How am I supposed to do my psychology essay when I can hardly access any Journals?! : Open access and John Rawl’s ‘Theory of Justice’

February 3, 2012Open access, research, Yazikopenopen accessjohn

The question in the title was a friend’s facebook status earlier this week. My friend is a first year undergraduate at a UK university. She is doing research for her essay and is finding some great articles which will help her as she writes her essay. The problem is her university does not subscribe to the journals in question. She knows the information she wants is there. It’s just that she can’t get it. One day she might be your psychologist. Wouldn’t you like to think that had access to the best research and practice in whatever issue it was that had led you to need her services?

Open access has been in the (academic) news a lot in the past few days with the academic boycott of Elsevier gathering pace. This boycott is about a range of issues, but most critically it is about the price of journals to subscribers and also the fees Elsevier charges to make open access possible ($4000 according to one article). Detractors will point out that all journals cost money to run and someone has to pay somewhere. I am editor of the undergraduate journal Debut. There are no submission or access fees or print costs, but my time is paid for by my employer. If it wasn’t the journal might not happen or I might have to run it my ‘spare time’. Alternatively I could hand it over to someone else who would be operating under the same kinds of constraints.

Since I set up the open access language teaching research database YazikOpen I have been thinking more and more about what the right model should be for academic publishing. I have been drawn towards John Rawl’s Theory of Justice as a starting point. Rawls about what he called ‘the veil of ignorance’. The just society would be one which was agreed by people who did not know when or where they would be born, whether they would be black or white, a man or woman, rich or poor, intelligent or not, etc., etc. When applied to access to academic research I think along these lines.

People should have access to research irrespective of where they live, how much money they have or where they work or study etc.
People should be able to publish their research irrespective of where they live, how much money they have or where they work or study etc. (This is big problem I have with author publication fees for open access—I suspect that they are a deterrent to many people who might otherwise submit to them).
People should be able to know, in some way or another, whether the research meets certain standards of good quality. 1 and 2 are no use if the research is not good, or even worse, damaging. This is problem for those who might advocate the abolition of journals (and peer review) in favour of “just publish it on your website”.
Researchers have a duty to ensure that their research reaches the people who might benefit most from it. This may involve writing it up in another form. (As an aside I’ve just finished reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science so I have a heightened sense of concern about the ways in which journalists ‘disseminate’ research findings).

At first glance it appears that these principles are in some degree of conflict. However, I am starting to think that the world’s universities have the resources and infrastructure to provide ‘a free at the point of access or contribution’ system which bypasses the traditional print publishers altogether. This would mean a substantial change in academic culture. You never know it might lead the publishers to rethink their mays. They might start selling my article for £1 for 20 pages instead of £25. It’s not free, but it is much more reasonable—someone might actually buy my work for £1. By the way I would want 20p of that plus a contribution to the editors and reviewers!

Languages and related 2011 accepts and applications (UCAS)

February 1, 2012Uncategorizedjohn

Subject	Applications	Accepts
Y Combs of languages with arts/humanities Total	6824	7355
Y Combs of languages Total	1574	1597
Y Combs of social studies/bus/law with languages Total	1693	2531
Y Combs of phys/math science with arts/humanities/languages Total	1280	2484
Y Combs of science/engineering with arts/humanities/languages Total	6305	8433
R0 - European Langs,Lit & related: any area Total	5	55
R1 - French studies Total	776	688
R2 - German studies Total	271	292
R3 - Italian studies Total	58	65
R4 - Spanish studies Total	448	467
R5 - Portuguese studies Total	1	1
R6 - Scandinavian studies Total	16	14
R7 - Russian and East European studies Total	94	88
R8 - European studies Total	18	121
R9 - Others in European Langs,Lit and related Total	538	1052
RR - Combinations within European Langs,Lit and related Total	2170	1733
Z No preferred subject line Total	70	0
Total European Languages	4465	4576
T1 - Chinese studies Total	180	207
T2 - Japanese studies Total	398	192
T3 - South Asian studies Total	16	61
T4 - Other Asian studies Total	32	18
T5 - African studies Total	12	23
T6 - Modern Middle-Eastern studies Total	118	101
T7 - American studies Total	518	502
T9 - Others in non-European Langs & related Total	73	267
TT - Combinations within non-European Langs & related Total	29	63
Z No preferred subject line Total	835	0
Total non-European Languages	2211	1434

