As Higher Education has come to be valued for its direct contribution to the global economy, university policy discourse has reinforced this rationale. In The Labour of Words in Higher Education: Is it Time to Reoccupy Policy? two globes are depicted. One is a beautiful, but complete artefact, that markets a UK university. The second sits on a European city street and is continually inscribed with the markings of passers-by. A distinction is drawn between the rhetoric of university McPolicy, as a discourse that appears to no longer require input from humans, and a more authentic approach to writing policy, that acknowledges the academic labour of staff and students, in effecting change. Inspired by the work of George Ritzer on the McDonaldisation of Society, the term McPolicy is adopted by the author, to describe a rational method of writing policy, now widespread across UK universities. Recent strategies on 'the student experience', 'technology enhanced learning', 'student engagement' and 'employability' are explored through a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Findings are humourously compared to the marketing of consumer goods, where commodities like cars are invested with human qualities, such as 'ambition'. Similarly, McPolicy credits non-human strategies, technologies and a range of socially constructed buzz phrases, with the human qualities and labour activities that would normally be enacted by staff and students. This book is written for anyone with an interest in the future of universities. It concludes with suggestions of ways we might all reoccupy McPolicy.

This book challenges the notion that static principles of inclusive practice can be embedded and measured in Higher Education. It introduces the original concept of postdigital positionality as a dynamic lens through which inclusivity policies in universities might be reimagined. Much is written about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) based on an assumption that such principles are already 'established' in educational institutions, to ensure fairness and opportunity for all. In this book, readers are asked: what does an airing cupboard have in common with 'cancel culture'? This opens a provocative debate concerning the disconnect between EDI policy agendas and the widespread digitalisation of society. Written as Covid-19 has converged with existing political economic spaces of technology, culture, data and digital poverty, Postdigital Positionality calls for more ecologically sustainable inclusivity policies.

This latest volume in the Learning in Higher Education series, Innovative Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, brings together examples of teaching and learning innovations, within the domain of higher education. The anthology is diverse in nature and showcases concrete examples of innovative teaching and learning practices in higher education from around the world. The contributions come from all scientific disciplines and in all teaching and learning contexts. The twenty-eight inspiring examples in this volume show considerable diversity in their approaches to teaching and learning practices; at the same time they improve both student engagement and student learning outcomes. All the authors argue that their innovative approach has helped students to learn differently, better, and more. For those involved in higher education, there is a lot to be gained from reading these narrative accounts of innovative teaching and learning.

The book presents a cross-disciplinary overview of critical issues at the intersections of biology, information, and society. Based on theories of bioinformationalism, viral modernity, the postdigital condition, and others, this book explores two inter-related questions: Which new knowledge ecologies are emerging? Which philosophies and research approaches do they require? The book argues that the 20th century focus on machinery needs to be replaced, at least partially, by a focus on a better understanding of living systems and their interactions with technology at all scales - from viruses, through to human beings, to the Earth's ecosystem. This change of direction cannot be made by a simple relocation of focus and/or funding from one discipline to another. In our age of the Anthropocene, (human and planetary) biology cannot be thought of without (digital) technology and society. Today's curious bioinformational mix of blurred and messy relationships between physics and biology, old and new media, humanism and posthumanism, knowledge capitalism and bio-informational capitalism defines the postdigital condition and creates new knowledge ecologies. The book presents scholarly research defining new knowledge ecologies built upon emerging forms of scientific communication, big data deluge, and opacity of algorithmic operations. Many of these developments can be approached using the concept of viral modernity, which applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education, and emerging knowledge (journal) systems. It is within these overlapping theories and contexts, that this book explores new bioinformational philosophies and postdigital knowledge ecologies.

Quantitative Research Methods for Linguistics provides an accessible introduction to research methods for undergraduates undertaking research for the first time. Employing a task-based approach, the authors demonstrate key methods through a series of worked examples, allowing students to take a learn-by-doing approach and making quantitative methods less daunting for the novice researcher. Key features include: Chapters framed around real research questions, walking the student step-by-step through the various methods; Guidance on how to design your own research project; Basic questions and answers that every new researcher needs to know; A comprehensive glossary that makes the most technical of terms clear to readers; Coverage of different statistical packages including R and SPSS. Quantitative Research Methods for Linguistics is essential reading for all students undertaking degrees in linguistics and English language studies.

The book presents a cross-disciplinary overview of critical issues at the intersections of biology, information, and society. Based on theories of bioinformationalism, viral modernity, the postdigital condition, and others, this book explores two inter-related questions: Which new knowledge ecologies are emerging? Which philosophies and research approaches do they require? The book argues that the 20th century focus on machinery needs to be replaced, at least partially, by a focus on a better understanding of living systems and their interactions with technology at all scales – from viruses, through to human beings, to the Earth’s ecosystem. This change of direction cannot be made by a simple relocation of focus and/or funding from one discipline to another. In our age of the Anthropocene, (human and planetary) biology cannot be thought of without (digital) technology and society. Today’s curious bioinformational mix of blurred and messy relationships between physics and biology, old and new media, humanism and posthumanism, knowledge capitalism and bio-informational capitalism defines the postdigital condition and creates new knowledge ecologies. The book presents scholarly research defining new knowledge ecologies built upon emerging forms of scientific communication, big data deluge, and opacity of algorithmic operations. Many of these developments can be approached using the concept of viral modernity, which applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education, and emerging knowledge (journal) systems. It is within these overlapping theories and contexts, that this book explores new bioinformational philosophies and postdigital knowledge ecologies.

