrage and campus protests.

    “It’s a feeling of relief, and knowing that the case is not over, but at least she can fight the case while with her community and continuing the academic work that she loves at Tufts,” said Esha Bhandari, an attorney representing Öztürk.

    The same day as Öztürk’s release, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York denied an administration appeal to re-arrest Columbia University student and lawful permanent resident Mohsen Mahdawi, another case involving a student detained after pro-Palestinian advocacy.

    During her six weeks in detention, Öztürk, who suffers from asthma, experienced multiple attacks without adequate medical care, according to testimony. At Friday’s hearing, she briefly had to step away due to an asthma attack while a medical expert was testifying about her condition.

    Judge Sessions cited these health concerns as part of his rationale for immediate release, noting Öztürk was “suffering as a result of her incarceration” and “may very well suffer additional damage to her health.”

    In his ruling, Judge Sessions ordered Öztürk’s release without travel restrictions or ICE monitoring, finding she posed “no risk of flight and no danger to the community.” Despite this clear order, her attorneys reported that ICE initially attempted to delay her release by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor.

    “Despite the 11th hour attempt to delay her freedom by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor, Rümeysa is now free and is excited to return home, free of monitoring or restriction,” said attorney Mahsa Khanbabai.

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  • Ryan Lufkin, Vice President of Global Academic Strategy, Brings the Skinny

    Ryan Lufkin, Vice President of Global Academic Strategy, Brings the Skinny

    When the developers of Canvas, the world’s leading web-based learning management system (LMS) software, invite you to a party—July 22-24 this year in Spokane, WA—you might consider the offer. Expected to draw 3,000 attendees across various roles from individual educators to IT leadership, the event promises product reveals, professional development, and collaborative opportunities like Hack Night, designed to help educators and administrators demonstrate tangible value when they return to their institutions. I was able to grab Ryan Lufkin, Vice President of Global Academic Strategy at Instructure, for some pre-show scuttle butt. Have a listen and scroll down for some highlights:

    ➜InstructureCon 2025 is evolving its AI strategy beyond basic features to an “agentic approach,” leveraging partnerships with Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google to create integrated AI experiences across campus environments. Says Ryan: “That’s because our open architecture is the most well-positioned learning platform in the world to really pull in, not just those AI-powered features that we’ve developed, but we also leverage those from our partners.”

    ➜Instructure is responding to educational institutions’ budget constraints by focusing on helping customers maximize their technology investments through better data usage, adoption metrics, and optimization strategies. Says Ryan: “We really want educators and administrators to walk away with just a toolkit of how to use these products better, how to use them more deeply and tangibly show that value because we know the budgets are tight.”

    A few session highlights:  

    Transforming Student Success with Mastery Connect: A Proven Approach to Data-Driven Instruction in Richland One School District

    Get ready to discover how Richland One (R1) School District in South Carolina has been transforming student success with Mastery Connect since 2015! This digital assessment platform has empowered R1 teachers to seamlessly administer standards-based formative and summative assessments, dive into score reports, and collaborate with colleagues. MC has unlocked deeper insights into student mastery, giving teachers and teams the tools they need to drive data-driven instruction. Join us for an exciting session where R1 will share its curriculum map structure and district approach to formative assessments. Discover how to save time on data collection and analysis—whether you’re a teacher or an admin. Learn how newer features like Quick Reassess and Assessment Compare can help you work smarter, not harder! You’ll also explore how to harness real-time data to fuel impactful discussions in your Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), driving focused, results-oriented collaboration.

    Cracking the Code: Turning Data into Action with Mastery Connect

    Drowning in data but struggling to make it meaningful? Join us on a journey to transform numbers into actionable insights using Mastery Connect! In this session, we’ll share how we built educator buy-in, shifted mindsets, and empowered teachers to use data in meaningful ways. Discover practical strategies for making data analysis approachable, actionable, and impactful—without overwhelming teachers. We’ll explore real-world examples, time-saving tips, and effective ways to connect assessment data to instructional decisions. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to refine your approach, this session will equip you with insights and strategies to turn data into a catalyst for student success.

