Teknovis

I was interested to hear that the seven Universities in Ireland will start to award bonus marks to students for taking the highest level of Maths in the Leaving Certificate. Under this new plan students would get an additional 25 points, which is out of a maximum 600. For more information see Bonus points for higher level Maths.

My first impression is that this is a great idea, because it should encourage the uptake of Maths. I think that this country really needs to refocus on Science and Technology in order to remain in the global market. However, it does seem unfortunate that most of the University courses that require high points do not require an ability in Maths (I am thinking of Law, Dentistry, …).

There are also a few additional changes that should be made to second level education:

• Make all Leaving Certificate subjects optional from the school or State’s point of view. Students have the life skills by the time they do the Junior Certificate, so let the Leaving Certificate be about specialisation and choice.
• Make Irish optional in secondary school. In the global economy, and especially in difficult economic times, students should be allowed to choose the subjects that will give both them, and the country, the best chance of success. Yes, it is great to enforce “dead culture”, but I think that most people prefer jobs and income!
• Let the Universities introduce more specific course requirements. For example, Physics could become mandatory for entering an engineering degree. This would enable the Universities to build upon the Leaving Certificate education, rather than having to repeat it for those who choose other subjects.

Unfortunately, I doubt that any of these ideas will ever come into practice due to the slow speed that our education system. Additionally, it seems to me that teachers are against all change unless they are financially compensated.

Tags: Ireland

There is bad news for the Irish Universities in Trinity and UCD slip down world university rankings.

Unfortunately, this situation is only going to get worse given that the Irish Government is irrationally determined to put all of the nation’s resources into supporting failed banks :(

During the weekend I read about Intune Networks and the Exemplar Network in Ireland’s next big thing – Govt commits extra €5m to Exemplar Network. It appears to be a very positive development, and I am delighted to see that it has such strong links to fourth level research.

The video Digital 21 – The Exemplar Network is worth looking at also. Unfortunately, I cannot embed it here :( It is funny to hear Eamon Ryan describe it as open source, and then realise that he does not actually know what that means :D

Tags: Exemplar Network, Intune Networks

As always, I am delighted to read about the Irish Government investing in third and fourth level education. I am a product of the education system, so I am very familiar with how important this is to the Irish economy.

Today’s announcement is that the Government will invest 296€ million over the next six years. For more details see Govt commits €296m to third level research. (The article appears to confuse third level and fourth level.)

This certainly is great news, but part of it deeply concerns me:

The money will be spent funding buildings and also directly on individual research projects.

The article then continues:

Overall the funding announced comprises €260m to be spent on infrastructure and almost €100m to spend directly on research projects.

I really hope that I am wrong, but this looks like a construction industry investment rather than a research investment! The Government (through NAMA) already owns more property in this country than anybody else. A lot of this property is commercial, and it is currently unused. This really makes me wonder who is the Government trying to support by creating more buildings!

It really is depressing, especially since this is not the first time that this has happened. For example, I wrote about this in Irish Government Research Investment. I have many friends currently involved in research in the Dublin Universities. There certainly is a shortage of money. However, I do not think that any of them would prioritise buildings above more people or equipment!

As an aside, I wonder how much of the previous 300€ million is being included in today’s announcement.

Tags: Ireland

I read a great quote in File under – ‘Silly comments by middle-aged university managers’ by Ferdinand von Prondzynski:

In his book, The Uses of the University, Clark Kerr, the late chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, suggested that a university president has three key tasks that the institution’s main stakeholders will expect to see achieved: “sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty”. Only the last of these, Kerr suggested, presented a problem.

Ferdinand is of course, the President of DCU, so he should know what is is talking about!

I must use this quote in my Quote of the Moment!

Tags: DCU, Sex

I learned today that DCU is to outsource all of its email to Google. I estimate that DCU must have tens of thousands of email accounts. So I would have thought that it would be more cost effective to provide this service in-house.

For more detail about this see Information Systems and Services.

Tags: DCU, Google

The Irish Government will implement 17 of the suggestions from the Ideas Campaign, as described in Recession ideas to be acted upon.

There were two ideas that caught my attention. The first idea is:

Provide a one-stop-shop virtual helpdesk for start-ups with advice on legal, HR, patents, accountancy issues etc.

I think that is a great idea, and I can easily imagine it being very useful. I guess that funding it will be a problem :(

The second idea that caught my attention is:

Teach business skills as part of all PhD education as a means of promoting the knowledge economy

This sounds great, but I seriously doubt that many PhD students would be interested in this :o Generally, PhD students just want to focus on their research, and they generally dislike attending classes of any type :o

Tags: Ireland

Science Foundation Ireland has announced the creation of a new fund to commercialise existing research that it is funding. The fund is called the Technology and Innovation Development Award (TIDA), and you can read more about it in Technology and Innovation Development Award (TIDA).

The maximum grant size is 100,000€ over 12 months. I think that is a really significant amount, and it should be enough to determine if existing research has commercial potential.

I am actually surprised that Science Foundation Ireland is doing this, because I thought that commercialisation was under the remit of Enterprise Ireland.

Tags: Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland

I read an interesting idea for a B.Sc. in Web Development and Design in Web Development Should Be a Third Level Degree. This idea is particularly interesting because it comes from the Lead Software Developer in Boards.ie, and he previously started, but did not complete, the computing degree course in DCU.

Tags: Boards.ie, DCU

Earlier this year Science Foundation Ireland announced the creation of five new Strategic Research Clusters with an investment of 23.9€ million. (I should have written about these at the time, but better late than never :)

Two of these projects are of interest to me (because they are ICT related):

• Clique is analysing data graphs and networks. This project is based in UCD.
• FAME is investigating end-to-end communications over heterogeneous networks. This project is based in TSSG.

For more details about this announcement see Tánaiste announces establishment of 5 New Science Foundation Ireland Strategic Research Clusters, and for the complete set of Strategic Research Clusters projects see Strategic Research Clusters.

Tags: Science Foundation Ireland, TSSG, UCD