Tickbox

Something ironic about rating a book that argues persuasively against such things but there you go.
It's a good book that starts very well but peters out towards the end as it turns from analysis to manifesto with several of its demands being non sequiturs from the main thesis. And some of it is just wrong - lumping Apple in with the data driven organisations like Amazon and Google when Apple doesn't trade in user data. And interesting case studies fade away in favour of anecdotes that border on the sort of anti health and safety nonsense you see in local newspaper letters pages. A good editor would have kept the thesis on track.

The section on universities could have gone further with discussion of NSS and TEF which are far more relevant to most readers that REF and have a bigger impact on ‘real life'.

Those criticisms aside, I enjoyed the book and have been recommending it to others. As someone who is constantly battling against tick boxes in academia, it's a useful book to point people to, and save my blood pressure a little by not having to make the same points myself.