Quantitative Research Methods for Linguistics provides an accessible introduction to research methods for undergraduates undertaking research for the first time. Employing a task-based approach, the authors demonstrate key methods through a series of worked examples, allowing students to take a learn-by-doing approach and making quantitative methods less daunting for the novice researcher. Key features include: Chapters framed around real research questions, walking the student step-by-step through the various methods; Guidance on how to design your own research project; Basic questions and answers that every new researcher needs to know; A comprehensive glossary that makes the most technical of terms clear to readers; Coverage of different statistical packages including R and SPSS. Quantitative Research Methods for Linguistics is essential reading for all students undertaking degrees in linguistics and English language studies.

Against the backdrop of embryonic Melbourne, John Thomas Smith left behind his currency roots to become an influential member of society. A widely recognised figure about town smoking a cutty pipe and wearing a white top hat, in 1851 he became Lord Mayor of Melbourne; he went on to be re-elected seven times. His scandalous marriage to the daughter of an Irish Catholic publican, however, and his awkwardly appropriated gentility, made him unpopular with certain sections of society. From 1849 to 1860 Smith and his family occupied 300 Queen Street, Melbourne, one of the first true residential townhouses in the city. Flashy, Fun and Functional: How Things Helped to Invent Melbourne's Gold Rush Mayor explores the things they left behind.Excavations at the site in 1982 by Judy Birmingham and Associates uncovered a rich and important archaeological record of the Smiths' lives in the form of a cesspit rubbish deposit. The recovered artefacts can be used to examine the distinctive way the Smith family used material culture to negotiate their position in colonial society. Popular decoration styles and expensive materials suggest the family's efforts to secure their newly obtained social status. The artefacts evoke the turmoil, volatility and opportunity of life in the first decades of the colony at Port Phillip. They provide an example of the possibility of social mobility in the colony, but also of the challenges of navigating the customs of a newly forming society.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Melbourne's Little Lonsdale Street - locally known as 'Little Lon' - was notorious as a foul slum and brothel district, occupied by the itinerant and the criminal. The stereotype of 'slumdom' defined 'Little Lon' in the minds of Melbournians, and became entrenched in Australian literature and popular culture.The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne tells a different story. This groundbreaking book reports on almost three decades of excavations conducted on the Commonwealth Block - the area of central Melbourne bordered by Little Lonsdale, Lonsdale, Exhibition and Spring streets. Since the 1980s, archaeologists and historians have pieced together the rich and complex history of this area, revealing a working-class and immigrant community that was much more than just a slum. The Commonwealth Block, Melbourne delves into the complex social, cultural and economic history of this forgotten community.

This colonial archaeological study examines the artefacts recovered from the estate of an early, middle-class immigrant family to Melbourne.

This book challenges the notion that static principles of inclusive practice can be embedded and measured in Higher Education. It introduces the original concept of postdigital positionality as a dynamic lens through which inclusivity policies in universities might be reimagined. Much is written about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) based on an assumption that such principles are already 'established' in educational institutions, to ensure fairness and opportunity for all. In this book, readers are asked: what does an airing cupboard have in common with 'cancel culture'? This opens a provocative debate concerning the disconnect between EDI policy agendas and the widespread digitalisation of society. Written as Covid-19 has converged with existing political economic spaces of technology, culture, data and digital poverty, Postdigital Positionality calls for more ecologically sustainable inclusivity policies.

As Higher Education has come to be valued for its direct contribution to the global economy, university policy discourse has reinforced this rationale. In The Labour of Words in Higher Education: Is it Time to Reoccupy Policy? two globes are depicted. One is a beautiful, but complete artefact, that markets a UK university. The second sits on a European city street and is continually inscribed with the markings of passers-by. A distinction is drawn between the rhetoric of university McPolicy, as a discourse that appears to no longer require input from humans, and a more authentic approach to writing policy, that acknowledges the academic labour of staff and students, in effecting change. Inspired by the work of George Ritzer on the McDonaldisation of Society, the term McPolicy is adopted by the author, to describe a rational method of writing policy, now widespread across UK universities. Recent strategies on 'the student experience', 'technology enhanced learning', 'student engagement' and 'employability' are explored through a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Findings are humourously compared to the marketing of consumer goods, where commodities like cars are invested with human qualities, such as 'ambition'. Similarly, McPolicy credits non-human strategies, technologies and a range of socially constructed buzz phrases, with the human qualities and labour activities that would normally be enacted by staff and students. This book is written for anyone with an interest in the future of universities. It concludes with suggestions of ways we might all reoccupy McPolicy.