In (sort of) defence of ratemyprofessors.com

January 30, 2012National Student Survey, questionnaire design, surveysratemyprofessors, student satisfaction, surveysjohn

A few weeks back the Times Higher published an article on student survey fatigue. Students fill in some many surveys including the National Student Survey, module surveys and institution wide surveys (coincidently, some the questions on the latter surveys are similar or identical to those on the NSS). I suggested on Twitter that the ineffectiveness of current surveys means that we want to do more surveys to fix the shortcomings of the existings surveys in order to give a ‘truer’ picture. Much of the reason that we are considering a national survey of language students stems from the shortcomings of the NSS outlined in our recent report. Should this new national survey go ahead I’m sure that it too will have its own shortcomings.

Legg and Wilson’s recent paper in Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education on the reliability of www.ratemyprofessors.com vis-à-vis in course evaluations is interesting in its own right (their title "RateMyProfessors.com offers biased evaluations" deserves an award for clarity). But at least one thing could be said in defence of www.ratemyprofessors.com. It is unambiguous about who is the target of the evaluation—the teacher. With most other surveys it is unclear whether the students are being asked about the course, the teacher, the content, the university or the programme of study. The students don't know when they are answering the questions and we don't know when we are analyzing their answers.

Free open access research into teaching and learning languages

January 15, 2012languages, Open access, research, SoTL, teaching, websites, Yazikopenlanguage teaching, open access, second language acquisitionjohn

I am delighted to announce that my new website Yazikopen is now online. Yazikopen links to over 1000 articles into teaching and learning languages. All these articles are open access—in other words they are free to view wherever you are in the world.

Most academic articles online require a subscription to view or require the reader to purchase the articles individually (£25 for a 16 page pdf document is not unusual). I am fortunate to work at a large university which subscribes to a wide range of paid-for journals, but I hope that Yazikopen will be especially valuable to researchers who do not have access to subscription journals. The expense of most journals makes them out of reach of most school teachers as well as researchers and students working in smaller or poorer institutions, independent (or job-seeking) researchers and individuals in countries where library resources are very limited.

Someone has to pay for research somewhere along the line. In some cases the authors pay a publication fee so that their article can be made open access. In the case of other journals there is no fee—the people who run the journal donate their time freely, or their time is paid for by their employers. Yazikopen contains links to both sorts of open access materials. Most importantly Yazikopen helps the people who will benefit most to access research. It is a sorry state of affairs when teachers cannot access research which would help them to become better teachers and academics, researchers and students are unable to access research available to their peers.

Please take a look at the Yazikopen website. It is still a work ‘in progress’—not all the items are keyworded yet, though the free text research works quite well. Please email me admin@yazikopen.org your comments or send to @Yazikopen on Twitter.

15 ways to get ahead in your career in LLAS in 2012

January 12, 2012LLASjohn

From the LLAS blog

John Canning, LLAS

Come along to the annual e-symposium at the University of Southampton on 27-28 January.
Submit a paper and attend the LLAS/ UCML/ AULC conference in Edinburgh on 5-6 July 2012.
If you are new to teaching in higher education come along to our new staff workshop on 12 April 2012.
Watch out for our annual Heads of Department workshop in September 2012 (date to be confirmed).
Learn to create online learning materials using our LOC tool. There is a workshop in London on 17 April. If that’s not convenient ask us about running a workshop where you are.

Click here for the full post

Accepted applicants by gender, region and institution (UCAS)

January 6, 2012gender, statistics, UCASgender, region, UCASjohn

Accepted applicants to languages and related by region, gender and institution (Source: UCAS). Please see my post on using UCAS data before making any conclusions. In short UCAS data looks at the overall subject preference of applicants which was not necessarily not the course they are on. Joint degrees and major/ minor degrees present difficulties in this regard.