    Beyond the Classroom: Maximizing Canvas for Non-Academic Programs in Resource-Limited Environments.

    As institutions face financial and regulatory challenges, maximizing existing technology investments is essential. While Canvas is primarily used for academic courses, its capabilities extend beyond the classroom. This session explores how a small liberal arts institution has successfully repurposed Canvas for faculty onboarding, professional development, syllabus archiving, student organizations, and institutional assessment—all without additional costs. A key focus will be the development of a syllabus submission portal designed to streamline syllabus collection, ensure compliance with learning outcomes, and create a structured faculty repository. Attendees will gain practical insights into overcoming adoption challenges, achieving measurable ROI, and applying these strategies to institutions of varying sizes.

    Kevin Hogan
    Latest posts by Kevin Hogan (see all)

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  • Academic judgement? Now that’s magic

    Academic judgement? Now that’s magic

    Every day’s a school day.

    In my head, I thought I understood the line between what counts as “academic judgement” and what doesn’t in cases, processes, appeals and complaints.

    It matters because my understanding has long been that students can challenge and appeal all sorts of decisions – right up to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA) in England and Wales – but not if the decision is one that relates to matters of academic judgment.

    Thus in a simplistic coin sorter, “this essay looks like a 2:1 to me” can’t be challenged, but “they’ve chucked me out for punching someone when I didn’t” can.

    I’ve often wondered whether the position can hold when we think about the interaction between consumer protection law – which requires that services be carried out with reasonable skill and care – and this concept of unchallengeable academic judgement in the context of workloads.

    Back in the halcyon days of Twitter, I’d regularly see posts from academic staff bemoaning the fantasy workload model in their university that somehow suggested that a 2,000 word essay could be read, graded and fed back on in 15 minutes flat.

    Add in large numbers of assignments dribbling in late via extensions and accommodations, the pressure to hit turnround times generated by the NSS question, wider workload issues and moderation processes that look increasingly thin (which were often shredded or thinned out even further during the marking boycotts), and I imagined a judge evaluating a student’s case to say something along the lines of “to deploy your magic get out jail free card, sunshine, you’ll need to have used more… care.”

    But that’s about an academic judgement being made in a way that isn’t academically defensible. I had a conversation with an SU officer this afternoon about academic misconduct off the back of a webinar they’d attended that OfS ran on AI, and now I’m more confused than ever.

    Do not pass go

    The bones first. The Higher Education Act 2004 mandated a body that would review complaints to replace the old “visitor” system, and it includes a line on what will and won’t qualify as follows:

    A complaint which falls within subsection (1) is not a qualifying complaint to the extent that it relates to matters of academic judgment.

    The concept is neither further defined nor mentioned anywhere else in UK law – but has deep roots. In medieval universities scholarly masters enjoyed autonomous assessment rights, and it gained legal recognition as universities developed formal examination systems during the Enlightenment period.

    By the 20th century, academic judgment became legally protected from external interference, exemplified by landmark cases like Clark v. University of Lincolnshire and Humberside (2000), which established that courts should not intervene in academic assessments except in cases of procedural unfairness:

    This is not a consideration peculiar to academic matters: religious or aesthetic questions, for example, may also fall into this class. It is a class which undoubtedly includes, in my view, such questions as what mark or class a student ought to be awarded or whether an aegrotat is justified.

    The principle that most understand is that specialised academic expertise uniquely qualifies academics to evaluate student performance and maintain educational standards, free from political or economic pressures.

    The OIA takes the line in the legislation and further defines things as follows:

    Academic judgment is not any judgment made by an academic; it is a judgment that is made about a matter where the opinion of an academic expert is essential. So for example a judgment about marks awarded, degree classification, research methodology, whether feedback is correct or adequate, and the content or outcomes of a course will normally involve academic judgment.

    It also helpfully sets out some things that it doesn’t consider fall into the ambit:

    We consider that the following areas do not involve academic judgment: decisions about the fairness of procedures and whether they have been correctly interpreted and applied, how a higher education provider has communicated with the student, whether an academic has expressed an opinion outside the areas of their academic competence, what the facts of a complaint are and the way evidence has been considered, and whether there is evidence of bias or maladministration.

