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This paper focuses on how contributions are argued in research proposals in the humanities. Due to standardizing tendencies in research funding towards formats characteristic of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, there has been concern that the humanities are marginalized. In this study, 'contribution statements' were identified in proposals funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation across the humanistic disciplines. These statements were systematically analyzed in terms of type and structure of contributions advanced. The results suggest that the humanities differ from the sciences in terms of specificity of focus, a high level of 'acceptable serendipity' in proposed outcomes, but that these disciplines structurally tend to adhere to the same types of research contribution arguments as STEM. A better understanding of the way in which humanities scholars frame contributions offers insight into how these fields change and how they relate to developments in the science policy and funding landscape.

This paper sets out to identify the ways in which academic libraries can further interdisciplinary scholarship on campus. The medical humanities is presented as an example to interrogate the current practices in academic libraries and to inform future efforts in support of interdisciplinarity. Text mining was employed to illuminate trends in this interdisciplinary field using program descriptions from universities with "very high research activity" as a data set for analysis. Based on these data, this article proposes best practices and opportunities for engagement in the medical humanities that may be applicable to other interdisciplinary fields served by research libraries.

Arts and humanities research appears to have a problem when it comes to making an argument that it matters to society. Despite widespread efforts within and beyond the field to document how arts and humanities research creates social value, these arguments have had little traction within public policy debates. The paper argues that other disciplines have been able to mobilise an "investment logic", based on a more nuanced model of how knowledge creates value, showing how investing in small research projects drives economic growth, highlighting, for instance, the direct links between universities, spin-offs, the biotech sector and large pharmaceutical firms. If one looks at arts and humanities research through this lens, it is possible to find examples of how individual pieces of arts and humanities research are translated upwards through first-order users, through networks, to create societal improvements: it is therefore possible to meaningfully argue for arts and humanities research driving societal value creation. The paper concludes by reflecting on how arts and humanities research might apply this wider model of research valorisation to better convey its societal benefits in contemporary science policy discussions.

The two most powerful psychological forces in human history have been without doubt violence and greed. The amount and degree of atrocities that have been committed throughout ages in various [...]

Princeton—Stanford Working Papers in Classics (PSWPC) is a web-based series of work-in-progress scripts by members of two leading departments of classics. It introduces the humanities to a new form of scholarly communication and represents a major advance in the free availability of classical-studies scholarship in cyberspace. This article both reviews the initial performance of this open-access experiment and the benefits and challenges of working papers more generally for classical studies. After 2 years of operation PSWPC has proven to be a clear success. This series has built up a large international readership and a sizeable body of pre-prints and performs important scholarly and community- outreach functions. As this performance is largely due to its congruency with the working arrangements of ancient historians and classicists and the global demand for open-access scholarship, the series confirms the viability of this means of scholarly communication, and the likelihood of its expansion in our discipline. But modifications are required to increase the benefits this series brings and the amount of scholarship it makes freely available online. Finally, departments wishing to replicate its success will have to consider other important developments, such as the increasing availability of post-prints, the linking of research funding to open access, and the emergence of new cyber-infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional "lone scholar" view of an Arts and Humanities doctoral student sits uneasily with the skills-based discourse underpinning policies aimed at enhancing researcher development and employability. This paper reports on a case study of a research training programme for doctoral students in the Arts and Humanities at a UK university. It calls for the embedding of the generic skills agenda within a more clearly articulated pedagogic discourse and formulates four pedagogic principles for research training programme design. Additionally, the paper problematises the research trainer role and highlights the importance of paying attention to the students' own learning agendas and the learning value they are prepared to derive from training. (Contains 2 notes and 1 table.)

Recent policy discourse suggests that arts and humanities research is seen as being less useful to society than other disciplines, notably in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The paper explores how this assumption's construction has been built and whether it is based upon an unfair prejudice: we argue for a prima facie case to answer in assuming that arts and humanities research's lower societal value. We identify a set of claims circulating in policy circles regarding science, technology, engineering and mathematics research and arts and humanities research's differences. We find two groups: arts and humanities research is less useful than science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and arts and humanities research is merely differently useful. We argue that empirical analysis is necessary to disentangle which ones are true to assess whether policy-making is being based on rational and evidence-based claims. We argue that debates about public research value should recognise that humanities have different (but equally valid) kinds of societal value.

Funding organisations are increasingly asking academics to show evidence of the economic and social value generated by their research. These requests have often been associated with the emergence of a so-called "new social contract for research" and are related to the implementation of new research evaluation systems. Although the research evaluation rhetoric is similar across countries and organisations, in practice evaluation can fulfil very different purposes. Additionally, the assessment of the public value of research poses different challenges depending on the academic field under analysis. This paper distinguishes three main research evaluation goals: to inform the distribution of public resources among competing objectives or performers, to help improve the implementation of policies and programmes, and to control the use of public funds. It then argues that assessing the value of research in the arts and humanities calls for a research methodology capable of providing a fine-grained understanding of the variety of, often diffuse, ways in which arts and humanities research can generate value. The methods that we need to do this are better suited to fulfil the improvement goal of evaluation, and require a "formative" approach to evaluation supporting the social engagement of academic researchers.

