Author: Taster

Co-producing critique and the impact of collective knowledge

Drawing on work carried out for the Realising Just Cities programme, Beth Perry discusses how co-production enabled participants to collectively develop and refine a form of critique that can drive positive change. The challenge of measuring and valuin…

Book Review: Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button by Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake

In Paradoxes of Digital Disengagement: In Search of the Opt-Out Button – available open access from University of Westminster Press – Adi Kuntsman and Esperanza Miyake explore digital disconnection across fields including health, the welfare system, ci…

Adding equity to transformative agreements and journal subscriptions –The Read & Let Read model

The transition towards open access to research articles has become a question of how, rather than why and the rise of transformative agreements has enabled publishers to strike agreements with large institutions and national research organisations to p…

The Lovelace Effect – AI generated texts should lead us to re-value creativity in academic writing

The continuing development of AI generated writing has led to a debate around its use in higher education. In this post, Simone Natale and Leah Henrickson, draw on their research into computational creativity and introduce the concept of the ‘Lovelace …

When publishing becomes the sole focus of PhD programmes academia suffers

Reporting on their findings from qualitative research project focused PhD students across China, Hugo Horta and Huan Li explore how a culture of publication has become central to doctoral study and discuss how this can negatively impact wider aspects o…

Book Review: The Science and Art of Interviewing by Kathleen Gerson and Sarah Damaske

In The Science and Art of Interviewing, Kathleen Gerson and Sarah Damaske offer a new overview of why interviewing is a useful and powerful research tool and how we can make better use of it. Guiding us through the process, from identifying our researc…

To understand the impact of government policies we need a long-term evaluation culture 

Policymakers may have ballpark ways to figure out what is ‘going on out there’, but the sure-fire way to know whether a policy is achieving its intended outcomes, for whom, and to learn lessons, is to evaluate. Raj Patel examines the challenges of asse…

How academics review books (and each other)

The editorial guidelines for academic book reviews regularly instruct authors to focus on the content of the works being reviewed, rather than the authors. But, how far does this hold true in practice? Drawing on evidence from historical book reviews, …