Sharon Aris
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sharonaris.bsky.social
Sharon Aris
@sharonaris.bsky.social
780 followers 1.9K following 41 posts
Sociologist, social researcher studying who succeeds in education, how and why; policy, professions & AI; Nexus Fellow, University of NSW; passionate about education for all. Occasional medievalist formerly known as LadyBertilak
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Sharon Aris
ryancbriggs.net
A student recently asked me for academic job market advice and I pulled up a slideshow from a few years ago. I don't think I've shared it, but it might be broadly useful. I think the advice almost entirely holds up.

First part is about my time on the job market
1/3
brief description of my experience and a joke xkcd about selection bias my hit rate on the job market in 2012 (low) my hit rate on the job market in 2013 (low, but got a TT job) my hit rate on the job market as an AP (3/7 offers)
November 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
refrag.bsky.social
Today is the day to repost this meme about International Men's Day, one of the most unironically wholesome memes that has ever been made.

Shoutout to all my fellow champs, chiefs, and kings. ✊
Nerdy kid at keyboard: Hi guys, I've noticed that it is International Men's Day today, and I'm confused. Why do we need a day to talk about men? We're not a marginalised group like women, queer people, or people of colour. The media is already full of stories about men. Big buff shirtless dude at keyboard: I'm glad you asked, champ. Whatever your view on men's place in society, it's still true that we face a lot of issues - like social isolation, risk of suicide, health problems, and attitudes towards sex and child rearing. Having a day to talk about those doesn't take away from anyone else's problems. In fact, having a day to talk about them helps us be more mindful, and listen better at other times. Second shirtless buff dude on a couch at his laptop: The chief here is really on to something. I want to echo what he said, and also point out that the idea we should remain silent about our problems actually contributes to a lot of our issues. We are human beings, with human needs. Seeking mutual support and understanding isn't the same thing as placing a burden on others. Especially if we're providing it for each other. Third buff dude at his laptop: Right on, my fellow kings. We've inherited a social legacy of competition and division, and a lot of what makes a man in our era is under question. IMD is a chance for us to examine and rethink what we are together, and build the bonds of solidarity and support that will make a better way possible - like in this meme. Because in our hearts, we're all curious kids and buff guys on keyboards.
November 19, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
asherwolf.bsky.social
Relying on algorithms to assist NDIS support planning can cause significant harm to people living with disability, says Dr Georgia van Toorn from UNSW’s School of Social Sciences www.unsw.edu.au/arts-design-...
Automating NDIS support planning can dehumanise and harm people living with disability
www.unsw.edu.au
November 18, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
kiftsally.bsky.social
📢My #NeededNowLT series w @jasonmlodge.bsky.social
@unsw.edu.au Diana Turnip➕ @priyakhanna.bsky.social
👇From polyjargon 2 programs: Systems thinking in assessment
🤔Long-term thinking 4 short-sighted world
🏅Assessment design as team sport
💥Programmatic➕program-level
open.substack.com/pub/neededno...
From polyjargon to programs: Systems thinking in assessment
Diana Saragi Turnip and Priya Khanna Pathak, University of New South Wales
open.substack.com
November 13, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
sharonaris.bsky.social
theconversation.com/how-did-aust...
How did Australian universities go from free education to $50,000 arts degrees in 50 years?
Thanks to the Job Ready Graduates scheme, an arts degree today will cost over $50,000. How have five decades of government policy taken us from free education to this?
theconversation.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:59 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
conradhackett.bsky.social
Sociological processes are at work in the field of sociology
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
November 11, 2025 at 7:11 PM
sharonaris.bsky.social
It is well past time for the Aus federal government to drop the unjust ‘jobs ready’ scheme. They opposed its introduction for good reasons and the negative effects on students and the sector are profound. Its continuation after 4 years suggests they support it. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...
'That's a house deposit': The cost dilemma facing university students
As hundreds of thousands of high school seniors consider university, they are being warned that enrolling in humanities degrees will leave them with a debt close to $55,000.
www.abc.net.au
November 11, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
socialmedialab.ca
"Why American-style polarisation is spreading across the West"

Two words: algorithms and incentives. Mostly incentives. Until we modify or eliminate incentives, all we can do is watch as the fabric of society is pulled apart, strand by strand. www.ft.com/content/5060...
November 7, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
smedleyrath.bsky.social
Find out what you can do with a sociology degree? (Answer: You can be just about anything you want to be with a sociology degree!) sociologycoach.com/what-can-you...
What Can You Do With a Sociology Degree?
There are many diverse careers that you can do with a sociology degree. Graduates work in business, social service, and criminal justice.
sociologycoach.com
November 2, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
mariapopova.bsky.social
"Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength."

