Now Ye're Talking - To A University Lecturer

Dav

Hello all,

This week we have a University Lecturer in the hot seat. This Boardsie has been given a special account for this AMA for privacy reasons.

Lots of people seem to think this is some manner of "soft" job or that there isn't actually a lot involved in being a uni lecturer. Here's hoping we can dispel that this week

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Thanks Dav, I'm only on the phone right now and pretty busy until the evening so it might be a few hours before I get to answer anything today, but I'm looking forward to it.

Dozen Wicked Words

Saw a bbc world presenter bemoaning the amount of lectures/tutor time her child got in UK university compared to her other child in US university.

Just wondered if you know how Ireland compares with the US and UK in this regard, and do you think your students finish with a good level of learning associated with their degree or other qualifications.

(Appreciate obviously the cost differences are massive.)

megaten

Are you humanities lecturer. When writing journal articles do academics give any consideration to readability at all? The hardest thing by far in college for me was bending my mind to breaking point to comprehend how articles where structured and rarely managed to even get as far what they were talking about despite reading the whole thing. I can read normal prose and articles just fine and I generally understood the contents of spoken lectures.

Gits_bone

Do you get paid extra for working during the summer with foreign students?

Do you take a 15 minute break in between lectures like most of mine did? i.e lecture would finish 10 mins early and would be 10 past or so when next one starts. Length of walk to the halls never made a difference.

cruizer101

Is there any sort of teaching training, either compulsory or voluntary ( I realise this may differ by college but still interested in your experience), do you think you should.

How much time do you spend, actively teaching, preparing for teaching, research, other admin stuff. I'm guessing this changes throughout year, more research and that during summer but if you could give and overall indication be great.

Cloud

It's not me BTW!

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Dozen Wicked Words wrote: »

Saw a bbc world presenter bemoaning the amount of lectures/tutor time her child got in UK university compared to her other child in US university.

Just wondered if you know how Ireland compares with the US and UK in this regard, and do you think your students finish with a good level of learning associated with their degree or other qualifications.

(Appreciate obviously the cost differences are massive.)

I wouldn't be sure of the statistics on this, and generalisations about universities in the UK and US are very difficult to make, but I would suspect that we don't compare very well in terms of student-teacher contact hours

I teach English, which has huge numbers, and limited resources. Last semester I was the module coordinator on a first year course of 463 students. They would have one lecture a week on that course, with various different lecturers throughout the semester, and one tutorial a week always with the same tutor. But the tutorials can be quite big, so students can go hiding or be overwhelmed. The students will only get one-to-one feedback for a few minutes on their mid-term essay. It's completely inadequate, and one of the effects was that we had a high drop-out and failure rate on the course.

That was my first time coordinating on a huge core module though, and I probably made some mistakes. But, for reasons I'll get into, there just wasn't the time you would need to keep tabs on students and try and get to them before they decide to give up (virtually EVERYONE who ever fails an English course does so because they haven't attended tutorials or didn't submit a major assignment).

The UK is hard to generalise about. If you're in Oxford, your tutorials will be one-to-one, you will have mentors in your college, etc etc. There is an apparatus to make sure your work is fostered and encouraged, as well as that you don't fall off the radar. That kind of level of care just isn't possible for most universities anywhere, and it isn't the norm elsewhere in the UK.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

OSI wrote: »

While in university, we had several companies coming in to talk about future prospects and bemoaning the lack of actual relevant knowledge and skills taught in Irish universities and the amount of time and money they had to spend bringing graduates up to scratch. Would you agree that's a disparity between what private companies require/expect of a graduates knowledge and skill base and what Irish universities are providing?

I'm not sure what your area was, presumably business, science, technology? I remember when I was an undergraduate some local technology compannies had influence over the curriculum in the computer science department, which they also part funded. That is one of the more positive examples of private engagement with third level. I don't really know how good or bad most of those disciplines are in terms of preparation for the workplace.

Obviously, in a subject like mine, it is, intrinsically, not particularly geared towards the requirements of the economy. And of course it is also not geared towards students who already know what it is they intend to work as. I'm a bit of an old romantic about my subject in some ways and am happy that in many ways what we do is teach people how to question and think for themselves.

