Learning and Teaching (LATISS)

This issue of Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences features authors from Spain, the Netherlands, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Iraq. They write about a new degree in Global Digital Humanities, academics’ understandings of what constitutes ‘good science’, the role of academic middle managers, what PhD graduates in non-academic careers actually do and obstacles to promotion for academics.

The new degree in the Global Digital Humanities has been launched by the Faculty of Humanities and Education at Mondragon University on its new urban campus of Bilbao AS Fabrik. In a time of increasing urbanisation, universities must reflect on their relationship to surrounding cities and regions and develop ways to incorporate the urban and regional setting in their educational offerings. This BA shows the value of a transdisciplinary Action Research approach in facing complex social challenges and contributing to innovative social transformations in the city and region. The new campus also marks the beginning of an internal university process to develop mutual knowledge and greater permeability between different degree programmes in pursuit of a new organisational culture and practice that moves beyond narrow disciplinary models.

There are worries about the quality of scientific research, the validity of the knowledge it produces and the integrity of academics. What is lacking in the debate is what scientists have to say and what they do to create and safeguard what they see as ‘good science’. Using Dutch academia as a case, we show that the academics’ understandings of scientific practice differ in vital ways from those of policy makers. Policy maker's understanding of academia as a competitive marketplace to foster innovative research disturbs the everyday ethics and creativity of scientific work according to the scientists, who see academia as a collective practice aimed at understanding the world in which tradition and innovation have to find a balance. We conclude that this misunderstanding and its consequences do more to damage research integrity than fraudulent activities of individual researchers.

This article explores the complex academic-administrative role of the associate dean in US higher education administration. Previous research in Australia, UK and USA indicates that these academic middle managers experience significant conflict and ambiguity due to their roles and responsibilities as faculty members and administrators. Victor Turner's concept of liminality provides insight into the challenges of academic middle management at this administrative level. Analysing qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with associate deans at US research-intensive universities, I find that associate deans experience changes in perspective and relationships that foreground contradictions of meaning and highlight their paradoxical social status. I argue that, as part of a process of transition from faculty to administrator, the associate deanship is essential to the social construction of the university.

A growing literature examines PhD graduates working beyond academia. These studies are critiqued for rarely addressing the sectoral and organisational structural factors that influence actual work. So, we examined how the non-academic, contextually situated, organisational job specifications of fifteen PhD graduates interacted with their daily work experiences – looking particularly at the role of (a) communication since effective communication is reported as an employer concern, and (b) research since this is an expected outcome of PhD programmes. References to data collection and analysis were largely absent in interviews and job specifications, but research-related capabilities, for example, analytic thinking, were present, intertwined with communication in multiple ways, with dialogue and reading central. The graduates recognised these capabilities as having been finely honed in the PhD and inherent to their jobs.

Considering the lack of data from Iraq on the challenges faced by academics regarding academic advancement, we aimed to explore the main challenges faced by academic faculty members in Iraq in achieving academic advancement and promotion. A cross sectional 24-item Google form survey was shared via social media; 130 Iraqi academics responded. Lack of research funding and poor research infrastructure were the most common barriers for academic advancement. Most academics agreed that the cost of promotion requirements is considered a lot compared to their income. This is the first study that has explored this issue in Iraq and suggests future strategies to overcome these barriers.

Richard Hil, Kristen Lyons and Fern Thompsett (2021), Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good London: Routledge, 180pp., ISBN 978-0-367-897-833

Donna Hurford and Andrew Read (2022), Bias-aware Teaching, Learning and Assessment St Albans: Critical Publishing, 104pp., ISBN: 9781914171895