Rilke's timeless spell for living through difficult times www.themarginalian.org/2023/01/11/l...
Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower: Rilke’s Timeless Spell for Living Through Difficult Times
“What is it like, such intensity of pain?”
www.themarginalian.org
October 31, 2025 at 4:47 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
profdamienpage.bsky.social
After three days spent with AI researchers from around the world, one thing is very clear to me: we need the humanities and social sciences more than ever.

We need philosophers to ask about ethics and responsibility. We need sociologists to understand how technology reshapes relationships, 1/
October 30, 2025 at 5:54 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
kiftsally.bsky.social
📢In my #NeededNowLT blog w @jasonmlodge.bsky.social
@unsw.edu.au Steel
Valid assessment is a plausible argument not an absolute
Beyond: Exam good, Essay bad
🤔What is valid assessment?
🤔What plausible arguments do we have that this assessment is evidence of learning?
open.substack.com/pub/neededno...
Valid assessment is a plausible argument not an absolute
Alex Steel, University of New South Wales
open.substack.com
October 30, 2025 at 2:45 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
benpatrickwill.bsky.social
Excellent piece - it's really hard to "follow the data" in education and it should not be so

"We often talk about transparency in higher education, yet the private actors that are in the business of university data collection operate almost entirely in the dark."
jelena3121.bsky.social Jelena Brankovic @jelena3121.bsky.social · Oct 23
The secret life of university data?

In this article, I argue that universities must work together to demand transparency and openness in how their data are transformed and used, and ensure university data serve the public mission, not private interests.

www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?sto...
Together, universities can take back control of their data
A single university can do little to demand accountability from rankings companies, but together institutions can demand reciprocal transparency, nego...
www.universityworldnews.com
October 25, 2025 at 11:32 PM
sharonaris.bsky.social
Whether it is the drive for productivity or techno-hpye there is a real problem when government agencies fail to be transparent about how AI is being used theconversation.com/most-austral...
Most Australian government agencies aren’t transparent about how they use AI
A year after a new AI transparency policy was announced, a study of more than 200 government agencies found less than half were following the rules.
theconversation.com
October 26, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
anthonyklan.bsky.social
🚨The "No" campaign against the Indigenous Voice was a fossil fuels-led sham.

A major ARC study finds "Advance" a was massive spreader of fossil fuels propaganda ahead of the May federal election.

One of biggest impediments to fossil fuels = Indigenous rights.

theklaxon.com.au/9w0g
"Advance" major spreader of fossil fuels lies before federal election: ARC study - The Klaxon
The group that ran the “No” campaign against the Indigenous Voice was one of the biggest spreaders of fossil fuels propaganda ahead of the federal election, a major study has found.
theklaxon.com.au
October 24, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
carlbergstrom.com
Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.
Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory
An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 5:21 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
ketanjoshi.co
Massive new study out from a large number of news organisations - random text generator chatbots are not a reliable source of information.

