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Category: Innovation

Funding, Free Riding, and the Future of Canadian Science

Ever since World War II science — that is, state funded science — and economic progress have been seen to go hand in hand. And for the most part, governments have been happy to let scientists themselves decide where much of the money goes. But things have been changing lately, and not just in the United States, where the Trump administration has awarded itself the right to involve itself in any science award for any reason. Several countries, notably Australia

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November 27, 2025 1 Comment

Some Thoughts on the Use of AI in Teaching

I spent part of last week in Tempe at Arizona State University’s conference on Agentic AI and the Student Experience, which was a pretty interesting event. It made me think awhile about AI in higher education, which I thought I’d share with y’all. My POV on this basically comes down to six things: That last one is the most important. I’ll expand on it.  Higher education, being as near to eternal as any institution can be, constantly lives with technological changes. In

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October 29, 2025 2 Comments

Testing Times & Interesting Discussions

Last week, The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) put out a discussion paper called Testing Times: Fending Off A Crisis in Post-Secondary Education, which in part is the outcome of a set of cross-country discussions held this summer by RBC, HESA, and the Business Higher Education Roundtable. (BHER). The paper, I think, sums up the current situation pretty well: the system is not at a starvation point but is heading in that direction pretty quickly and that needs to be

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September 24, 2025 4 Comments

The Cost Implications of AI in Postsecondary Education

I have been noodling for a while on the question of how the use of Artificial Intelligence is likely to change the cost structure of institutions, so I thought it was worth a blog. Particularly since most of the theories I hear about in this area are almost certainly wrong. The one thing I think we can confidently rule out about AI and teaching is that AI will “replace professors” (or in more extreme versions, “replace universities”). This is a

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May 21, 2025 1 Comment

Getting Serious about Apprenticeships

As I noted back on Monday, for a variety of deeply atavistic reasons, Canadian political parties have decided that the knowledge economy is out and some kind of 1960s economy based, improbably, on the construction industry, is in. And so, similarly, postsecondary students are out along with colleges and universities, while apprentices and skilled trades are in. Which, you know, whatever. Fine. But if we are going to do this, parties need to start developing policies which will improve our

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April 30, 2025 2 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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