    I’m not convinced that that “what’s in, what’s out” properly considers or incorporates the consumer protection law issue I discuss above – but nevertheless it hangs together.

    In his paper on whether the concept will hold in an era of consumerism, David Palfreyman argues that academic judgment properly applies to subjective assessments requiring specialised expertise – grading student work, designing curriculum, and evaluating learning outcomes.

    Educational institutions and courts generally consider these issues beyond external scrutiny to protect academic freedom and professional autonomy – because academics possess unique qualifications to make nuanced, context-dependent judgments about academic quality that outside parties lack the expertise to evaluate effectively.

    On the other side of that see-saw, he argues that academic judgment should not shield factual determinations, procedural errors, or administrative decisions from review. When institutions make claims about whether they properly applied their own rules, or failed to follow fair procedures, these issues fall outside protected academic judgment.

    Religious or aesthetic?

    But then back in the OIA’s guidance on its scheme rules at 30.4, there’s this curious line:

    Decisions about whether a student’s work contains plagiarism and the extent of that plagiarism will normally involve academic judgment, but that judgment must be evidence based.

    If that feels like a fudge, it’s because it is. “Whether” feels like a significantly different concept to “extent of that”, insofar as I can see how “did you punch the student” is about weighing up facts, but “how much harm did you cause” might require an expert medical judgement. But in a way, the fudge is topped off with that last sub-clause – what the OIA will insist on if someone uses that judgement is that they’ve used some actual evidence.

    And if they haven’t, that then is a process issue that becomes appealable.

    The problem here in 2025 is that 30.4 starts to look a little quaint. When someone was able to say “here’s one student’s script, and here’s another” with a red sharpie pointing out the copying, I get the sense that everyone would agree that that counts as evidence.

    Similarly, when Turnitin was able to trawl both the whole of the internet and every other essay ever submitted to its database, I get the sense that the Turnitin similarity score – along with any associated reports highlighting chunks of text – counts as evidence.

    But generative AI is a whole different beast. If this blog over-used the words “foster” and “emphasize”, used Title Case for all the subheadings, and set up loads of sentences using “By…” and then “can…”, not only would someone who reads a lot of essays “smell” AI, it would be more likely to be picked up by software that purports to indicate if I have.

    That feels less like evidence. It’s guess work based on patterns. Even if we ignore the research on who “false flags” disproportionately target, I might just like using those phrases and that style. In that scenario, I might expect a low mark for a crap essay, but it somehow feels wrong that someone can – without challenge – determine whether I’m “guilty” of cheating and therefore experience a warning, a cap on the mark or whatever other punishment can be meted out.

    And yes, all of this relates back to an inalienable truth – the asynchronous assessment of a(ny) digital asset produced without supervision as a way of assessing a students’ learning will never again be reliable. There’s no way to prove they made it, and even if they did, it’s increasingly clear that it doesn’t necessarily signal that they’ve learned anything when they did.

    But old habits and the economics of massification seem to be dying hard. And so in the meantime, increasing volumes of students are being “academically” judged to have “done it” when they may not have, in procedures and legal frameworks where, by definition, they can’t challenge that judgement. And an evaluation of whether someone’s done it based on concepts aligned to religion and aesthetics surely can’t be right.

    Cases in point

    There’s nothing that I can see in the OIA’s stock of case summaries that sheds any light on what it might or might not consider to count as “evidence” in its scheme rules.

    I don’t know whether it would take as its start point “whatever the provider says counts as evidence”, or whether it might have an objective test up its sleeve if a case crossed its desk.

    But what I do know is just how confusing and contradictory a whole raft of academic misconduct policies are.

    The very first academic misconduct policy I found online an hour or so ago says that using AI in a way not expressly permitted is considered academic misconduct. Fair enough. It also specifies that failing to declare AI use, even when permitted, also constitutes misconduct. Also fair enough.

