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Alex Buckley

@alexbuckley.bsky.social
855 followers 404 following 44 posts

Associate Prof, Heriot-Watt Uni, learning & teaching enhancement, assessment & feedback, educational development

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Reposted by Alex Buckley
Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Universities cannot expect researchers to take risks if they are repeatedly at risk of redundancy while losing professional services support, grappling with the gratuitous vagaries of home and international student number swings and both teaching and assessing in an age of unregulated AI.
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Kate Bevan @katebevan.com · 01/10/2026
Yes, yes, dogs saying "sausages", but this video of dogs in a pub catching squirts from a soda siphon is the greatest That's Life video of all time. youtu.be/IahcZyBsDG8?...
youtu.be
Three German Shepherds In A Pub
YouTube video by kd fr
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Michael Bench-Dracula @mikebenchcapon.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Now that I think about it Man City did seem to be spending a lot of money
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Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most TV is just this now.
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Rachel Forsyth @rmforsyth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Me too, fire truck manufacturer, me too.
A toy fire truck for sale in a supermarket. On the packaging is a slogan "driven by inertia"
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John Rentoul @rentouljohn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Really important graph for any debate about triple lock commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...
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Ben Chu @benchu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
What's happened to crude oil flows from the Middle East since the US war on Iran began? 🛢️ Has Iran effectively choked off the Strait of Hormuz? Or is the Strait now basically open as the US claims? & what's happened to other exit routes? Here's a helpful way of visualising it...📊 👇1/8
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Al Robertson @alrobertson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Looking forward to the updated FCA warnings: "Remember that the existence of your species may go down as well as up."
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David Kernohan @dkernohan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
wonkhe.com/wonk-corner/...
wonkhe.com
Graduates now cover 84 per cent of the cost of a degree
The effects of little-noticed threshold freezes
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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Like ok I get that you don’t like this other Labour Party member who thinks you have crap music taste/ are too ‘lads lads lads’/ said something mean about where your parents live. But that’s not really a philosophy of government.
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Luke LeBrun @lukelebrun.ca · 26/09/2026
Tech companies suddenly decide they can, in fact, moderate content on their platforms after all
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 25/09/2026
That's a huge success for the British cultural industry on the world stage. We should maybe even start considering it a major 21st century British export industry, maybe even get a ministry to oversee it?
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Michael Bench-Dracula @mikebenchcapon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Victor Frankstein like oops sorry everyone my guy has gone rogue
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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Quite fed up with these crowds of fighting age men who refuse to integrate.
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The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Seems the difference between ‘protestors’ and ‘terrorists’ is that protestors wear balaclavas while terrorists hold placards.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
'Although most of the players are not English and their presence in the England team erodes an important part of English identity, I support them' - no, you don't.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
One vaguely serious party.... it's all I ask for.
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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"Probably Liberal Democrats" is, to be sure, a far more accurate description of the Liberal Democrats than "Liberal Democrats"
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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Man shows ignorance of entire of human history - very particularly ignorance of entire female human history - film at 11.
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Kate Bevan @katebevan.com · 20/09/2026
This is a bit long but a nice skewering of the arrogant twats locked in their little bubbles who are driving the "AI is going to kill us all" nonsense.
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The feeling is mutual. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Billionaire Manchester United owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he has lost confidence in UK
Ineos founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe tells the BBC he thinks the country is "on the slide" and calls for more investment in the North Sea.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Fixed that story about Sir Jim Ratcliffe on the BBC.
Picture of man smiling with tea-mug. Headline reads: "Non-Billionaire who actually lives in the UK and pays its taxes says he has lost confidence in the super-rich", with sub-header: 'One of Britain's taxpayers says he has lost confidence in billionaires, describing them as "on the take"".
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Laura Gordon @lauragordon.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I am the local LD councillor and I have not supported this campaign. No one asked me to, presumably because they knew what I'd say. This just absolutely, categorically untrue.
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
This valuation makes sense (only?) for safety decision making, where some valuation is needed to decide how much to spend on safety improvements. The (controversial) methodology is to extrapolate from small decisions (eg how much would you pay for a smoke alarm, or extra wage for dangerous job).
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Wonkhe @wonkhe.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
NEW on Wonkhe: Last seen around the time of the Augar review, KPMG has updated work on the costs of teaching. DK finds evidence of cost cutting everywhere buff.ly/D0cu2Xu
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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Got the formal notification of my half-sacking. Apparently congratulations are due!
'Your appointment is subject to a variation to your contractual terms and conditions. Your substantive contractual hours will reduce from 1.0FTE to 0.5 FTE, equivalent to 18.5 hours per week effective from 1st October 2026Once again thank you for your valuable contribution throughout this process and congratulations on your successful appointment to your new role.
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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Very nice to hear a sane voice from Piddington. Serious respect to this woman, who is apparently already being othered by more bigoted villagers.