I'm not naive enough to think that most students have the luxury of being able to study without thought for the job market, but I am also very resistant to the idea that the university should always reflect the needs or demands of the private sector. The university has to prepare people to enter work and enhance their employment prospects, but if it doesn't also foster critical thinking and provide some kind of critique of the current social order, then for me the greatest benefit of having a university will have vanished.

But yeah, if the Quinn School on UCD or whatever is educating students in business and they come out incapable of working in the area for which they've studied, then there's a problem. It could be related to the tension between the demands of research and teaching placed on university teachers.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

megaten wrote: »

Are you humanities lecturer. When writing journal articles do academics give any consideration to readability at all? The hardest thing by far in college for me was bending my mind to breaking point to comprehend how articles where structured and rarely managed to even get as far what they were talking about despite reading the whole thing. I can read normal prose and articles just fine and I generally understood the contents of spoken lectures.

Oh, don't get me started! I work in a discipline that is supposed to value language, but where many seem to specialise in producing absolute, incomprehensible gibberish.

This is strictly my point of view, and I have colleagues who would say I'm talking nonsense, but anyway: this tendency to write in obfuscating, weird, technical prose emerged in the 1970s and 80s, with the rise of French theory. It's quite alluring for some people, because it gives an air of authority and specialisation to literary study, a feeling that what we do is remarkably difficult. All of that theory stuff is used in philosophy, social studies etc etc as well. If mathematicians and physicists and other hard core disciplines have a language for their own tribe, isn't it nice for us to have one as well?

I don't want to dismiss critical theory; I've taught it, lectured in it, used it in my own research. But another alluring element is that this kind of language can make relatively simple ideas seem radically new, insightful, and best of all difficult. Myself and an American friend, when we were doing our doctorates, once sat down and tried to parse one of Gayatri Spivak's essay on postcolonialism. Many of the sentences simply didn't parse. But even if they did, that's just bad writing.

I'll be honest, I was quite taken in with all this as a grad student, and had to force myself to follow simple rules of writing: never use a technical word where an every day one will do, and never use subordinate clauses where separate sentences will make it easier to understand.

I don't mind theoretical language where basic language wont convey a concept, though, and there is a tendency for people to decide that since they themselves don't understand it, it mustn't be worth knowing. I once sat in a crowd of literary critics while an Irish judge lectured us on how we were responsible for making literature inaccessible to "the normal man" (!). He manifestly hadn't read anything by the people he was complaining about (couldn't name any of the books he was decrying when I asked him to do so).

However, I'm of the opinion that literary study possesses intrinsic value to our society, and can enhance our understanding of ourselves. I also think that as lecturers we have a duty to bring our understanding of literature and its place in society to a broader audience. Some people get a serious kick out of feeling as if they are living in rarefied air, that they are special people with special knowledge that YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. The best writing about literature, and the hardest stuff to write, is understandable to a reasonably educated person. I think that's because the best ideas don't need to be dressed up in fancy language. Some people are afraid that they might be found to simply be making a simple point. The giveaway, as you say, is that the lectures don't tend to be like that. We want our students to understand what we're teaching, but often that desire deserts us when we sit down to write an article. I think the trend is shifting towards a more straightforward prose though.

Ugh... TL;DR: yes, too much gibberish in academia, but I think it's going out of fashion.

irish_goat

What's your opinion on lecturers who write books and then put said books on the syllabus?

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Gits_bone wrote: »

Do you get paid extra for working during the summer with foreign students?

Do you take a 15 minute break in between lectures like most of mine did? i.e lecture would finish 10 mins early and would be 10 past or so when next one starts. Length of walk to the halls never made a difference.

I don't work with foreign students during the summer. Anyone who I know who has done that was paid for doing it, but they would not have been in jobs where they are being paid all summer. Most young academics (PhD students or recently finished ones) are being paid per hour, rather than being on a salary. They earn the square root of f**k all, to be honest.

Most of my lectures are not consecutive, but I have honestly never been late for one. My main problem is finishing on time, there's always more stuff that I want to say than I get a chance to. As an undergrad I remember having one or two like that, but they are a vanishing breed. The people in these departments are relentlessly driven these days, and it's a very competitive world. Particularly if you are not in a permanent position, you wouldn't last long with that kind of feck-acting, as there's no shortage of people who want your job.

GLaDOS

Has your career always been in Academia? Or did you branch out at all after either your under-grad or post-grad?