    It defines academic judgement as a decision made by academic staff regarding the quality of the work itself or the criteria being applied. Fair enough. It also specifically states that academic judgement does not apply to factual determinations – it applies to interpretations, like assessing similarity reports or determining if the standard of work deviates significantly from a student’s usual output. Again, fair enough.

    But in another section, there’s another line – that says that the extent to which assessment content is considered to be AI generated is a matter of academic judgement.

    The in-principle problem with that for me is that a great historian is not necessarily an LLM expert, or a kind of academic Columbo. Expertise in academic subject matter just doesn’t equate to expertise in detecting AI-generated content.

    But the in-practice problem is the thing. AI detection tools supplying “evidence” are notoriously unreliable, and so universities using them within their “academic judgment” put students accused of using AI in an impossible situation – they can’t meaningfully challenge the accusation because the university has deemed it unchallengeable by definition, even though the evidence may be fundamentally flawed.

    Academic judgements that are nothing of the sort, supported by unreliable technology, become effectively immune from substantive appeal, placing the burden on students to somehow prove a negative (that they didn’t use AI) against an “expert judgment” that might be based on little more than algorithmic guesswork or subjective impressions about writing style.

    Policies are riddled with this stuff. One policy hedges its bets and says that the determination of whether such AI use constitutes academic misconduct is “likely to involve academic judgement”, especially where there is a need to assess the “extent and impact” of the AI-generated content on the overall submission. Oil? Water? Give it a shake.

    Another references “academic judgment” in the context of determining the “extent and nature” of plagiarism or misconduct, “including the use of AI” – with other bits of the policy making clear that that can’t be challenged if supported by “evidence”.

    One I’m looking at now says that the determination of whether a student has improperly used AI tools is likely to involve academic judgement, particularly when assessing the originality of the work and whether the AI-generated content meets the required academic standards. So is the judgement whether the student cheated, or whether the essay is crap? Or, conveniently, both?

    Set aside for a minute the obvious injustices of a system that seems to be profoundly incurious about how a student has come to think what they think, but seems obsessed with the method they’ve used to construct an asset that communicates those thoughts – and how redundant that approach is in a modern context.

    Game over

    For all sorts of reasons, I’ve long thought that “academic judgement” as something that can be deployed as a way of avoiding challenge and scrutiny is a problem. Barristers were stripped of their centuries-old immunity from negligence claims based on evolving expectations of professional accountability in the 2000s.

    In medicine, the traditional “Bolam test” was that a doctor was not negligent if they acted “in accordance with a responsible body of medical opinion” among their peers But a case in the nineties added a crucial qualification – the court must be satisfied that the opinion relied upon has a “logical basis” and can withstand logical analysis.

    Or take accountancy. Prior to 2002, accountants around the world enjoyed significant protection through the principle of “professional judgment” that shielded their decisions from meaningful challenge, but the US Congress’s Sarbanes-Oxley Act radically expanded their liability and oversight following Arthur Andersen’s role in facilitating Enron’s aggressive earnings management and subsequent document shredding when investigations began.

    Palfreyman also picks out architects and surveyors, financial services professionals and insurance brokers, patent agents and trademark lawyers, software suppliers/consultants, clergy providing counseling services, and even sports officials – all of whom now face liability for their professional judgments despite the technical complexity of their work.

    As Palfreyman notes in his analysis of the Eckersley v Binnie case (which defined the standards for “reasonable skill and care” for professionals generally), the standard that a professional “should not lag behind other ordinarily assiduous and intelligent members of his profession” and must be “alert to the hazards and risks” now applies broadly across professions, with academics sticking out like a sore, often unqualified thumb.

    Maybe the principle is just about salvageable – albeit that the sorry state of moderation, external examining, workload modelling and so on does undermine the already shaky case for “we know better”. But what I’m absolutely sure of is that extending the scope of unchallengeable decisions involving “academic judgement” to whether a student broke a set of AI-misconduct rules is not only a very slippery slope, but it’s also a sure fire way to hasten the demise of the magic power.

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