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Category: Data

How to Think about “Better Higher Education Data”

Like many people, I am in favour of better data on the higher education sector.  But while this call unites a lot of people, there is remarkably little thinking that goes into the question of how to achieve it.  This is a problem, because unless we arrive at a better common understanding of both the cost and the utility of different kinds of data, we are going to remain stuck in our current position. First, we need to ask ourselves

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April 4, 2017 1 Comment

Data on Race/Ethnicity

A couple of week ago, CBC decided to make a big deal about how terrible Canadian universities were for not collecting data on race (see Why so many Canadian universities Know so little about their own racial diversity). As you all know, I’m a big proponent of better data in higher education. But the effort involved in getting new data has to be in some way proportional to the benefit derived from that data. And I’m pretty sure this doesn’t

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April 3, 2017 11 Comments

Losing Count

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: Canada is not sufficiently innovative, and part of the reason is that we don’t spend enough on research.  It’s not that we don’t spend enough on *public* research; adjusted for GDP, we actually do above-average on that.  What pulls us down is in international comparisons corporate R & D.  Our narrow-minded, short-sighted, resource-obsessed business class spends far less on R&D than its equivalents in most other country, and that is what gives

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March 27, 2017 3 Comments

Garbage Data on Sexual Assaults

I am going to do something today which I expect will not put me in good stead with one of my biggest clients.  But the Government of Ontario is considering something unwise and I feel it best to speak up. As many of you know, the current Liberal government is very concerned about sexual harassment and sexual assault on campus, and has devoted no small amount of time and political capital to getting institutions to adopt new rules and regulations around said

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February 23, 2017 3 Comments

A Slice of Canadian Higher Education History

There are a few gems scattered through Statistics Canada’s archives. Digging around their site the other day, I came across a fantastic trove of documents published by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics (as StatsCan used to be called) called Higher Education in Canada. The earliest number in this series dates from 1938, and is available here. I urge you to read the whole thing, because it’s a hoot. But let me just focus in on a couple of points in

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January 27, 2017 4 Comments

One Thought to Start Your Day

One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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