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

cruizer101 wrote: »

Is there any sort of teaching training, either compulsory or voluntary ( I realise this may differ by college but still interested in your experience), do you think you should.

How much time do you spend, actively teaching, preparing for teaching, research, other admin stuff. I'm guessing this changes throughout year, more research and that during summer but if you could give and overall indication be great.

On your first question, when I first taught a tutorial, I was given no teacher training at all. I was really young, twenty-one, doing my master's and only just finished my degree months earlier, and I was sent in alone with no real guidance. In retrospect it was ludicrous. That was over a decade ago now. The last department I was at had workshops for all incoming tutors held with the department of education on teaching methodologies, lots of practical exercises etc etc. Some of it was fantastic and some of it seemed completely detached from the reality of the classroom. But yeah, they really should be doing this.

On the second question, hard to generalise. Last week I'd guess I worked about 60 hours. I'm quite junior, a department head would probably work more like 80, with way more of that being administrative. I'm not a module coordinator this semester, but last week I was designing two seminar courses, so that took up a lot of time. I actually have to do some reading for these courses at the moment, so for the next week or two a lot of my "work" will be reading novels. But also unearthing articles, reading them, putting together a format for the course, designing assessments, liaising with the department on the material etc etc. I'll also be in departmental meetings etc. Obviously the teaching itself (each lecture probably represents about 8-10 hours of actual work, not including reading the novel/text you're speaking about).

Later in the year exam meetings and corrections take up most of your time (easily my least favourite bit of the job). Any time you aren't busy with that stuff, you are (or should be) busy with your own research, which is what actually secures you employment, rather than your actual teaching, even though you don't get paid directly for your research most of the time.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

irish_goat wrote: »

What's your opinion on lecturers who write books and then put said books on the syllabus?

Plenty of them will be self-important goons I would imagine. It's a weirdly arrogant gesture. Others will have written a text designed to be a core text on a core module (like an introduction to poetic analysis). The book might have emerged from years of teaching the course, so maybe it makes sense. That's the exception. Also often someone's teaching will reflect their research interests, so sooner or later their research will be relevant to something they're teaching.

But yeah, in my experience it's something people are shy about doing because it makes you seem like a monumental a-hole. I've never done it, btw...:)

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Has your career always been in Academia? Or did you branch out at all after either your under-grad or post-grad?

After my master's I went abroad to do TEFL, but I ended up having a university job anyway. It doesn't really fit with what I've done since, and it didn't feel like being part of the academic "world" I have been in before or afterwards, but I guess it isn't really leaving academia either.

The best people I've worked with have all worked outside academia at some point. I had a supervisor who worked as a staff nurse before doing a PhD and becoming a brilliant literary scholar. A professor I know previously worked for almost a decade as a civil servant. Another was once a barber who had played football in the LOI as a young man. Plenty of people I studied with had left other industries to do a PhD. They tended to work very hard, probably valued the opportunity more than people who have never been away, who tend to take it for granted. My financial background growing up was tough enough and I worked hard jobs through college, but always part time.

Clearlier

Hi and thanks for taking the time to answer all of our questions.

What do you think of Open Access journals?

Have you a preference between teaching and researching?

What's your personal teaching philosophy i.e. how do you plan your teaching, have you got specific learning objectives for each lecture/seminar or do you pick a theme and talk around it. Do lectures usually pan out the way that you expect or do sometimes get driven off track by questions?

What are the opportunities for career advancement like in Ireland for you? Would you/Do you expect to work abroad at some point in your career?

Do you expect to be an academic for all of your working life?

Were you driven to study English or did you kind of fall into it?

If not English, what would you have studied?

Favourite novel?

P.S. You may wish to edit some of the details of your earlier responses if you wish to remain anonymous!

thelad95

Do you get offended if students leave your lectures early or could you care less? Obviously sometimes students simply have a bus to catch or they might have a lecture on the other side of campus that they want to get a good seat in but some students think it's an implicit two fingers to a lecturer if they leave early.

Also, do you think the function of colleges should focus on preparing students for work or should the focus remain on academia? I mean does a few years of cramming and half-arsing assignments really prepare someone for the world of work?

