What does digital independence look like for a #university?

At the University of #Groningen, this conversation has been growing bottom-up: academic & professional support staff are driving a move away from #BigTech toward shared, #open alternatives.

With support from the Uni Board, this effort is shaping a community-driven 5-year roadmap towards #DigitalAutonomy by 2030.

Newspaper Ukrant covered the shift.
https://ukrant.nl/magazine/we-can-do-without-them-how-the-ug-is-cutting-ties-with-big-tech/?lang=en

#PublicValues

What does digital independence look like for a #university?

At the University of #Groningen, this conversation has been growing bottom-up: academic & professional support staff are driving a move away from #BigTech toward shared, #open alternatives.

With support from the Uni Board, this effort is shaping a community-driven 5-year roadmap towards #DigitalAutonomy by 2030.

Newspaper Ukrant covered the shift.
https://ukrant.nl/magazine/we-can-do-without-them-how-the-ug-is-cutting-ties-with-big-tech/?lang=en

#PublicValues

Faculty on strike at Laurentian University
Faculty, academic librarians and counsellors represented by the Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA) in Sudbury, Ont. are on strike.
#strike #university #Sudbury #Ont
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/laurentian-university-strike-9.7050863?cmp=rss

Faculty on strike at Laurentian University
Faculty, academic librarians and counsellors represented by the Laurentian University Faculty Association (LUFA) in Sudbury, Ont. are on strike.
#strike #university #Sudbury #Ont
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/laurentian-university-strike-9.7050863?cmp=rss

some university staff (a tiny minority) get their jollies by torturing the students. https://www.boredpanda.com/professor-docking-student-points-retaliation/?cexp_id=144432&cexp_var=15&_f=homepage_featured - looking back I wish that I had been more aggressive in deleting this type of staff member. #university

A philosophy professor at Texas A&M University has been told to change his syllabus to omit some teachings from Plato's "Symposium" in order to comply with guidance banning advocacy for “race and gender ideology.” Martin Peterson's course on contemporary moral issues covers concepts like Aristophanes' myth of the the split human and Diotima's Ladder of Love. Here's Spectrum Local News's coverage, plus a story from Daily Nous that includes the email exchange where Professor Peterson is told either to remove the modules and readings, or be assigned to a different course.

https://flip.it/U_1tR_
https://flip.it/w73t2Z

#Education #Literature #Philosophy #University #GenderIdeology #Plato #Texas

I forgot to share the #mTurk data quality result that got scooped:

“In late 2020…. Participants from the United States were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, - #CloudResearch, #Prolific, and a #university. One participant source yielded up to 18 times as many low-quality respondents as the other three.”

https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anaf015

#psychology #philosophy #surveyMethods #quantMethods #dataScience #qualityControl

Great post by @pluralistic on the reason why virtually all first year college kids use AI in their writing.

Writing vs AI – https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/07/delicious-pizza/#hold-the-gravel

#writing #ai #college #university

A philosophy professor at Texas A&M University has been told to change his syllabus to omit some teachings from Plato's "Symposium" in order to comply with guidance banning advocacy for “race and gender ideology.” Martin Peterson's course on contemporary moral issues covers concepts like Aristophanes' myth of the the split human and Diotima's Ladder of Love. Here's Spectrum Local News's coverage, plus a story from Daily Nous that includes the email exchange where Professor Peterson is told either to remove the modules and readings, or be assigned to a different course.

https://flip.it/U_1tR_
https://flip.it/w73t2Z

#Education #Literature #Philosophy #University #GenderIdeology #Plato #Texas

US University #Georgetown’s removal of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese comes after relentless pressure aimed at silencing voices consistently standing with Palestinians under occupation.

This is a dangerous precedent for academic freedom and human rights advocacy.

#FrancescaAlbanese #UN #Israel #Censorship #Genocide #Gaza #Palestine #Fascism #USpol #Politics #university #Academics
@palestine

US University #Georgetown’s removal of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese comes after relentless pressure aimed at silencing voices consistently standing with Palestinians under occupation.

This is a dangerous precedent for academic freedom and human rights advocacy.

#FrancescaAlbanese #UN #Israel #Censorship #Genocide #Gaza #Palestine #Fascism #USpol #Politics #university #Academics
@palestine

Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/12/washington_university_workday_costs_revealed/

#HackerNews #Workday #Washington #University #$266M #project #costs #education #technology

Terrible, racism and discrimination are institutionalized in the US now
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/us/u-of-alabama-student-magazines-dei.html?unlocked_article_code=1.508.WYI1.WPhR3aKzcPav&smid=nytcore-android-share
#alabama #discrimination #dei #usa #university

Don’t let MFA lull you into complacency. Advanced phishing kits can still slip through.

Before the Thanksgiving holiday, one of our customers alerted us to an Evilginx MITM phishing campaign targeting university students and SSO portals. At least 18 American institutions were targeted.

We tested several approaches for large-scale detection, including analyzing web server fingerprints and HTTP artifacts. However, this proved challenging because Evilginx operates as a proxy between the victim’s browser and the legitimate login page, making its behavior and content nearly indistinguishable from the real site. In the end, we mostly relied on DNS for confirmation and classification.

Here is a short blog about the campaign and actor, including involved domains and IPs.

https://blogs.infoblox.com/threat-intelligence/dns-uncovers-infrastructure-used-in-sso-attacks/

#InfobloxThreatIntel #dns #evilginx #threatintel #threatintelligence #infosec #cybersecurity #cybercrime #infoblox #phishing #mitm #aitm #sso #mfa #university #students #proxy #login

Me when the assignment calls for 7-8 pages (writes 40) #university #writing