Accepted students for Languages and related degree programmes (Group R and T) by region and gender (UCAS: 2000).

Female Male All

A North East               247   102   349
B Yorks & The Humber       434   209   643
C North West               446   240   686
D East Midlands            314   210   524
E West Midlands            317   132   449
F Eastern                  253   127   380
G Greater London           518   251   769
H South East               574   305   879
I South West               391   162   553
J Wales                    213    88   301
K Northern Ireland          79    20    99
L Scotland                 410   121   531
All                       4196  1967  6163

Figures in blue represent the institution's regional market share .

North East England

Female Male All

Durham University              148      58     206
                             71.84   28.16  100.00
                             59.92   56.86   59.03

Newcastle University            79      28     107
                             73.83   26.17  100.00
                             31.98   27.45   30.66

Northumbria University          18      11      29
                             62.07   37.93  100.00
                              7.29   10.78    8.31

University of Sunderland         2       5       7
                             28.57   71.43  100.00
                              0.81    4.90    2.01

All 247 102 349
70.77 29.23

Yorkshire and the Humber

Female Male All

Leeds Metropolitan University        17       4      21
                                  80.95   19.05  100.00
                                   3.92    1.91    3.27

Sheffield Hallam University          15       4      19
                                  78.95   21.05  100.00
                                   3.46    1.91    2.95

The University of Hull               80      60     140
                                  57.14   42.86  100.00
                                  18.43   28.71   21.77

The University of Sheffield         163      66     229
                                  71.18   28.82  100.00
                                  37.56   31.58   35.61

The University of York                7       2       9
                                  77.78   22.22  100.00
                                   1.61    0.96    1.40

University of Leeds                 152      73     225
                                  67.56   32.44  100.00
                                  35.02   34.93   34.99

All 434 209 643
67.50 32.50 100.00

Female Male All

Lancaster University                   40      14      54
                                    74.07   25.93  100.00
                                     8.97    5.83    7.87

The Manchester Metropolitan Uni        50      26      76
                                    65.79   34.21  100.00
                                    11.21   10.83   11.08

The University of Liverpool            60      33      93
                                    64.52   35.48  100.00
                                    13.45   13.75   13.56

The University of Manchester          200     129     329
                                    60.79   39.21  100.00
                                    44.84   53.75   47.96

The University of Salford              38      20      58
                                    65.52   34.48  100.00
                                     8.52    8.33    8.45

University of Central Lancashir        23      10      33
                                    69.70   30.30  100.00
                                     5.16    4.17    4.81

University of Chester                  35       8      43
                                    81.40   18.60  100.00
                                     7.85    3.33    6.27

All 446 240 686
65.01 34.99 100.00

Female Male All

Nottingham Trent University         38      12      50
                                 76.00   24.00  100.00
                                 12.10    5.71    9.54

The University of Nottingham       208     153     361
                                 57.62   42.38  100.00
                                 66.24   72.86   68.89

University of Derby                  4       5       9
                                 44.44   55.56  100.00
                                  1.27    2.38    1.72

University of Leicester             52      25      77
                                 67.53   32.47  100.00
                                 16.56   11.90   14.69

University of Lincoln                3       8      11
                                 27.27   72.73  100.00
                                  0.96    3.81    2.10

University of Northampton            9       7      16
                                 56.25   43.75  100.00
                                  2.87    3.33    3.05

All                                314     210     524
                                 59.92   40.08  100.00

West Midlands

Female Male All

Aston University, Birmingham        32       7      39
                                 82.05   17.95  100.00
                                 10.09    5.30    8.69

Coventry University                 17      12      29
                                 58.62   41.38  100.00
                                  5.36    9.09    6.46

Keele University                     8       6      14
                                 57.14   42.86  100.00
                                  2.52    4.55    3.12

The University of Birmingham       148      61     209
                                 70.81   29.19  100.00
                                 46.69   46.21   46.55