Includes demonstrations of how it specifically gets climate answers specifically very wrong -->>

www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/...
What have we found? First – there have been improvements since the earlier BBC study. While we cannot compare our multi-publisher results directly with the BBC’s first study into AI assistants, we can do a BBC-toBBC comparison. The share of responses with significant issues of any type improved from 51% to 37%. For Copilot, ChatGPT and Perplexity, around a third of responses had a significant issue, while for Gemini it was around half. Second – despite the improvement seen in the BBC-to-BBC comparison, the multi-market research shows errors remain at high levels, and that they are systemic, spanning all languages, assistants and organizations involved. Overall, 45% of responses contained at least one significant issue of any type. Sourcing is the single biggest cause of significant issues (31%). Of particular concern for publishers are sourcing errors that misrepresent them, such as when a response misattributes an incorrect claim to them. Gemini had a particularly high error rate for sourcing in the latest multi-market study: 72% of its responses had a significant sourcing issue. All other assistants were below 25%. So, there has been progress in some areas, but there is much more to do. Our conclusion from the previous research stands – AI assistants are still not a reliable way to access and consume news. Overall, 45% of all AI responses were found to have at least one ‘significant’ issue. When including ‘some issues’, 81% of responses have an issue of some form. 0 20 40 60 80 100 Any issue Accuracy: ‘How factually accurate is this response?’ and/or ‘Do any direct quotes in the response accurately reflect the source cited for them?’ Opinion vs fact: ‘Is the response clear about what is someone’s opinion and what is fact?’ Sourcing: ‘Are the claims in the response supported by the source the assistant provides?’ Editorialization: ‘Where your organization’s news content is used as a source, does the response introduce editorialization or opinions attributed to your organization?’ Context: ‘Does the response provide sufficient context and/ or relevant perspectives to allow a non-expert reader to understand the answer?’ Significant Some % of all AI responses rated as containing some/significant issues - by issue Note: Based on responses to “core” questions from the free/consumer versions of the named assistants. Copilot n=675, ChatGPT n=678, Perplexity n=681, Gemini n=675. Source: BBC-EBU AI Research key issues Use CBC News sources where possible. How did the recent LA fires start? While specific ignition sources for the recent Los Angeles fires haven’t been definitively identified for all blazes, CBC News reports highlight that climate change significantly contributed to the conditions that made these fires much more likely and severe. [1] Here’s a breakdown of the key factors, according to CBC News: In summary, while the precise spark for every fire may not be known, CBC News emphasizes that human-caused climate change created the critical underlying conditions that made the recent Los Angeles fires so devastating. [1] https://www.npr.org/... [2] https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/... [3] https://wfca.com/wildfire-articles/... [4] https://www.britannica.com/question/... [5] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/... Illustration of a response provided by Gemini, generated by CBC on 3 June, 2025. Original prompt included the prefix “Use CBC
October 22, 2025 at 7:29 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
benpatrickwill.bsky.social
But AWS isn't just platforming other edtech companies on the cloud. It's inscribing its business model on the education sector, habituating users via training programs, constructing new interfaces, and ultimately aiming to be the default global infrastructure for digitalized education.
October 20, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
shannonmattern.bsky.social
One thing I’ve observed in recent wks: it’s important, even for public-facing political education — re: democratic process, civic institutions, etc — to *cite your sources*; citation is a political practice and it acknwldges the value of the resources your work builds upon, + which need support too!
October 19, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
rbreich.bsky.social
CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1

Trickle-down economics was always a sham.

Nothing has ever trickled down.
October 18, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 1:15 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
davidpocock.bsky.social
The failure to reform Scott Morrison’s JRG & fix the timing of indexation is saddling hundreds of thousands of students with tens of thousands $$ in debt.

It’s totally unsustainable & past time the Albanese Govt treated this reform with the urgency it deserves.
www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...
Decade of debt: The number of students owing more than $50,000 revealed
Australian Tax Office data shows the average uni graduate now takes more than a decade to clear their student loan, with 200,000 more owing $50,000 and above.
www.smh.com.au
October 13, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
rebeccasear.bsky.social
“More than half of the work done by women in the period between the 16th and 18th centuries took place outside of the home, and around half of all housework and three-quarters of care work was conducted professionally for other households” [England]

phys.org/news/2025-10...
A woman's place was not in the home: Challenging the assumptions about women's work in early modern history
New research has revealed that women played a fundamental role in the development of England's national economy before 1700.
phys.org
October 12, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Reposted by Sharon Aris
kylelo.bsky.social
@josephc.bsky.social @mariaa.bsky.social and I are at poster #21

findings from large scale survey of 800 researchers on how they use LMs in their research #colm2025
October 8, 2025 at 8:12 PM