6 ms·

There's also the issue of what has happened now that students have to pay through the nose for courses. They are now customers who expect high grades for their

There's also the issue of what has happened now that students have to pay through the nose for courses. They are now customers who expect high grades for their fees. This has certainly changed the dynamic with regard to rigorous marking in some areas

tonyedgecombe 9y ago
I can't help feeling we would be better off if responsibility for grading was taken away from universities as it is for A levels and GCSEs. There are some problems with that but I suspect they would be outweighed by the benefits.
- sgt101 9y ago
  Tough to do this within the constraints of academic freedom; if an institution wants to offer a new course and they need to get certification by an authority and find externals to mark it... well could stall things by years?
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    As I said there are downsides. I will say though that the courses on offer to my children when they went to university looked very similar. I'm not sure this would be a huge problem.
  - golergka 9y ago
    Offer a course without a certification. Then, those students who are only in uni for the grades will not take it, but students who actually value knowledge will opt in for the course.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      Which then will be penalised by mainstream employers, because there's no certification - automated CV scanners will dump your application as it's "not a proper degree".
      - golergka 9y ago
        Which, in turn, will reward no mainstream employers. After 11 years of design/engineering career without a degree, I don't think it's such a big issue.
    - BenElgar 9y ago
      Most people value both though; when I was in university I loved what I did and wanted to continue doing it somewhere excellent afterwards. For that I need to be armed both with the knowledge and the qualifications necessary.
  - wastedhours 9y ago
    You already see this with courses around nursing and healthcare which need to be QA'd by external bodies like the local commissioning authorities. It does delay it, but not by as much as some of the internal processes that need to happen. There might be more enterprising universities that launch courses quickly (and would probably still reserve the right to do it with things like masters courses), but most undergrad courses take years to develop and deploy anyway, so an external body reviewing the content and assessment criteria wouldn't hold things up much in comparison.
    - sgt101 9y ago
      For an entire degree program I agree, I've seen lots of agonising about these and many roadblocks. But for a module many universities are pretty agile right now - much to the student's benefit.
- gambiting 9y ago
  The issue isn't and never was with grading. No one is giving higher grades than they should in those UK universities that I worked with - the issue is specifically with lecturers being instructed to write exams in such a way that most people pass, because doing otherwise is bad for the department and for publicity. Which results in exams which are stupidly easy for anything that doesn't have "engineering" in the name.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    I envisaged creating exams would come under the remit of an examination board just as it does for A levels and GCSEs.
    - gambiting 9y ago
      I just can't imagine how that would work? Maybe for some "core" modules - sure. But if you have a Russel group university with an industry leading ML course, where the professor behind the course is the leading researcher in the area - who is going to write the exam for it? The "problem" here is standardization(or lack of it) - and it's actually very good that university courses are not standardized.
      - stctgion 9y ago
        You just paper swap with another uni. Oxford can hand it's engineering paper to Cambridge and see if it's hard enough etc. Not hard to do, it's just peer review for exam papers
        pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        Exam difficulty can't be assessed solely on the paper, the difficulty is also a function of the curriculum - if they teach to the exam, covering only a few topics which are then examined, then the exam is easier than if it selects questions from a broader curriculum.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
- thinkingemote 9y ago