The University of Warwick          112      46     158
                                 70.89   29.11  100.00
                                 35.33   34.85   35.19

All                                317     132     449
                                 70.60   29.40  100.00

East of England

Female Male All

The University of Essex            65      30      95
                                68.42   31.58  100.00
                                25.69   23.62   25.00

University of Cambridge           137      74     211
                                64.93   35.07  100.00
                                54.15   58.27   55.53

University of East Anglia          50      23      73
                                68.49   31.51  100.00
                                19.76   18.11   19.21

University of Hertfordshire         1       0       1
                               100.00    0.00  100.00
                                 0.40    0.00    0.26

All 253 127 380
66.58 33.42 100.00

London

Female Male All

King's College 125       37      162
                                     77.16    22.84   100.00
                                    24.131   14.741   21.066

London Metropolitan University           4        1        5
                                     80.00    20.00   100.00
                                     0.772    0.398    0.650

Queen Mary, 51       23       74
                                     68.92    31.08   100.00
                                     9.846    9.163    9.623

Roehampton University                   20       11       31
                                     64.52    35.48   100.00
                                     3.861    4.382    4.031

SOAS 115       68      183
                                     62.84    37.16   100.00
                                    22.201   27.092   23.797

University College London 150       88      238
                                     63.03    36.97   100.00
                                    28.958   35.060   30.949

University of London Institute          44       20       64
                                     68.75    31.25   100.00
                                     8.494    7.968    8.322

University of Westminster                9        3       12
                                     75.00    25.00   100.00
                                     1.737    1.195    1.560

All                                    518      251      769
                                     67.36    32.64   100.00

South East

Female Male All

Canterbury Christ Church Univer        17      14      31
                                    54.84   45.16  100.00
                                     2.96    4.59    3.53

Oxford Brookes University              35      22      57
                                    61.40   38.60  100.00
                                     6.10    7.21    6.48

Oxford University                     108      90     198
                                    54.55   45.45  100.00
                                    18.82   29.51   22.53

Royal Holloway, University of L       106      24     130
                                    81.54   18.46  100.00
                                    18.47    7.87   14.79

The University of Kent                 83      48     131
                                    63.36   36.64  100.00
                                    14.46   15.74   14.90

The University of Reading              27      13      40
                                    67.50   32.50  100.00
                                     4.70    4.26    4.55

University of Portsmouth               64      34      98
                                    65.31   34.69  100.00
                                    11.15   11.15   11.15

University of Southampton              85      32     117
                                    72.65   27.35  100.00
                                    14.81   10.49   13.31

University of Surrey                    5       5      10
                                    50.00   50.00  100.00
                                     0.87    1.64    1.14

University of Sussex                   30      16      46
                                    65.22   34.78  100.00
                                     5.23    5.25    5.23

University of Winchester               14       7      21
                                    66.67   33.33  100.00
                                     2.44    2.30    2.39

All                                   574     305     879
                                    65.30   34.70  100.00

Cell Contents:      Count
                    % of Row
                    % of Column

South West

Female Male All

University of Bath           95      27     122
                          77.87   22.13  100.00
                          24.30   16.67   22.06

University of Bristol       187     101     288
                          64.93   35.07  100.00
                          47.83   62.35   52.08

University of Exeter        109      34     143
                          76.22   23.78  100.00
                          27.88   20.99   25.86

All 391 162 553
70.71 29.29 100.00

Wales

Female Male All

Aberystwyth University                 41      13      54
                                    75.93   24.07  100.00
                                    19.25   14.77   17.94

Bangor University                      25      27      52
                                    48.08   51.92  100.00
                                    11.74   30.68   17.28

Cardiff University                     73      18      91
                                    80.22   19.78  100.00
                                    34.27   20.45   30.23

Swansea University                     62      23      85
                                    72.94   27.06  100.00
                                    29.11   26.14   28.24

The University of Wales, Lampeter 9       6      15
                                    60.00   40.00  100.00
                                     4.23    6.82    4.98

