left to my own devices
@left2myown.bsky.social
Account for my HE-related blog https://lefttomyowndevices.blog/ . All views my own. Reposts are not endorsements.
This week is a bit of a departure, as for the first time I'm pleased to have a guest contributor to the blog; my colleague David Gent, writing about the crucial role of the committee secretary: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/12/01/a...
always on my mind (extended)
Photo by Pexels from Freerange Stock For what is the first (but hopefully not the last) time, this week’s post is from a guest writer: David Gent, with whom I’ve been fortunate enough t…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
December 5, 2025 at 6:43 AM
This week is a bit of a departure, as for the first time I'm pleased to have a guest contributor to the blog; my colleague David Gent, writing about the crucial role of the committee secretary: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/12/01/a...
A few weeks ago I published a post about governance, focusing on being a board/committee member. This week's post is in effect a companion piece (hence the title), thinking about another key part of any governance system - the board/committee chair. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/11/24/a...
always on my mind (new version)
Photo by Unsplash from Freerange Stock Amidst all the macro commentary and discussion currently taking place about governance in higher education, a couple of weeks ago I published a post looking a…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
November 25, 2025 at 12:33 PM
A few weeks ago I published a post about governance, focusing on being a board/committee member. This week's post is in effect a companion piece (hence the title), thinking about another key part of any governance system - the board/committee chair. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/11/24/a...
Last week I was asked by QAA to be a panel member for one of its Forum for Thought events, on the future of external examining. To help me think things through before talking I pulled together some of my thoughts on external examining in this post. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/11/13/y...
your early stuff
On 13 Nov. 2025 I was one member of a panel convened by QAA to talk, as part of its Forum for Thought series, about Reimagining External Examining. This post is something I wrote to help me clarify…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
November 18, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Last week I was asked by QAA to be a panel member for one of its Forum for Thought events, on the future of external examining. To help me think things through before talking I pulled together some of my thoughts on external examining in this post. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/11/13/y...
The only surprise about posting on OfS's consultation on the future of its regulation of academic quality & standards, is that it's taken me so long to post on this one. I’ve tried to stand back and take a broader perspective. Hopefully I've achieved that: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/11/10/d...
disappointed
Photo by Jack Moreh from Freerange Stock Working in gradually more senior professional services roles in higher education, in turn leads to spending increasing time working with multiple senior aca…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
November 11, 2025 at 5:05 PM
The only surprise about posting on OfS's consultation on the future of its regulation of academic quality & standards, is that it's taken me so long to post on this one. I’ve tried to stand back and take a broader perspective. Hopefully I've achieved that: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/11/10/d...
Predictably I’ve posted about last week’s Post 16 Education & Skills White Paper. Hopefully what I’ve posted is less predictable.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/10/27/u...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/10/27/u...
up against it
Photo by Unsplash from Freerange Stock Shortly after Bridget Phillipson issued wrote to vice-chancellors about the government’s higher education review, I wrote the following: As a sector, English …
lefttomyowndevices.blog
October 28, 2025 at 7:51 AM
Predictably I’ve posted about last week’s Post 16 Education & Skills White Paper. Hopefully what I’ve posted is less predictable.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/10/27/u...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/10/27/u...
Some thoughts from me today on that old higher education favourite, the staff student student ratio: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/10/19/m...
monkey business
Photo by fito from Freerange Stock I’ve spent all my adult life in some version of the higher education and research sector, first as a student before careers in this area. I guess that proba…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
October 20, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Some thoughts from me today on that old higher education favourite, the staff student student ratio: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/10/19/m...
New post today, looking at the Quality Wars in UK HE - then, now & in the future. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/09/18/f...
friendly fire
Photo by Jen Spencer from Flickr [This post was written as a keynote/presentation to the Annual Conference of the Quality Strategy Network on 18 Sept. 2025. Unfortunately personal circumstances mea…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
September 23, 2025 at 8:31 AM
New post today, looking at the Quality Wars in UK HE - then, now & in the future. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/09/18/f...
With all the talk of the change in the patterns of undergraduate admissions, & what this might mean for the future, this post from a few months ago about (one of) the ways we look at the UK higher education sector felt as though it might be worth reposting: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/31/i...
i didn’t get where i am today
Image: Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. “Knights of the Round Table” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1912 – 1926. prologue There are…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
August 19, 2025 at 6:09 AM
With all the talk of the change in the patterns of undergraduate admissions, & what this might mean for the future, this post from a few months ago about (one of) the ways we look at the UK higher education sector felt as though it might be worth reposting: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/31/i...
With the final rounds of degree ceremonies in recent weeks a marker or the end of the academic year, it’s time to take a break from posting until autumn. So I've done what I did last year & reflected on this year’s posts picking out key themes & issues.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/28/t...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/28/t...
time on my hands
Photo by Jack Moreh from Freerange Stock Bear with me on this, but in some ways blogging is like guerilla warfare. The blogger chooses when, where and how to engage. The timing of the engagem…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
July 29, 2025 at 9:05 AM
With the final rounds of degree ceremonies in recent weeks a marker or the end of the academic year, it’s time to take a break from posting until autumn. So I've done what I did last year & reflected on this year’s posts picking out key themes & issues.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/28/t...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/28/t...