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Martin Lewis @martinlewis.moneysavingexpert.com · 13/09/2026
This is a very disappointing response that does little to help the millions of students already struggling with student loans! My view on the govt's reponse today to the Treasury Committee student loan report...
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Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
3/ Basically: if AI can become plug and play, why do most students need to learn "AI skills" via formal courses? Sure, you need to churn out people who can make plug and play easier, which has some implciations for IT/engineering programs. But apart from that? Really not clear to me.
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Tom Clarke @deworde.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The story I heard was of a lecturer talking about this who at the start introduced the class to his favourite pencil, "Penny", a gift from his daughter. Throughout the lecture, he'd every so often note something down and say "thanks, Penny". At the end, he snapped the pencil in half.
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Peter Ungphakorn @coppetainpu.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
“Not long ago, Just Stop Oil activists were given long sentences for simply discussing blocking infrastructure. In contrast, the balaclava-wearing gangs now do much the same with apparent impunity. One could almost call it two-tier justice.”
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Ronald Hartz @ronaldhartz.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"Instead of trying to impose a top-down corporate culture that is so clearly inconsistent with the successful functioning of a university, why not lean in to its bottom-up nature?" #HigherEd astromikemerri.substack.com/p/how-univer...
astromikemerri.substack.com
How University Management Does Not Understand Universities
(And How To Fix It)
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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Breaking: The British Public respond 99% 'Don't Know' when asked to review whether the Tokugawa Shogunate's policy of sakoku promoted internal stability during the Edo period.
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
As I keep pointing out, does no one understand Ricardian comparative advantage anymore. FACT: China produces over 1 million engineering graduates per year FACT: To date, China has not produced a single internationally marketable game show format Where does it look like our advantage lies?
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
'Nearly three-quarters of researchers are unclear about what uses of artificial intelligence should be disclosed in scholarly work, while almost half admit to under-disclosure, according to a survey by Oxford University Press.' Sounds rather like our taught students.
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
If you made software not intended to kill everyone and now you think it might kill everyone that sounds like a product liability issue. You should go fix it and stop bothering me
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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Ah, yes, look at us all, basking in our “financial certainty”. Thanks, Baroness. #UKHE
Meme from the simpsons where the class is looking at Bart and demands “say the line bart” — here substituted with ‘Jacqui’ for Jacqui Smith — and a dejected bart answers “i’ve stabilised the sector” to loud cheers and jeers from the entire class, including the teacher.
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Alex Buckley @alexbuckley.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Culture wars cook people's brains
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Tom Wilson @feedthedrummer.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
This does suggest Britain is a) very good at integration b) actively attracts the world's smart and ambitious people who want to get on and do well for themselves Both of these are very good, competitive qualities to have and should be celebrated.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"You can't be a successful dictator and design women's underclothing". "No, sir". "One or the other, not both". "Precisely, sir."
"The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting 'Heil, Spode!' and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: 'Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?"
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Stephen Graham @stephengraham.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
'The British knee is firm, the British knee is muscular, the British knee is on the march to victory!'
Sir Roderick Spode
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Sad to hear Ed Davey peddling this. The *overall* tax take in the UK is historically high, but taxes on low/medium earners are low by historical standards & among the lowest in the G7. The cost of living crisis is not due to high personal taxes. Pretending it is just does the Right's work for it.
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David Kernohan @dkernohan.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Which neatly demonstrates that intensively teaching knowledge-rich curricula towards high-stakes tests is a great way to ensure your country does well on PISA.
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tunes to make you run away @whippoorwont.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"people are anthropomorphizing LLMs because they are so astonishingly good at processing human thought and language" people will anthropomorphize a chair if you put the stitches in the right place.
chair with a "face"
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ProfAFinlayson @profafinlayson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Stephen Bush, in the FT today writes that Labour “has now produced two governments whose response to acts of thuggery and intimidation is to reiterate that perhaps the thugs have a point”. A key question of political analysis is why Lab (and/or the British state) can’t/won’t be more decisive (x/?)
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
One reason England does so well is our second generation immigrants outperform their peers which is not true in most OECD countries. We are also very good at integration. And it's v sad that this is never acknowledge in debates on immigration.
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 07/09/2026
If every statement about Extinction Rebellion had opened with "Climate change is the single biggest issue facing humanity, and we understand why people have legitimate concerns the world isn't doing enough to tackle it…" this approach might be *faintly* defensible. But they didn't, and it isn't.
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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The day has started gloriously with a PhD supervision: her dissertation on evolving theology underlying New Model Army-adjacent preachers' concepts of priestly identity is absolutely brilliant. Downhill from here: it's (allegedly) Sacking Day - when they announce compulsory firings in my dept.
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Teaching in Higher Education @teachinginhe.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
REMINDER: Special issue on the politics of assessment! 🚨 We are calling for abstracts with a deadline on 2 Nov 2026. Share with your colleagues, too! See the original post for details!
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