GLaDOS

Have you ever had to deal with serious cases of cheating/plagiarism that resulted in disciplinary action?

challengemaster

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

On your first question, when I first taught a tutorial, I was given no teacher training at all. I was really young, twenty-one, doing my master's and only just finished my degree months earlier, and I was sent in alone with no real guidance. In retrospect it was ludicrous. That was over a decade ago now.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA wrote: »

After my master's I went abroad to do TEFL, but I ended up having a university job anyway. It doesn't really fit with what I've done since, and it didn't feel like being part of the academic "world" I have been in before or afterwards, but I guess it isn't really leaving academia either.

I'm working off what I know in relation to how difficult it is to get a lectureship these days, so I'm assuming you also did a PhD somewhere along the way Unless Arts is drastically different from STEM, it would be very rare to get a position after only doing a Master's.

Did you know when completing your undergraduate degree that you wanted to stay in academia? If so, why do a masters rather than starting a PhD?

How difficult is it within Arts to progress? I've seen this infographic relating to PhD graduates in STEM, would you feel it's similar in other fields?



As the IRC deadline has just passed and the usual stats are around 1200 applicants for ~250 scholarships - In general, do you think there is a surplus of people pursuing PhD's, a severe lack of funding for PhD's in Ireland, or a bit of both?

westernfrenzy

What's the most challenging aspect of being a university lecturer?

sunbeam

Do you think that grade inflation is a serious issue in your subject area at undergraduate level?

Have you ever been under pressure to pass or award a higher grade to a student who you felt didn't deserve it?

How do you think that the current crop of undergrads compare academically to those back in your day?

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

What do you think of Open Access journals?

The more the better if there's a way to protect (and continue to improve) the peer review process. Especially in a discipline like mine that, ideally, wouldn't be a closed shop.

Have you a preference between teaching and researching?

Not really. I love lecturing and tutoring, engaging with students and seeing how they respond to a text, especially if they respond differently to me. I despise correcting exams and essays, whether they are good or bad. On the other hand carrying out research is the most fantastic thing, I can go to an archive and go a whole day without speaking to anyone but have a great day. But the hardest thing is forcing yourself to gather the ideas into real articles/books, because then those ideas will be there for all to see and will never match how good they sound in your head. If I had to choose, though, I'd prefer research, simply because the actual class time is such a small part of the teaching process, and all the other parts are a bit boring.

What's your personal teaching philosophy i.e. how do you plan your teaching, have you got specific learning objectives for each lecture/seminar or do you pick a theme and talk around it. Do lectures usually pan out the way that you expect or do sometimes get driven off track by questions?

Many universities nowadays expect you to lay out learning objectives in your course descriptors. I will usually have a fair idea of my objectives for each lecture or seminar but I won't announce them, because it tends to force the class down a corridor, and defeats the purpose of literature as independent thinking.

What are the opportunities for career advancement like in Ireland for you? Would you/Do you expect to work abroad at some point in your career?

I will probably work abroad at some point, I've certainly applied and interviewed for foreign posts in the past. The Irish situation is bad because we have only a few universities and lots of PhD students. I'm full time but it's a temporary contract. I would be considered one of the very lucky ones in my generation, most people I studied with are doing adjunct work where they are paid per hour taught. It's a discouraging vista but there are opportunities there. Abroad isn't some paradise that awaits us, but there are opportunities (in terms of money, sure, but mainly in terms of opportunities to work with great people or with great resources) that I want to take advantage of at some point.

Do you expect to be an academic for all of your working life?

If I can, I probably will. But you never know what's coming.

Were you driven to study English or did you kind of fall into it?

I loved English since I was a very young child, and got more and more into fiction as a teenager. I didn't necessarily want to be a lecturer when I was in school, but I knew I had a flair for it (although while it was clear to some of my teachers that I could excel at it, I only really found my feet in the subject in my second year in college. I didn't even get an A in the Leaving Cert )

If not English, what would you have studied?

I also studied history and have worked in the past as a researcher for historical projects. I gave some thought to doing that at one point but never really thought of doing anything other than this. More recently I've wished I had studied economics, or pursued sociology beyond the basics because I was interested in questions of social mobility. But if I'd done anything else, I'd always have wondered. It wasn't something I ever wanted to be wondering about.

Favourite novel?

If I said, I almost certainly wouldn't be anonymous any more. Outside my areas of research, Bleak House by Dickens is an unbelievable examination of British society at that time in all of its complexity and interconnections. I don't think there's a better novel for understanding a society. The Wire (I know it's not a novel) has done something very similar for America recently.