University of Glamorgan, Cardif         3       1       4
                                    75.00   25.00  100.00
                                     1.41    1.14    1.33

All 213 88 301
70.76 29.24 100.00
Northern Ireland

Female Male All

Queen's University Belfast        44      11      55
                               80.00   20.00  100.00
                               55.70   55.00   55.56

University of Ulster              35       9      44
                               79.55   20.45  100.00
                               44.30   45.00   44.44

All                               79      20      99
                               79.80   20.20  100.00
                              100.00  100.00  100.00

Scotland

Female Male All

Edinburgh Napier University            15       1      16
                                    93.75    6.25  100.00
                                     3.66    0.83    3.01

Heriot-Watt University, Edinbur        50      14      64
                                    78.13   21.88  100.00
                                    12.20   11.57   12.05

The University of Aberdeen             60      13      73
                                    82.19   17.81  100.00
                                    14.63   10.74   13.75

The University of Edinburgh            68      30      98
                                    69.39   30.61  100.00
                                    16.59   24.79   18.46

The University of Stirling             35       7      42
                                    83.33   16.67  100.00
                                     8.54    5.79    7.91

The University of Strathclyde          41       3      44
                                    93.18    6.82  100.00
                                    10.00    2.48    8.29

University of Dundee                    0       2       2
                                     0.00  100.00  100.00
                                     0.00    1.65    0.38

University of Glasgow                  57      15      72
                                    79.17   20.83  100.00
                                    13.90   12.40   13.56

University of St Andrews               80      35     115
                                    69.57   30.43  100.00
                                    19.51   28.93   21.66

University of the West of Scotl         4       1       5
                                    80.00   20.00  100.00
                                     0.98    0.83    0.94

All 410 121 531
77.21 22.79 100.00

Application-accept ratios 2005-2010 (Source: UCAS)

January 6, 2012statistics, UCASuniversity admissions, university applicationsjohn

I have put together the ratios of applications to accepts for degrees in languages and related fields below (source UCAS). Students had six choices until 2007, then five choices from 2008.

The ratios are not necessarily indicative of 'applicants per place' as the number of available places is not part of the equation. However, it is probably reasonable to suppose that subjects with a higher applications to accepts ratio are more competitive, all other things being equal.

Click to view table in table in detail.

Ratios for 'applications' to 'accepts', 2005-2010

Applications for language study at UK universities 2005-10

January 4, 2012languages, statistics, transition to HE, UCASlanguages, UCAS, university admissions, university applicationsjohn

As promised here are the applicants and accepts from the UCAS data (2005-2010). I am planning to put this into a better format for the LLAS Centre website.

Please note than some categories may include students not studying languages e.g. American Studies, Science combinations with arts/ humanities/languages.

Definitions: Accepted applicants (accepts): Successful UCAS applicants. The numbers of accepted applicants are close, but not necessarily identical, to the numbers who actually enrol. Applications: Up to 2007 entry, each applicant could make up to six applications to different courses and/or institutions. From 2008 entry onwards, each applicant may make up to five applications. Ratio: approximate number of application per place.

Applications and accepts

Click on the table to enlarge.

Language applications — Applications for Languages

.Some categories may include students not studying languages e.g. American Studies, Science combinations with arts/ humanities/languages. Definitions: Accepted applicants (accepts): Successful UCAS applicants. The numbers of accepted applicants are close, but not necessarily identical, to the numbers who actually enrol. Applications: Up to 2007 entry, each applicant could make up to six applications to different courses and/or institutions. From 2008 entry onwards, each applicant may make up to five applications. Ratio: approximate number of application per place.

Percentage changes

Click on the table to enlarge.

Using UCAS data to identify language trends 1

January 3, 2012HESA, languages, statistics, UCASHESA, languages, statistics, UCASjohn

Late last year I wrote about the difficulties involved in calculating how many students are studying languages, by using HESA data. An alternative source of data is from the UK’s University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). One of the great advantages of the UK centralised admissions system it does mean access to some good data. It is possible to find out which courses are in the highest demand (by looking at application to accept ratios), details about the socio-economic profile of students, school grades etc. Arguably, UCAS data is presented is much more user friendly way than HESA data.

