News from the social sciences and humanities: Census, open access and university graduates

Blog
July 20, 2012

Milena Stanoeva Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Vass Bednar and Mark Stabile wrote an op-ed for the Vancouver Sun on the effects that cuts to Statistics Canada will have on policy-making. They argue that making sound policy decisions for the future is impossible without accurate measures of present challenges and national well-being.

The United Kingdom announced that it will make government-funded research completely open access by 2014. The research will be available from anywhere in the world at no charge. While some British academics rejoice at the move to an open-access model, others worry that it will come at the cost of increasing competition for research funding, making it more difficult for young researchers in particular to secure funds.

Jeet Heer has an article in the Ottawa Citizen arguing that news coverage of university students and academic matters is often dismissive, over-simplistic and reliant on harmful stereotypes, such as the conflation of students of Asian descent with international students.

Jeffrey Simpson’s column in today’s Globe and Mail argues that Canadian university graduates are actually doing quite well, with employment rates at over 90 percent and a significant difference in lifelong earning compared to Canadians with no post-secondary education.

Photo courtesy of The Bees on Flickr.