...and this is That's Quality! www.sparqs.ac.uk/announcement...

My job is now not to mix them up.

That’s nae a bonk machine YouTube video by Kieran

And for those who need to know, this is the meme www.youtube.com/shorts/0wU5N....

Screenshot of the top left of my web browser. You can see that in the search/address bar I am searching "thats", and various suggested results come up including "thats so fetch", "thats my boy", "thats no a bank machine" and "thats amore".

Searching in Google for @sparqs-scotland.bsky.social's That's Quality! summer training programme, I'm delighted to see that an obscure Inverness meme is among the top suggested results.

First day back, and inbox of 180+ unread zeroed by 3.00pm. Well done past me for blocking out the time.

So that's me on leave for a couple of weeks. Can you please sort a rota to look after everything while I'm off.

Well done the many HISA officers involved in this project. Here's to clear language in our sector!

Does anyone have any tips on keeping track of reading, when doing the lit review of a PhD (and beyond)?

I am leaning towards making a spreadsheet, because I am a spreadsheet kinda gal, but very open to tips, hints, and suggestions!

"Come with me if you want to live" is not quite the staff-student partnership vibe I'd be looking for...

sparqs is recruiting for a Development Consultant, 21 - 35 hours a week, with a closing date of Monday 13th April 2026 at 9am. If you wish to find out more or apply, please visit the recruitment page here: www.sparqs.ac.uk/home.php?pag...

Students, and by extension this article, are absolutely correct that it is accountability that 'makes learning stick'. Allow staff to shift and reward students, and hold them accountable, for the entire process of producing academic work, not just the outcome, and so many problems will be solved.

A group of people at a polling station. There is HISA and UHI branding visible on pop up banners and posters.

A roaring trade at our @uhimoray.bsky.social polling station yesterday. Lovely to chat to so many students from across the campus. Back at the desk today then Elgin again tomorrow!

We also have a referendum in the same period for our proposed revised Articles and Schedules - do a busy week for democracy at HISA!

A view, blurred by train movement, of a campus and buildings. There’s a tractor in the foreground.

An early start this morning - it’s voting week in our Student Elections, and I’m off to @uhiperth.bsky.social for a day of polling station duties. @uhiinverness.bsky.social and the moon looking nice in the morning light. Vote, early, vote… well, just once. #Lead

Yes this is so powerful. "It is a commercial transaction disguised as a social connection, providing the illusion of companionship without the ethical obligations that sustain a real community." And education at its best should be social connection and real community.

I feel compelled to reply to your post, with sympathy.

Really excited to see our candidates' manifestos launched for our 2026 Student Elections. It's been a lot of hard work to get us to this point with a such good number of candidates. Here's to a bustling campaign period! hisa.uhi.ac.uk/studentvoice... #LeadHISA

This is good, if provocative: criticising some co-creation practice as just free student labour or insufficient shift in the actual power/ownership, and at worst manipulation (makes me think of Arnstein's lowest level!). While I agree, I do sympathise because shifting that power dynamic is SO hard.

OK great thank you!

Excited to see our HISA Awards launched for 2026 nominations. Well done to colleagues for getting this out and live. Looking forward to seeing all the great things @thinkuhi.bsky.social students have to say about UHI staff. hisa.uhi.ac.uk/about/hisaaw...

hi folks, is there more information about these events, to pass on to colleagues?

Very well put.

Who knows! Of course, no course designed to be a vanity course would ever get through a half-decent internal quality process so it's an entirely moot point anyway.

Very well put. Working at a students' association where a past principal created a furore over a remark about "vanity degrees", this hits home.

What’s wrong with a ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree? As it turns out, absolutely nothing. A few readers might have seen a comment I recently put on a LinkedIn post from Times Higher Ed COO Phil Baty, who was playing anti-university bingo with Suella Braverman’s, Reform UK’s …

I was mildly incensed at the latest use of 'Mickey Mouse degree' as a derogatory term for any course that's not directly industry-tied and/or actually helps develop critical thinking skills, to the point where I wanted to write something about it.

drsamuelsaunders.wordpress.com/2026/02/18/w...

I love this. I also read a thing the other day on creative uses of phones in classrooms, but this is compelling too - effectively "forcing" creativity but not in a threatening way. I guess for me the question is how are you encouraging creative/critical thinking, more than what tool you're using.

'We believe this is the way to do it’: Exploring the City St George’s merger - HEPI City St George’s: HEPI report sets out practical insights and recommendations from a landmark university merger. A new HEPI report, ‘We believe this is the way to do it’: Exploring the City St George’...

This is an interesting account of the merger that created @citystgeorges.bsky.social. There are key insights in here but as noted there isn’t a mergers playbook, so each one will be different. Headroom - both financial and institutional capacity - is key.
www.hepi.ac.uk/reports/we-b...

A modern office building. A presumably handsteered pavement gritter has left a yin yang shape (a circle with a curvy diameter) on the pavement outside.

Nice yin yang with the gritting outside my office this morning. Perhaps a metaphor for student partnership or the collaboration inherent in our sector or something.

Was there a freedom of speech breach at Bangor? A proper 2022-style freedom of speech on campus panic plays out

And a good @davidkernohan.bsky.social piece in @wonkhe.bsky.social on this, methodically taking down the arguments the complainers had. wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...

No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech This book is the first to outline the history of the tactic of ‘no platforming’ at British universities since the 1970s, looking at more than four decades of student protest against racist and fascist...

And seeing as how this has done some numbers, anyone interested in the topic may wish to read @evansmithhist.bsky.social's very thorough and helpful book on the history of "no platform" in unis and SUs which actually gets the distinction between the two. www.routledge.com/No-Platform-...

Quite. How many people on the ground/in the commentariat get that, I'm less sure.