Taking last week’s publication of QAA’s UK Quality Code Advice & Guidance as its starting point, the final post in a series of three on some important issues for the new approach to QA being delivered by OfS focusing on the importance of strategy to QA. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/20/r...
a red letter day
Photo by Life of Pix from Freerange Stock It may be one of the lesser celebrated feast days of higher education (though not perhaps not as desoultry in the way that David Kernohan recently lamented…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
July 22, 2025 at 6:03 AM
Taking last week’s publication of QAA’s UK Quality Code Advice & Guidance as its starting point, the final post in a series of three on some important issues for the new approach to QA being delivered by OfS focusing on the importance of strategy to QA. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/20/r...
Reposted by left to my own devices
National Student Survey stuff: wonkhe.com/blogs/nation...
National Student Survey 2025
All the data and headlines you need from this year's National Student Survey
wonkhe.com
July 9, 2025 at 4:21 PM
National Student Survey stuff: wonkhe.com/blogs/nation...
Following on from my post on Wonkhe (bit.ly/3TsxS9X ), this post continues the theme where QA might be going now in English HE. This time I'm focusing on how a revised approach needs to balance both outcomes and (unfashionably) process
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/06/c...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/06/c...
lefttomyowndevices.blog
July 8, 2025 at 6:07 AM
Following on from my post on Wonkhe (bit.ly/3TsxS9X ), this post continues the theme where QA might be going now in English HE. This time I'm focusing on how a revised approach needs to balance both outcomes and (unfashionably) process
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/06/c...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/07/06/c...
This post & this thread. Absolutely this post & thread.
I find it fascinating how much of modern policy thought essentially resolves as 'a command economy, but in a free market way', and I genuinely think it is because of the influence of video games.
I asked if this must logically mean proposing a smaller sector, or if he had an alternative.
He said today was not the day for setting out the policy response of the Opposition. But he said it would be better for a significant number of students [about 3 in 10] if they were doing something else.
He said today was not the day for setting out the policy response of the Opposition. But he said it would be better for a significant number of students [about 3 in 10] if they were doing something else.
July 2, 2025 at 5:29 PM
This post & this thread. Absolutely this post & thread.
New post out today - where we are and where we might be heading in the sector’s ‘Quality Wars’. Change of venue for this one as back on Wonkhe after a bit of a break, and pleased to be part of a run of posts today on this theme.
wonkhe.com/blogs/moving...
wonkhe.com/blogs/moving...
Moving beyond the quality wars
Richard Harrison traces the contours of the OfS era of the quality wars – and asks whether a new settlement is in sight
wonkhe.com
June 23, 2025 at 7:17 AM
New post out today - where we are and where we might be heading in the sector’s ‘Quality Wars’. Change of venue for this one as back on Wonkhe after a bit of a break, and pleased to be part of a run of posts today on this theme.
wonkhe.com/blogs/moving...
wonkhe.com/blogs/moving...
A new post, talking about joined-up government policy relating to higher education, arising from the recent withdrawal of apprenticeship levy funding for Level 7 apprenticeships: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/06/09/i...
into thin air
Image by rawpixel.com from Freepik One of the most frequent criticisms of the way we are governed in the UK is the lack of joined up government. Sometimes the accusation of a lack of join-up is wel…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
June 10, 2025 at 6:36 AM
A new post, talking about joined-up government policy relating to higher education, arising from the recent withdrawal of apprenticeship levy funding for Level 7 apprenticeships: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/06/09/i...
With a slight detour into the concept of OfS ‘superfans’, this week’s post has a look at what we know to date about the way that OfS is using its powers under HERA to fine HE providers - coming back to a perennial ongoing issue for organisations and systems. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/05/26/i...
it always comes as a surprise
Image from picryl.com In every significant body of work, there are elements that are more frequently engaged with. Some of these are better known and others less part of the zeitgeist but still the…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
May 27, 2025 at 6:30 AM
With a slight detour into the concept of OfS ‘superfans’, this week’s post has a look at what we know to date about the way that OfS is using its powers under HERA to fine HE providers - coming back to a perennial ongoing issue for organisations and systems. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/05/26/i...
Language matters; sometimes universities use language in ways that don't really help themselves. This happens on big things, and on smaller things as well. This week's blog post focuses on one of the latter: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/05/19/d...
delusions of grandeur
Image by Stevekeiretsu – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, ‘I may be being grumpy, but …’ There was a time a few years ago when I made a fair amount of use of this phrase when starting to make a point …
lefttomyowndevices.blog
May 20, 2025 at 6:32 AM
Language matters; sometimes universities use language in ways that don't really help themselves. This happens on big things, and on smaller things as well. This week's blog post focuses on one of the latter: lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/05/19/d...