Ask me that again tomorrow and I'd have a different answer. It's just what's in my head right now.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

Do you get offended if students leave your lectures early or could you care less? Obviously sometimes students simply have a bus to catch or they might have a lecture on the other side of campus that they want to get a good seat in but some students think it's an implicit two fingers to a lecturer if they leave early.

I tell students that if they have to leave early, they should let me know before class, and sit somewhere they can leave discreetly. Some people are clearly leaving because they're bored. I don't care about that, I'm not easily offended, but it's very distracting, you lose your train of thought and it throws you off.

Also, do you think the function of colleges should focus on preparing students for work or should the focus remain on academia? I mean does a few years of cramming and half-arsing assignments really prepare someone for the world of work?

The first question, as I've said earlier I'm a little torn. Some subjects are clearly industry-oriented. My subject I'm not exactly sure what we should be doing to prepare someone for work, given that they could work in virtually anything. For the latter question: no, it doesn't. I think we assess our students far too often, and the tendency seems to be towards finding more and more ways to assess them rather than letting them get to grips with the material. My first years last semester had to do weekly assignments which were not related to their reading, also contribute in tutorials which was assessed, do a mid-term essay, and do a final exam. No wonder students start to strategise about which assessments they'll give time to and which ones they'll half-ass. In terms of learning lessons for the workplace, I think that's what constant assessment teaches.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

HugsiePie wrote: »

What happens if someone does a Ross Gellar and sleeps/has a relationship with one of their students?

If they were caught, they'd be fired. I've never known of any relationship between a lecturer and a student, though my friends all have very active imaginations about these kinds of things.

I know of two situations where a student has alleged that they were uncomfortable or harassed by a professor at some point. Neither were in Ireland. One lost his job, but was picked up by another college (he was very high profile), the other was suspended I think.

I would say that a bigger issue is relationships between grad students and professors, rather than undergraduates. I haven't seen much of that within a department, but at conferences most definitely, and it can be quite creepy. I mean, there's a lot of flirting and sex at conferences anyway, because these are basically nerds suddenly in a social situation where everyone else has the EXACT same interest as them, everyone is in hotels and you are out every night. But then you have big-name scholars, who in the normal population would be just some ugly reading guy, suddenly is surrounded by young women who regard him as a rock star. There's a power dynamic at work in those situations and some people take advantage of it. It can be a bit of an old boy's club, all the more surprising in a field where feminist theory is so advanced and prominent. I would say that can be very particular to some specialisations though. My area, most definitely it is a big problem.

Always makes for good gossip though.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Have you ever had to deal with serious cases of cheating/plagiarism that resulted in disciplinary action?

Numerous times. It's a huge issue with new students in English. Some of it is inadvertent (failure to cite the correct source), some of it quite clearly deliberate (failure to cite the Wikipedia article it was copied and pasted from). There's a procedure in place in most departments. When I was module coordinator in the big course, when the tutors found a suspected plagiarism case (students submit essays electronically nowadays via a system that scans for possible uses of online sources, so one way of finding plagiarism is to check this) they looked for the real source, made a note on a post it, and sent it to me. I would then review it, and if I agreed, sent it to a plagiarism board that met at the end of the semester and decided on grades. Guilty cases got a fail. Repeat offenders were thrown out I think.

NotCominBack

Is English really a subject and should it really be taught in university, given that we all speak English anyways?

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

I'm working off what I know in relation to how difficult it is to get a lectureship these days, so I'm assuming you also did a PhD somewhere along the way Unless Arts is drastically different from STEM, it would be very rare to get a position after only doing a Master's.

Yeah I did a PhD. About 10 years ago there were still a few in English departments without one, but far as I know they're nearly all gone.

Did you know when completing your undergraduate degree that you wanted to stay in academia? If so, why do a masters rather than starting a PhD?

I wasn't certain whether I would do the PhD until I was living abroad after the Master's (I'd looked into it a little). But in English it's very rare to do a PhD without doing a masters, indeed it's almost unheard of at this point. There was a time when a Masters was a research degree that people turned into a PhD midway. But nearly all MAs are taught courses nowadays and you wouldn't get accepted into a PhD without one. When I was doing the MA there were still limited opportunities to skip the stage but I was advised against it because it would be regarded as something missing from your CV, and included a lot of training that it was simply assumed you already have once you got into the doctorate.

