Handbook of AI at work - book overview

This book is edited by M. Garcia-Murillo, I. MacInnes and A. Renda. It is published by ElgarONline at the beginning of 2024. 

The book has 18 chapters, organised into 3 parts. An introduction by the editors provides a good overview of AI, its historical development and its implications to human labour. 

The first part has 4 chapters on the theme of 'conceptualising the human with the machine'. The main discussion in this section is on the interrelationships and interactions between humans and machine with a strong message about the importance of aligning machine potential and human values.

The second part has 10 chapters, each providing a case study or a specialised application of AI into work. Industries include agriculture, manufacturing, construction and civil engineering, home-based care of the aged, professional learning, entrepreneurial finance, creative industries, judicial systems, national security and governance and policy making.

The last section has 3 chapters discussing ' the labour implications of AI at work'. 

All in, a good overview of how AI impacts on work, the 'guardrails' that need to be in place to ensure ethical integration of AI into work, and examples of the reach of AI across industries.

Theory of practice architecture - book overview

 This book,  the theory of practice architecture is by Peter Grootenboer and Christine Edwards-Groves. It is published by Springer in 2023.

Being a book in the Springer Brief series, it has five chapters. The first chapter summarises the premises with regards to the concepts of practice architetcture as a research approach to help understand real-world practices and 'practice-scapes.

The second chapter, extends the work into the wider approach of theories of ecologies of practice.

Then the third chapter explains the importance of situating practices into their authentic settings.

Chapter four details the ways practice architecture influence and lead the interpretation and analysis of data.

The last chapter provides recommendaitions on how to disseminate practice-based research to ensure it has impact and is used tranformationally to inform and perhaps enhance practice.

Creating the university of the future - book overview

 This 2024 open access book, Creating the university of the future is published by Springer and edited by U-D Ehlers and L. Eigbrecht. It is part of the book series on Future Higher Education. 

There are 30 chapters, organised into five sections.

The editors 'Set the scene' with 3 chapters in the first section - Creating the university of the future: A global panorama on future skills; towards a future skills framework for higher education; and the practice of future skills learning: an assessment of approaches, conditions and sucesss factors.

The next section focuses on 'future skills- foundations and shapes of a new emerging concept in a global view. There are six chapters in this section. 

Then 11 chapters in the section on future skills in practice - teaching and learning. The chapters provide case studies or examples of contemporary pedagogy from across the world.

The fourth section is on 'future skills in practice - assessment'. with 4 chapters. Emphasis is placed on formative assessments across the chapters.

The last section has a series of chapters from various countries which have worked towards achieving 'future skills'. Chapters are on the 'skills future movement in Singapore'; 'continuing education at the National University of Singapore'; Educational digital transformation of university education in Japan; future IT skills; and further higher education in New Zealand.

Overall, a good collection of chapters, some philosophical/theoretical but many reporting on current approaches. 

Peformance based research funding in Aotearoa New Zealand -

 Last week, the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) announced that the University Advisory Group, has been tasked with reviewing the mechanism for recognition and funding of research in tertiary institutions. The Performance-based Research Funding (PBRF) is the main conduit for the funding of research at universities and polytechnics 

Taking this into account, the current collation of evidence towards the 2018-2026 evaluation round, has been cancelled. The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) have always contended that the PBRF system was unwieldy and expensive, taking up much of academics' time without any real benefits for them. 

What happens next, will hopefully be more manageable and fair. Across three posts, Roger Smyth has discussed some possibilities. Firstly, he overviews the system as it stands and summarises the inherent challenges. Then, he presents some possible solutions. A postscript was then added providing examples of how the possible solutions proposed, may play out. Of note is that PBRF is a funding regime that is derived from the university sectors' research volume. Smaller tertiary providers in the form of  Wananga (Māori Universities) and Polytechnics which participate in research as they offer degree level and above qualifications, will always have much smaller volumes of research outputs. Therefore, their share of the PBRF, has always been much smaller. 

The recommendations from the University Advisory Group on PBRF will therefore, always be a balancing act between how funding drives research activity and the costs of measuring the quantity and quality of the activity. The current system is very costly, in terms of time, for individual institutions and individual researchers. Hopefully, a better, more efficient method is presented that does not penalise non-university research.