Prof. Pam Birtill

That’s the thing for me. Don’t seem in the spirit of how the rules were designed which was in an age without VAR

This! Turnitin has twisted our concept of plagiarism, and encourages meaningless paraphrasing.

A heron

Yay, the heron is back on campus

British Academy response to the Department for Education's technical consultation on the Interational Student Levy 18 February 2026 Background The Department for Education is consulting on the proposed levy on international student income, due to be introduced in England in August 2028.

‘We remain deeply concerned that universities will be unable to absorb the cost of the levy’s
introduction. The loss of cross-subsidy for domestic teaching & research will harm
universities’ ability to deliver their core functions’
Our response to the levy
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/60...

The morning before I went Cambridge university I was cleaning toilets at Harrogate ladies college.

In Leeds we simply sigh. Trams. Please? It’s been over 25 years, and will be another decade yet… if ever.

No. Fossil fuels are not the future.

Monique Botha (@drmbothapsych.bsky.social) Autistic and ADHD researcher focusing on minority stress, meta-science, and dehumanization of neurodivergent people in science and research. Big believer in #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

Wonderful to welcome @drmbothapsych.bsky.social to University of Leeds school of Psychology today, to hear about their important work looking at the language we use when talking about autism and autistic people in research, and how that can dehumanise people.

Leeds' new local paper West Yorkshire deserves great local journalism. Help us launch it.

Leeds people! Support independent journalism in our city - leeds.ghost.io/r/429d058d?m... they need a few more folks to sign up, but it’s worth it. We need quality independent journalism, and these people have a great track record

One of the first things I learned as a professor is that accommodations don’t make the class/assessment easier — they just make it inclusive. Doing a moral panic on accommodations is just gross and ableist.

tl;dr: more people should watch this gentleman's speech and think seriously about what he is saying

bsky.app/profile/slcl...

This looks like some pretty major changes. Exciting to see a more flexible and scientifically valid approach to diagnosis.

A Welsh flag in the centre taken through yellow daffodils. There is sea in the foreground and misty hills beyond - the photo is of an estuary. It’s Porthmeirion in north wales.

Dydd gwyl Dewi sant hapus!

I love this.

What a lack of grace we've seen across the board today.

Whether you agree with her politics or not, Hannah Spencer was evidently a top notch candidate and Parliament will be richer with her there. Obvious from the off.

We all need to drink the water from this democratic well.

I have been promoted to Prof on research and teaching track, entirely for my student education and leadership work - it is possible. I will defend my T&S colleagues from the divide and conquer narrative, and I have had horrible conversations with R focused colleagues about teaching.

Yes, there are systemic problems. Who pays for the time for research focused colleagues to write grants, in our current system? It is students, who are attracted by the quality teaching as signalled by NSS.

Blaming this on teaching focused colleagues is deeply unfair.

Are you really saying that teaching only focused academics reduce the chances of research focused academics in doing effective and high quality research? Because that is a strong claim that requires evidence. In universities we need to do good quality teaching. Students pay a vast amount to learn.

Can Sadiq Khan stop Asif Aziz's mass evictions? We went to the billionaire's home to get answers, as a leading homelessness charity cut ties with the landlord and tenants begged the mayor to save their homes.

Breaking:
*Asif Aziz's mass evictions of Londoners appear to be BACK ON
*Sadiq Khan personally demands immediate response from the landlord
*Leading homelessness charity cuts ties with the Aziz family and refuses donation
*Questions over legality of paperwork
www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

I think it very much depends on the colour temperature, and the drivers - the frequency they flash at

Wires within wires – the hidden complexity of managing higher education assessment Debbie McVitty finds out why the people who administer university assessment are navigating an ever more tangled landscape – and why that complexity is not a sign of failure

This, from WonkHE feels like they are looking inside my head. Assessment is HARD! wonkhe.com/blogs/wires-...

This report was clearly written by AI too!

Yes, very much this.

This is why inclusive practices are so important.

Picky eating starts in the womb – a nutritional neuroscientist explains how to expand your child’s palate While genes do influence some food preferences, positive experiences can help make new tastes easier to swallow.

Why will some kids try anything while others refuse anything but mac and cheese? Spoiler: it starts before they're born, according to a nutritional neuroscientist.

buff.ly/XmZc46f

A good day in the office! And shows how important good journalism is.

Any merit in the drivel I write comes from learning painstakingly how to write essays.

To assay - to test - exactly what I thought and knew about a matter.

Great essayists - Woolf, Orwell, Bacon, Montaigne, Hazlett - are utter intellectual joys as you read how they test themselves on topics too.

Jungle fallacy: believing that the jingle fallacy and the jangle fallacy are the same thing

Similar to what Lorna Waddington has been saying for ages about LLMs and genocide studies academicintegrity.org/aws/ICAI/pag...