  I've anecdotes from two university lecturers on different courses. They both want some form of external moderation. its what happens for Postgraduate degrees after all. What they report is horrifying: * Essay writing skills are lacking, "its at GCSE level" * Students contesting any form of criticism - they go via the official channels to argue why they should get a good grade. All schools are tied up in multiple tribunals with existing staff. Often its easier just to pass the student. * In some cases, students are SUING the university for poor grades * Plagiarism is commonplace. There is an automated plagiarism detection mechanism for electronic submissions - but they are turned off or ignored as it's so rampant. People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. Wikipedia copying is especially used for definitions, e.g. "Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship...." * Students don't see that their education is also their own responsibility, and see it as a purchase. Give me what I pay for. * Students who don't turn up to classes and seminars demand the same grades as those who do. * Hundreds of students email lecturers asking for help with their work (much more numbers and frequency than in the past). They both despair as they see education standards falling, and theres not much they can do. They don't want to be sued by the students, nor do they want to spend all their time in tribunals, they are educators first. They see their own institution as being of very poor quality. To me - I would look at a league table of education quality for UK universities. There isn't one, you cant compare. Previously a good chance of good education was the research output of a department, or the references of the teachers. But this, as my associates report don't mean anything anymore.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    >People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. // My lad is just in UK high-school but I'm surprised at how homework is set with no provision of resources and no mention of plagiarism or need to cite sources. The kids are basically expected to find their own sources, which is ridiculous - making them trust whatever Google gives them. Once they've been inculcated into the notion that education resides in googling and cutting and pasting, without even reading the content, then it's hard to establish a good research ethic. On top of this the teachers aren't even teaching good use of online search, or providing access to primary source material that gets referenced. It's really dire. Textbooks have their problems but ...
gutnor 9y ago
Another point is that immigration of qualified worker is the one that is not only accepted, but seen as desirable. Universities are selling something for 45,000 GBP that is available for free or much cheaper in other countries and readily accessible to employers. At some point Universities need to give students their money worth in some form or another.
- pjc50 9y ago
  Ironically UK university education is something of an export industry: there are a lot of people from non-Western countries who come here and pay full fees for the degrees because of their prestige. The government's gradual tightening of immigration policy is making this less viable.
  - eptcyka 9y ago
    Actually, the high paying customers won't be put off by whatever immigration policy the current government will put in place. It's mostly EU students who will look elsewhere.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      It's not a question of being "put off" if you're denied entry or deported (wrongly or otherwise) by the Home Office.
      - iguy 9y ago
        It's also a bit of an open question how many universities were effectively selling visas. Clearly anyone with a place at Oxford could find another way to immigrate if they wished. But one wonders how many fee-paying applicants to bottom-tier places were really paying for their basket-weaving lectures.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Ex-poly degree mills are rapidly devaluing this. It’s only a matter of time before British degrees become an anti-brand in China
astrodev 9y ago
PhD selection committees don't give much weight to grades (did they ever?) and instead rely on letters of recommendation. The corporate world doesn't care what one has gained from their degree apart from the social skills which universities don't grade for anyway. So who needs the grades to be rigorous?
- Angostura 9y ago
  > The corporate world doesn't care what one has gained from their degree apart from the social skills As someone who interviews people for jobs - nonsense.
  - ItsMe000001 9y ago
    As someone who has been interviewed numerous times - the only time they ever even checked my university CS degree was for my very first job, and they only wanted it after I had already been accepted, to file it with my papers. The rest of the times I simply had the degree listed in my résumé. This is IT, where it may be (even?) more lax than in other fields. However, from following similar discussions for years, for example on reddit and also here on HN, with lots of people commenting who do or have done hiring decisions, the majority opinion seems to be that once you have a work history the particulars ceases to matter. Looking at my own two decades of experience, incl. a small business (sold), now another startup (of 40+ age engineers and business people, software), I would not care either. I had to check young candidates, it never crossed my mind to look at their grades. Talking and then seeing them work was far more revealing. Related (NY Times opinion piece "The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews"): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-uselessness-of-job-interviews.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-...

