Category: Worldwide PSE

HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (Dec. 14th, 2023)

Spotlight Good afternoon all,  2023 is soon coming to an end, and this is already the last AI-focused email of the year.  Since HESA launched its AI Observatory in August, we noticed that the pace at which institutions have been releasing policies, guidelines and statements around the use of GenAI in higher education seems to have slowed down. Has the feeling of urgency passed? Have other issues emerged that forced institutions to focus their energy elsewhere? Or is the current

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Books of the Year 2023

Morning, all.  The penultimate blog each year is about books.  This year, the penultimate blog in June was also about books, so you might want to go back here to see what I had to say about the crop I went through in the first half of the year.  In today’s effort, I’ll mostly stick to what I’ve read since mid-June. (But first, if you’re interested in some non-Higher Ed reading recommendations before XMAS: Valley of the Birdtail: an Indian

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HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (Dec. 8th, 2023)

Spotlight Good afternoon all,  In today’s newsletter, we share articles about governance structures to coordinate institution’s response to GenAI, student perspectives on the use of GenAI, the need to train students on ethical uses of AI, ways in which GenAI can support student wellbeing, the need for better data training of AI tools, and more. Also, we are starting to plan our Winter 2024 AI Roundtables. If you’d like to suggest any topic or guest speaker, please reach out to

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Top 10 Stories of 2023 in American Higher Education

Hi.  I’m Alex Usher and this is the World of Higher Education podcast. We’re going to mix up the format a little for this podcast. Joining me today is Robert Kelchen, professor and head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and author of the genuinely excellent book Higher Education Accountability from Johns Hopkins Press. In my view, Robert is among the sharpest eyes on the American higher education scene, someone who is always worth listening to.  In

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Post-Soviet Higher Education

In the immediate post-war period, the Soviet Union, despite the immense destruction that had been wreaked across its territory by the Nazi invasion of 1941-44, shocked the world with its rapid acquisition of what was then high technology, in particular with respect to the nuclear and space sectors. It also rose quickly ot have the world’s second largest university system, just behind the United States. Its prowess in education and Science provoked huge investments in higher education in science. But

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