PACE Graduate School Open University

Welcome 2025 PGR Adventure Begins You are the OU

Welcome to all our postgraduate researchers! You are what makes us a University.

Reading time: discovery, meaning-making and resistance in the accelerated academy by Fadia Dakka The increasing exposure of higher education sectors worldwide to market mechanisms (eg privatisation in and of higher education, platformisation and assetization) generates market-ma…

When @fadiadk.bsky.social presented some of her research on slow reading in higher education, especailly doctoral education at @srhe.bsky.social conference in december last year, it met with furious approval srheblog.com/2025/06/20/r... Intense head-nodding. Lovely to hear more about it.

Is anybody who is involved in #DoctoralEducation able to point me towards a similar report or study on the UK knowledge society, maybe by #UKCGE or similar?

#DoctoralWriting #PhD #GraduateSchool #DoctoralPedagogy

This one is on the European context👇🏼
{JM pace@open.ac.uk}
www.eua.eu/publications...

"for students like me, writing is more than a skill. It’s a form of resistance. It’s how we carve out space in institutions that weren’t built for us. And anyone who helps us do that — respectfully, ethically, collaboratively — is part of that resistance too."

#PACEspace {JM}

Reclaiming My Voice: The Role of Paper Writers in a Student's Resistance to Silence University was supposed to be a place of liberation. But almost immediately, I learned that academic writing came with its own constraints

#PACEspace exists to help with exactly this:

"There’s often a stigma attached to seeking support [...]. There’s nothing more authentic than wanting to do your best work. Asking for help isn’t a failure of ability — it’s a refusal to be isolated"

www.thecanary.co/discovery/fe...

Recordings & slides relating to the 'Future of Doctoral Writing' are under 'Content'.

This page is subject to edits but there's enough there for those interested to get a sense of what was discussed.

Thank you to those who managed to attend {JM}

#PACEspace
#PACExtra
www.open.edu/openlearncre...

Snip tool of 2 of my slides on why archives matter discussed in the context of whose archives and how the AI bots are trained

A pdf of my slides on 'AI and multiliteracies' is now available on the EATAW conference website and can be cited via doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

Thank you to Jennifer Sizer (orcid.org/0000-0002-27...) for alerting me to #Zenodo (which lets you share presentations via #Orcid with a doi)

#PACEspace {JM}

Some countries are making deliberate efforts to match the doctoral curriculum to the prevailing job market. While this is largely a positive move, positioning skills-based training for industry as the key purpose of doctoral education has the potential for the doctorate to be conceptualized primarily as a commodity. The consequences of constructing the doctorate—and by extension knowledge—as a product are numerous: time to completion becomes the focus instead of quality; production is foregrounded over the nurturing of a researcher; and the product is accompanied by a requirement to produce journal articles, which has led to the proliferation of predatory publications. What Is Needed? What is needed for doctoral education in postindependence universities across Africa are spaces to discuss the purposes of the doctorate with a greater reflection on unchallenged assumptions across countries, national policies, and within institutions. Such discussions should not attempt to pin down the doctorate to a narrow, shared purpose—rather they should open spaces for reflection on taken-for-granted and often problematic assumptions. They should allow for far-

V. relevant to our recent discussions:

"Explicit conversations about the nature of the doctorate should enable consideration of how context matters in the conceptualization of doctoral purposes and practices"

'Defining the Doctorate in Africa: Aligning Purpose with Context'
doi.org/10.6017/895b...

Recordings & other resources on the #FutureOfDoctoralWriting sponsored by @ougradsch.bsky.social & #BAAL will be shared ASAP.

> 60 people across at least 10 countries/continents & disciplines attended in-person in #MiltonKeynes & online.

Not easy to organise, but we managed.

#OpenUniversity {JM}

Elsevier journal under fire over ‘AI-generated’ review comments Researcher who waited nearly two years for rejection claims ‘nonsensical’ criticisms of his paper must have been chatbot-generated

www.timeshighereducation.com/news/elsevie...