How difficult is it within Arts to progress? I've seen this infographic relating to PhD graduates in STEM, would you feel it's similar in other fields?

I've never seen the infographic, and I'm not sure I fully understand what it's measuring. The problem with English PhDs (and this probably holds true for humanities generally, but maybe not social sciences) is that there are very few opportunities outside academia, or at least there isn't enough effort made to prepare PhDs for taking advantage of those opportunities. It's more or less regarded as training to be a lecturer. Even though everyone can plainly see that there are far less lecturing positions than there are PhD students looking to become one.

As the IRC deadline has just passed and the usual stats are around 1200 applicants for ~250 scholarships - In general, do you think there is a surplus of people pursuing PhD's, a severe lack of funding for PhD's in Ireland, or a bit of both?

A lot of both. Loads and loads and loads of both. I never got the IRC as a grad student, but I got an IRC postdoctoral fellowship. I forget the numbers, but it was a tiny percentage of applicants got the fellowship, less than 50 nationwide across ALL disciplines, including STEM. Which is pathetic for a "smart economy" but whatever.

In my discipline, people who love reading and writing and don't know what to do are encouraged to go into a PhD. Really talented students. They have dreams of lecturing, imagining it to be a job where they travel, read, are respected and do what they love. But the student's best interests and those of the department are not identical. The department is considered better the more grad students they can bring in (and on the quality of them, but quantity helps). Also the more grad students there are, the bigger the pool of surplus labour they can draw on to fill gaps in their teaching without having to pay people as full professors.

Departments are now massively reliant on casual labour, which they still treat with massive disrespect for the simple reason that they are dispensable. It's a scandalous situation that has huge knock-on effects for quality of teaching and research for universities, and which feeds young people with dreams of great things while their twenties are spent in penury, working for almost nothing, only to find themselves turned out at thirty with little to show for it but a picture of themselves in a stupid hat.

Like I say, I love this job. I've had some really tough years getting to where I am (and could have more in the future). I would recommend someone really dedicated should take the chance. But far too often the realities of it all are not really spelled out to young people. I think existing professors, without having to seem like they are pi$$ing on their dreams, need to take responsibility to explain to students what they are getting themselves in for. One problem is that older professors probably don't really know, since they came in at a time when most everybody got a position. And also, by definition, they are the success stories, the people who made it.

I'm A University Lecturer, AMA

westernfrenzy wrote: »

What's the most challenging aspect of being a university lecturer?

Producing good research outputs. You are employed based on the quality and quantity and breadth of your research expertise, and only secondarily on the quality of your teaching. But you're teaching takes up vast amounts of time and energy, while everyone still expects you to produce new research, which unless you win a research-leave grant or a postdoc or whatever, you will not be getting paid to do, and won't have time to do outside of term. But here's the thing: nobody cares. You just have to do it, this is what you're meant to be about, writing, providing new insights, publishing articles, presenting papers, writing books. So you just have to do it, even though if you don't, there's no boss asking for it at the end of the day, no timetable. The challenge is being able to motivate yourself to keep doing it even when you're tired, when the research doesn't yield anything up, when you've got writer's block. It's very easy to shy away from it because nobody is demanding it today or next week or whatever, and you can avoid deadlines by never committing to anything. So you need to keep doing it yourself and be motivated.

G_R

Thanks for this, it's really interesting.

In your opinion, would students be better off in a university setting with 400 odd students in a lecture, or somewhere like DIT which would only have ~50 in a lecture.

Would the huge numbers be compensated for by the fact that they have a more qualified/experienced (I'm not sure they'd be the right words, but I'm sure you get what I mean) lecturer, or would it something else?

thelad95

I'm not sure how much use, if any you make of moodle but what is your opinion of it? While it can be an excellent method for communication between the class and lecturers without e-mail inboxes being spammed with stupid questions, what do you think of the practise of lecturers putting their class slideshows up? Does this not somewhat take away from the point of attending lectures?

I presume the system for checking plagiarism that you've mentioned is Turnitin or something similar. While this is an excellent software for checking for plagiarism, would you agree that to an extent, there is a presumption of guilt on the students part? For every student thats trying to pull a fast one, there will be ten students who are trying to get an honest grade so is it fair that every students work is scrutinized? Most of my lecturers want everyone's work submitted through Turnitin.