With the start of the new term and the increase in the volume of teaching taking place, a blog on some aspects of one of those eternal issues for teaching in higher education - the role (and validity) of student evaluations of teaching.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/04/28/h...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/04/28/h...
hit and miss
Photo by Jack Moreh from Freerange Stock Collectively and individually UK universities are navigating their way through testing seas, but for those of us below decks there is at least one way in wh…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
April 29, 2025 at 6:15 AM
With the start of the new term and the increase in the volume of teaching taking place, a blog on some aspects of one of those eternal issues for teaching in higher education - the role (and validity) of student evaluations of teaching.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/04/28/h...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/04/28/h...
Reposted by left to my own devices
One of the worst effects of successive govts' rhetoric on Higher Ed is that it's 'training for a job'. So 18yos get themselves (and are pressured) onto narrow technical courses. Yet employers are crying out for ppl who can read, think, write, speak! I've never met an employer who said different.
April 17, 2025 at 9:42 AM
One of the worst effects of successive govts' rhetoric on Higher Ed is that it's 'training for a job'. So 18yos get themselves (and are pressured) onto narrow technical courses. Yet employers are crying out for ppl who can read, think, write, speak! I've never met an employer who said different.
After a series of regulation-heavy posts, something a bit different today: Reginald Perrin, the Hundred Years' War and UK higher education mission groups. And continuing my trend (*very* unlikely to continue 😉 ) towards shorter posts.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/31/i...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/31/i...
i didn’t get where i am today
Image: Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. “Knights of the Round Table” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1912 – 1926. prologue There are…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
April 1, 2025 at 6:19 AM
After a series of regulation-heavy posts, something a bit different today: Reginald Perrin, the Hundred Years' War and UK higher education mission groups. And continuing my trend (*very* unlikely to continue 😉 ) towards shorter posts.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/31/i...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/31/i...
It's been quite a week for UK HE. I've posted elsewhere about the Sussex case. I had a little more to say about franchising, so have written a longer blog post on how the sector was both not surprised, and surprised, by this. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/27/d...
did you see me coming
It’s tempting to be a little arch about the Sunday Times’ cover story last weekend. To ponder what it says about the state of British journalism that a paper once rightly famed for its investigativ…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
March 27, 2025 at 12:57 PM
It's been quite a week for UK HE. I've posted elsewhere about the Sussex case. I had a little more to say about franchising, so have written a longer blog post on how the sector was both not surprised, and surprised, by this. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/27/d...
A return to a theme I've not written about for a while. In a context where work is starting on the next iteration of England's approach to QA, some thoughts on one of the lacunae in the current arrangements: PG provision & research degrees. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/17/b...
between two islands
Photo by Christian_Joudrey from Freerange Stock One of the dogs that didn’t seem to bark (at least explicitly) in the recent OfS consultation on its strategy for the next five years was postgraduat…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
March 18, 2025 at 7:22 AM
A return to a theme I've not written about for a while. In a context where work is starting on the next iteration of England's approach to QA, some thoughts on one of the lacunae in the current arrangements: PG provision & research degrees. lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/03/17/b...
Given the challenges the HE sector faces, a consultation on a new, draft OfS Strategy is important. But perhaps it's less important than it should be, as it's not engaging with the bigger issues about HE regulation. A few thoughts on this in a new blog.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/17/i...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/17/i...
in denial
Image from Royal Museums Greenwich, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain | Royal Museums Greenwich, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain Whether the current challenges that higher education f…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
February 18, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Given the challenges the HE sector faces, a consultation on a new, draft OfS Strategy is important. But perhaps it's less important than it should be, as it's not engaging with the bigger issues about HE regulation. A few thoughts on this in a new blog.
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/17/i...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/17/i...
Back to what's starting to become a bit of a theme, effective decision-making, but perhaps a little different to other posts. I decided to look at the female:male breakdown of university executives
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/03/f...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/03/f...
for your own good
Image by Upklyak on Freepik In the week or two running up to Christmas, I noticed there were a handful of posts on LinkedIn noting and the appointment over the last year of a number of women as vic…
lefttomyowndevices.blog
February 4, 2025 at 7:04 AM
Back to what's starting to become a bit of a theme, effective decision-making, but perhaps a little different to other posts. I decided to look at the female:male breakdown of university executives
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/03/f...
lefttomyowndevices.blog/2025/02/03/f...
A little humility, perhaps an apology even, from the man who created the HE framework that has created the current carnage? Guess what …
www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/01/28/t...
www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/01/28/t...
The Office for Students needs to walk and chew gum – by Jo Johnson - HEPI
This blog is by Jo Johnson, Executive Chairman of FutureLearn, a Member of the Council of the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology and a Visiting Professor of King’s College London. He served...
www.hepi.ac.uk
January 28, 2025 at 5:46 AM
A little humility, perhaps an apology even, from the man who created the HE framework that has created the current carnage? Guess what …
www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/01/28/t...
www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/01/28/t...