Slides with aims and content of my talk which will be made available on the EATAW website in due course.

Slides with aims and content of my talk which will be made available on the EATAW website in due course.

Slides with aims and content of my talk which will be made available on the EATAW website in due course.

Winding my way back to the UK by train from Braga (Pt) having made my point: the real politik of #GenAI needs embedding in ALL academic writing pedagogies.

It's not enough to teach what-how. It's imperative to teach why this is happening to develop agentic reflexivity and flourish.
#CriticalRealism

How students should write a thesis in the AI age - Impact of Social Sciences AI tools help students produce polished theses without deep understanding. Thorsten Fröhlich argues rigid assessment formats stifle critical thinking, and calls for a rethink of how research is taught...

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... #FutureOfDoctoralWriting

The Future of Doctoral Writing: Critical Dialogues towards a Manifesto Join our online discussions and agenda-setting 1-day hybrid seminar to collectively author a 'Manifesto on the Future of Doctoral Writing'

⏳️Registration closes on Monday June 30th⏳️

We've increased ticket capacity so there's still a chance to join (ideally in person, if you can).

Pre-seminar discussions are already taking place asynchronously online & are heating up🌡

#DoctoralWriting #AcWri {JM}

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-future...

📢Registration for our event is open until 30 June✅

We warmly welcome in-person attendance on 09 July to ensure discussions are critical & spontaneous♨️
But online places are still available {JM}.
#DoctoralWriting #AcademicLiteracies #tleap #AcWri
#OpenUniversity
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-future...

They say your contribution should "fill a gap" but is it ok if it mostly just widens existing ones

This is totally what we need right now. So many necessary new emotion words in here.

AI Realism: Reclaiming the Human in AI-enhanced Academic Literacies Julia Molinari ​ Language technologies (LTs) are not new and a life without them means many things to many people: unimaginable, impractical, unavoidable, undesirable, undemocratic, maybe even a welcome relief. LTs include the familiar (dictionaries, machine translators, spellcheckers) and now the unfamiliar, which is rapidly becoming the new normal: LLMs (Large Language Models) powered by GenAI (GenerativeAI) and, apparently, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) are automating writing in unprecedented ways. I wish to use this talk to press pause, just for a moment, to catch our collective breaths. I would like to halt the dizzying speed at which these technologies are affecting our professional and personal existence by sharing a critical realist perspective (Archer & Maccarini, 2023) on LTs and what it means to be human (Molinari, 2025). This includes reflecting on LTs’ implications for academic literacies broadly understood as multisemiotic modes of communication, which include multilingualism (Lillis & Tuck, 2025). AI Realism entails neither techno-determinism nor techno-enthusiasm nor luddism. Rather, it provides a critical space in which to interrogate why AI has so abruptly irrupted into everyday life and how we might want to respond as educators. For example, it’s no coincidence that ChatGPT was released in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic (Hussain et al., 2024), with significant implications for the development of proctoring and surveillance technologies (McKenna, 2022). It’s also no coincidence that AI is associated with fascist ideologies (McQuillan, 2022). That it remains a black box in terms of how it is trained and by whom also raises concerns for academic writing (Gallagher, 2020). All this presents ideological challenges and opportunities for academic literacies that include, for example, re-visiting what we mean by criticality and agency if these foundational tenets of academi…

I'll be giving this year's keynote at #EATAW25 - alongside Suresh Canagarajah & Federico Navarro - on:

'AI Realism: Reclaiming the Human in AI-enhanced Academic Literacies' (cf abstract) {JM}
🤞
#PACEspace #AcWri #AcademicLiteracies #GenAI #CriticalRealism #OpenUniversity

www.eataw2025.com/keynote

What I love about #PACEspace is the privilege of discussing research writing in progress. Achieving #flow, dealing with #feedback, finding #voice are what we discuss most.

But trusting an Other with your writing is hard. PACE provides a safe & brave space to do this {JM}.