tonyedgecombe 9y ago

I can't help feeling we would be better off if responsibility for grading was taken away from universities as it is for A levels and GCSEs. There are some problems with that but I suspect they would be outweighed by the benefits.

sgt101 9y ago
Tough to do this within the constraints of academic freedom; if an institution wants to offer a new course and they need to get certification by an authority and find externals to mark it... well could stall things by years?
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  As I said there are downsides. I will say though that the courses on offer to my children when they went to university looked very similar. I'm not sure this would be a huge problem.
- golergka 9y ago
  Offer a course without a certification. Then, those students who are only in uni for the grades will not take it, but students who actually value knowledge will opt in for the course.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    Which then will be penalised by mainstream employers, because there's no certification - automated CV scanners will dump your application as it's "not a proper degree".
    - golergka 9y ago
      Which, in turn, will reward no mainstream employers. After 11 years of design/engineering career without a degree, I don't think it's such a big issue.
  - BenElgar 9y ago
    Most people value both though; when I was in university I loved what I did and wanted to continue doing it somewhere excellent afterwards. For that I need to be armed both with the knowledge and the qualifications necessary.
- wastedhours 9y ago
  You already see this with courses around nursing and healthcare which need to be QA'd by external bodies like the local commissioning authorities. It does delay it, but not by as much as some of the internal processes that need to happen. There might be more enterprising universities that launch courses quickly (and would probably still reserve the right to do it with things like masters courses), but most undergrad courses take years to develop and deploy anyway, so an external body reviewing the content and assessment criteria wouldn't hold things up much in comparison.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    For an entire degree program I agree, I've seen lots of agonising about these and many roadblocks. But for a module many universities are pretty agile right now - much to the student's benefit.
gambiting 9y ago
The issue isn't and never was with grading. No one is giving higher grades than they should in those UK universities that I worked with - the issue is specifically with lecturers being instructed to write exams in such a way that most people pass, because doing otherwise is bad for the department and for publicity. Which results in exams which are stupidly easy for anything that doesn't have "engineering" in the name.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  I envisaged creating exams would come under the remit of an examination board just as it does for A levels and GCSEs.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    I just can't imagine how that would work? Maybe for some "core" modules - sure. But if you have a Russel group university with an industry leading ML course, where the professor behind the course is the leading researcher in the area - who is going to write the exam for it? The "problem" here is standardization(or lack of it) - and it's actually very good that university courses are not standardized.
    - stctgion 9y ago
      You just paper swap with another uni. Oxford can hand it's engineering paper to Cambridge and see if it's hard enough etc. Not hard to do, it's just peer review for exam papers
      - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        Exam difficulty can't be assessed solely on the paper, the difficulty is also a function of the curriculum - if they teach to the exam, covering only a few topics which are then examined, then the exam is easier than if it selects questions from a broader curriculum.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
thinkingemote 9y ago
I've anecdotes from two university lecturers on different courses. They both want some form of external moderation. its what happens for Postgraduate degrees after all. What they report is horrifying: * Essay writing skills are lacking, "its at GCSE level" * Students contesting any form of criticism - they go via the official channels to argue why they should get a good grade. All schools are tied up in multiple tribunals with existing staff. Often its easier just to pass the student. * In some cases, students are SUING the university for poor grades * Plagiarism is commonplace. There is an automated plagiarism detection mechanism for electronic submissions - but they are turned off or ignored as it's so rampant. People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. Wikipedia copying is especially used for definitions, e.g. "Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship...." * Students don't see that their education is also their own responsibility, and see it as a purchase. Give me what I pay for. * Students who don't turn up to classes and seminars demand the same grades as those who do. * Hundreds of students email lecturers asking for help with their work (much more numbers and frequency than in the past). They both despair as they see education standards falling, and theres not much they can do. They don't want to be sued by the students, nor do they want to spend all their time in tribunals, they are educators first. They see their own institution as being of very poor quality. To me - I would look at a league table of education quality for UK universities. There isn't one, you cant compare. Previously a good chance of good education was the research output of a department, or the references of the teachers. But this, as my associates report don't mean anything anymore.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  >People literally copying from Wikipedia or copy and pasting from papers to make their own work. // My lad is just in UK high-school but I'm surprised at how homework is set with no provision of resources and no mention of plagiarism or need to cite sources. The kids are basically expected to find their own sources, which is ridiculous - making them trust whatever Google gives them. Once they've been inculcated into the notion that education resides in googling and cutting and pasting, without even reading the content, then it's hard to establish a good research ethic. On top of this the teachers aren't even teaching good use of online search, or providing access to primary source material that gets referenced. It's really dire. Textbooks have their problems but ...

gutnor 9y ago

Another point is that immigration of qualified worker is the one that is not only accepted, but seen as desirable. Universities are selling something for 45,000 GBP that is available for free or much cheaper in other countries and readily accessible to employers. At some point Universities need to give students their money worth in some form or another.

pjc50 9y ago
Ironically UK university education is something of an export industry: there are a lot of people from non-Western countries who come here and pay full fees for the degrees because of their prestige. The government's gradual tightening of immigration policy is making this less viable.
- eptcyka 9y ago
  Actually, the high paying customers won't be put off by whatever immigration policy the current government will put in place. It's mostly EU students who will look elsewhere.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    It's not a question of being "put off" if you're denied entry or deported (wrongly or otherwise) by the Home Office.
    - iguy 9y ago
      It's also a bit of an open question how many universities were effectively selling visas. Clearly anyone with a place at Oxford could find another way to immigrate if they wished. But one wonders how many fee-paying applicants to bottom-tier places were really paying for their basket-weaving lectures.
- gaius 9y ago
  Ex-poly degree mills are rapidly devaluing this. It’s only a matter of time before British degrees become an anti-brand in China

astrodev 9y ago

PhD selection committees don't give much weight to grades (did they ever?) and instead rely on letters of recommendation. The corporate world doesn't care what one has gained from their degree apart from the social skills which universities don't grade for anyway. So who needs the grades to be rigorous?

Angostura 9y ago
> The corporate world doesn't care what one has gained from their degree apart from the social skills As someone who interviews people for jobs - nonsense.
- ItsMe000001 9y ago
  As someone who has been interviewed numerous times - the only time they ever even checked my university CS degree was for my very first job, and they only wanted it after I had already been accepted, to file it with my papers. The rest of the times I simply had the degree listed in my résumé. This is IT, where it may be (even?) more lax than in other fields. However, from following similar discussions for years, for example on reddit and also here on HN, with lots of people commenting who do or have done hiring decisions, the majority opinion seems to be that once you have a work history the particulars ceases to matter. Looking at my own two decades of experience, incl. a small business (sold), now another startup (of 40+ age engineers and business people, software), I would not care either. I had to check young candidates, it never crossed my mind to look at their grades. Talking and then seeing them work was far more revealing. Related (NY Times opinion piece "The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews"): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-uselessness-of-job-interviews.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/opinion/sunday/the-utter-...