Links from the interwebs

A few links shared from my Evernote notebooks. There are many others, but I want to share some of the good ones about Higher Ed and Economics today:

• Inomics blog has some suggestions for Economics and Econometrics YouTube channels that you can follow.
• Derek Bok wrote at Project Syndicate that governments often misconceive the role of higher education in society - it is about more than jobs and money.
• At the Marginal Revolution blog Tyler Cowan commented on some research about the characteristics that predict the publication productivity of Economics departments (in France). The work confirms some of us managers' ideas: Women, older academics, stars in the department and co-authors in foreign institutions all have a positive externality impact on individuals' publications.
• The Economist wrote about firms that keep grading their staff ruthlessly: Grading performance along a "vitality curve" and sacking those in the lowest category. Now in academia, performance management is not that bad, but does this sound familiar?

Ranking and yanking is more logical in investment banks, law and accountancy firms and big consultancies: their business model is, in a sense, built on recruiting large numbers of junior staff and motivating them with the prospect of becoming a partner, even though in practice only a few of them can ever make it. 

I would like to argue that we can never go down this road. Banking or consultancy style performance evaluation would ignore the merit good characteristics of what universities should do. Our system should rather encourage collaboration and positive external benefits.

• Mark Carrigan made some excellent points at the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog about how the academic blogosphere mediates between research and journalism.
• Finally, Gabriel Rossman had an excellent post on the Code and Culture blog with the title: You broke peer review. Yes, I mean you! It is quite a long post, but worth reading through. I only want to mention a few of the points of advice:
• • Do not brainstorm your review.
  • Distinguish between demands, vs suggestions, vs synapses that happened to fire as you were reading the paper.
  • There is wrong and then there is difference of opinion.
  • Do not try to turn the author's theory section into a lit review.
  • Appreciate the constraints imposed on the author by the journal.
  • Stand up to the editors!
  
  
  Women, older academics, stars in the department and co-authors in foreign institutions all have a positive externality impact on each academic’s individual outcome. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/which-characteristics-of-economics-departments-predict-productivity-of-publications.html#sthash.rHTosjSC.dpuf
  Women, older academics, stars in the department and co-authors in foreign institutions all have a positive externality impact on each academic’s individual outcome. - See more at: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/11/which-characteristics-of-economics-departments-predict-productivity-of-publications.html#sthash.rHTosjSC.dpuf
  It is the responsibility of educators to help their students live satisfying, responsible lives. However well or badly universities perform this task, their efforts to succeed at it are worth fighting for and deserve their governments’ recognition and encouragement. After all, as Louis Brandeis observed: For good or ill, “our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher.” If our leaders regard education merely as a means to jobs and money, no one should be surprised if young people eventually come to think of it that way, too.
  Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/derek-bok-on-policymakers--misconceptions-of-the-role-of-higher-learning#B53m7qfsqJDbrS6K.99
  It is the responsibility of educators to help their students live satisfying, responsible lives. However well or badly universities perform this task, their efforts to succeed at it are worth fighting for and deserve their governments’ recognition and encouragement. After all, as Louis Brandeis observed: For good or ill, “our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher.” If our leaders regard education merely as a means to jobs and money, no one should be surprised if young people eventually come to think of it that way, too.
  Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/derek-bok-on-policymakers--misconceptions-of-the-role-of-higher-learning#B53m7qfsqJDbrS6K.99