#DoctoralWriting #PhDLife

What your Methods section isn’t If you’re a scientist like me, you read a lot of papers – and a lot of submitted manuscripts, drafts, and other larval stages of papers.* This is extremely helpful when it’s time to write your own …

For scientific writers: Three things your Methods section shouldn't be - but three things Methods sections often end up being. You can avoid these mistakes! scientistseessquirre...

dealing with perfectionism Some academic writers are crippled by the desire to write perfect prose from the very start. Even though they know that the first draft is always rough, they find writing rough difficult. They have…

Taming your perfectionist inner critic patthomson.net/2025/06/03/d...

The @ougradsch.bsky.social 'Position Statement and Guidance on Generative AI and Doctoral Education' is now available:

www5.open.ac.uk/students/res...

The advice is in the context of a fast-paced changing landscape. It emphasises openness re. #GenAI at all stages of the #thesis.

#OpenUniversity

Ciao Angelo, supervisors, ECRs, doctoral writers, postgraduate policy staff, academic & critical literacies scholars. I've also just coauthored the graduate school's AI policy (soon to be published for OU research PGRs & staff), so that will feature in the event.

It's been a nightmare to organise.

Please email me {JM} for more details.

This is a very focused & niche event on the Future of Doctoral Writing given #GenAI but also broader concerns of #EDI in #HigherEducation.

It will soon be advertised as a fee ticketed event so please email pace@open.ac.uk if you have a professional interest.

White writing against a black background with gold swirls: British Academy/Cara/Leverhulme Researchers at Risk Research Support Grants. Deadline: 28 May 2025, 5pm. Leverhulme Trust logo

The Trust continues to support researchers at risk who have come to the UK from across the globe through a grant scheme delivered by @britishacademy.bsky.social and @cara1933.bsky.social.

Apply now: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/brit...

To accompany the @openuniversity.bsky.social's collaboration with Radio 4's Word of Mouth with @michaelrosenyes.bsky.social, here's a short quiz about the bewildering world of idioms

connect.open.ac.uk/education-de...

Too much talk about our PhD scars does current students a disservice Better to remind candidates that a doctorate is an opportunity to find and articulate their own thoughts on what they care about most, says Les Back

"PhDs are awarded individually, but scholarship is [not] alone. Students need people around them to share tips and hunches support and console [...] a PhD remains a unique opportunity to write [...] what you care about most" by @academicdiary.bsky.social

www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/too-...

An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence | Open University | LG003 This CPD course critically examines historical, ethical and social issues around AI technology, with views from experts in technology corporations and government.

The guidance indirectly draws on 3 #OpenUniversity short courses, which I moderate & recommend to all (learners & educators) in our collective efforts to make sense of #AI in #HigherEducation:

- www.open.ac.uk/courses/shor...
- www.open.ac.uk/courses/shor...
- www.open.ac.uk/courses/shor...

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The @ougradsch.bsky.social will soon be sharing its 'Position Statement & Guidance' on #AI in #DoctoralWriting, co-authored by me {JM} & aimed at doctoral researchers, supervisors, and examiners.

The guidance will inform our #PACEspace Workshops, Writing Circles, and 1-1 Consultations

#AcWri
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Interested in answers to this:

"A friend contacted me about their supervisor possibly using AI to give feedback on their dissertation (feedback shows 100% AI generated on checks + makes very little sense in context)"

sciences.social/@kavana@scho...

@academic-chatter.bsky.social

#AcademicChatter

GenAI Conference @ The Open University UK - Eurocall Shifting Power in Language Learning and Applied Linguistics with GenAI A conference at The Open University UK, School of Languages and Applied Linguistics, in Milton Keynes and online November 13t...

*Shifting Power in Language Learning & Applied Linguistics with GenAI*

The conference is inspired by the Shifting Power project (shiftingpower.kmi.open.ac.uk) and the Radical AI Network (www.nature.com/articles/d41...)

#GenAI #EuroCall #CallForProposals #CfP

eurocall-languages.org/events/genai...