Caution about UCAS data

The case may be different for other subjects, but UCAS data is not very reliable for tracking trends in individual languages. The subject data presented by UCAS is based upon an applicant’s primary choice—in short UCAS staff look at an application form to see which subject the applicant is primarily applying which then forms the basis of the subject choice

Despite the clarity of the layout, there are at least two reasons why UCAS data is not particularly reliable for mapping trends in individual languages.

There is very little allowance for joint and combined honours combinations to be recorded. Where they are reported, it will be where the applicant has expressed no clear preference for a subject—these students are recorded in Y Combinations of Languages with arts and humanities, social studies, combinations of languages. We do not know what combinations they are actually doing. Unspecified combinations of languages attracted 9,589 application and 1,652 accepts. Add to this the combinations of languages with arts/ humanities (another 7,623), languages with social studies, business and law another 2,589. This is considerably more than the 4,678 studying European languages (Group R) and the non-European languages and languages (1,485).
For individual languages ‘trends’ are extremely volatile, probably not because demand is volatile, but because classification practices vary year on year. This is especially the case of ‘less widely taught languages’. Taken at face value it seems that only two students applied to study Portuguese last year.

The upside

However, as each individual is only counted once we can work out how many people might be studying for a language degree in higher education whihout worry are tenths, third and halves of students. If we add up the Group R total, the Group T totals and the Y language combinations for 2010 we get 18,027. Multiple that by 4 (assuming all these students are doing 4 year courses) and we get 72,108. This may be an underestimate as I have not included the sciences with languages/ arts and humanities, but it could also be an overestimated as I this 72,000+ assumes four-year degrees, so if I was to multiple by 3 we get 54,081 not especially close to the 42,444 I estimated from the HESA data.

UCAS is about admissions and applications to study, not statistics per se. It tells us nothing of the numbers of students who enrol on language courses in Institution-Wide Language programmes or change to (or from languages on arrival), though some of the these students are recorded in the HESA data (it depends though on how institutions report their data to HESA.

The data on which this post is based is on the UCAS website. I will post the past five years of data from the individual languages in the next day or two.

"A good name more desirable than riches" True for a university?

December 29, 2011Key Information Sets (KIS), quality, statisticsKey Information Sets, KIS, reputationjohn

The Key Information Set (KIS) gets another (deserved) bashing in the late edition of Times Higher Education this time from Richard Partington at Churchill College Cambridge, opening with an analogy of a car insurance price comparison website. He acknowledges that this is a limited analogy.

Nonetheless, car insurance is fairly straightforward; and although we all wince at its cost, policies are far cheaper, simpler and easier to compare than the complexity of UK university courses.

Another factor about insurance of course is that you only really know if it is any good when something goes wrong and you need to make a claim. In contrast higher education is an expensive, long term and one-off investment. If you don’t like the degree you have you can’t change your alma mater to a different one next year. I suppose you would do another degree but that isn’t a plausible or sensible option for the vast majority of graduates.

Of the KIS he writes:

The result will surely be deterioration in an already problematic reality. As it is, students flee in the face of a plethora of information they struggle to understand, instead choosing on the basis of word of mouth. Consider two excellent Midlands universities. These seem to me essentially indistinguishable on substantive grounds. Yet one receives many more undergraduate applications than the other because it has a better "reputation". So far as I can tell, this has very little to do with anything that should matter to an undergraduate.

I mostly agree with Mr Partington up until his last sentence. Reputation is the currency of higher education—it matters greatly to undergraduates because it matters to their teachers, their friends and their potential employers. Oxford and Cambridge stand alone – I can’t see them worrying about their reputation anytime soon. But the rest of us seek a better reputation than our competitors, (however it is we define reputation).

Even in today’s consumerist higher education environment the proverb rings true- A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. (Proverbs 22 v1, NIV) or could that be “A good name is more desirable than high contact hours; to be esteemed is better than high graduate salaries”.