Arts/Humanities researchers frequently do not explain methodology overtly; instead, they "perform" it through their use of language, textual and historic cross-reference, and theory. Here, methodologies from literary studies are shown to add to Higher Education (HE) an exegetical and critically pluralist approach. This includes exploiting the connotative complexity of language. I appropriate Martin's term "magpieism" for her methodology in medieval literature studies in accordance with magpie tendencies to carry off and make use of whatever seems promising. This paper describes Martin's magpie approach to theory and methodology: a honing in on what seems important, then using a range of approaches and theories as they seem helpful. Examples demonstrate how methodology can be shown in prose and structure. Critical pluralism is shown to be epistemologically useful for HE methodology when one regards education itself as a "text" of social practice available for exegetical reading. This is something of a manifesto pushing back at science methodology's grip on education. Education, however, has responsibilities to maintaining ethical and aesthetic values negotiated through interrogation from different perspectives. The article points out that Arts/Humanities methodology--which can be implicit--can make significant contribution in HE, complementing science methods and enriching our understanding.

The research assessment framework is an unstable reality in many countries. While few would disagree that there is a need to measure and reward research excellence, there has been little investigation of how assessment mechanisms relate to knowledge itself. With a focus on the arts and humanities and writing from an Australian perspective, this paper draws together discussions of research assessment frameworks and forms of knowledge to consider what can and cannot be measured, and what we might gain from (or lose from not) measuring these things. We argue that the focus on measurable outputs risks a culture that favours effective packages of knowledge at the same time as ignoring the immeasurable, or hidden elements of research and scholarship--elements that Aristotle considered to underpin scholarship itself.

The increasing importance of the competition in global university ranking has resulted in a paradigm shift in academic governance in East Asia. Many governments have introduced different strategies for benchmarking their leading universities to facilitate global competitiveness and international visibility. A major trend in the changing university governance is the emergence of a regulatory evaluation scheme for faculty research productivity, reflected by the striking features of the recent changing academic profile of publication norms and forms that go beyond the territories of nation-states in the East and West. With the expansion of the Taiwanese higher education system in the last two decades, the maintenance of quality to meet the requirements for international competitiveness has become a key concern for policy makers. Since 2005, the Ministry of Education has introduced a series of university governance policies to enhance academic excellence in universities and established a formal university evaluation policy to improve the competitiveness and international visibility of Taiwanese universities. In so doing, the government has legalized a clear link between evaluation results and public funding allocation. Research performance is assessed in terms of the number of articles published in journals indexed by the Science Citation Index (SCI), the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index and in terms of citation rates and associated factors. Therefore, evaluation has taken on a highly quantitative dimension. Despite the efforts of concerned parties to encourage academic excellence, the above-mentioned quantitative evaluation indicators have resulted in bitter complaints from the humanities and social sciences, whose research accomplishments are devalued and ignored by the current quantitative indicators. In this paper, the authors describe the recent petition for collective action initiated by university faculty to protest the privileging of SSCI and SCI publications as critical indicators for academic performance regardless of faculty discipline and specialization. The article concludes its argument with a group petition calling for more diverse and reliable indicators in recognizing the research of different natures and disciplines while creating culturally responsive evaluation criteria for social sciences and humanities in the Taiwanese academe. The article not only sheds light on academic evaluation literature, especially on the uncertain paradox of globalization and market economy, but also proposes alternatives to the evaluation system for humanities and social sciences in higher education.

The paper examines the impact of the transformations in doctoral education in the arts, humanities and social sciences in the United Kingdom over the past decade. It focuses on the introduction of formal research training and codes of research practice and in the first longitudinal candidate cohort study examines their impact on doctoral outcomes, especially Ph.D. submission rates. Results from this quantitative study show that engagement with research training, completion of a project outline and plan and appointment of a supervisory team were statistically positively associated with submission of the thesis within four years. It is concluded that the professionalisation of doctoral education by research training and codes of research practice has had a positive impact on doctoral educational outcomes. (Contains 1 figure and 5 tables.)

What are the humanities, and how should they be cultivated? With respect to this crucial question, opinions differ as to how widely the humanities should be construed and pursued. Initially connoting the study of Greek and Roman classics, the concept now more generally covers arts and letters, history, and philosophy. But does it also include the social sciences, which are often distinguished from the humanities and grouped as a separate academic division with greater pretensions to scientific status? And should our pursuit of humanistic study be concentrated on the traditional methods and topics of high culture that give the humanities an authoritative aura of established nobility, or should it extend to new and funkier forms of interdisciplinary research such as popular culture or race and gender studies? (Contains 37 notes.)

Discusses the proposal by South Africa's grant-making National Research Foundation (NRF) to introduce a ratings system for the humanities and social sciences comparable to that which pertains in the natural sciences. Welcomes this development and argues for full and open consultation with the research community regarding appropriate ratings criteria, offering examples of these fields' unique research practices. (EV)

In this paper, we draw on our own cross-cultural experience of engaging with different incarnations of the medical and health humanities (MHH) in the UK and South Africa to reflect on what is distinct and the same about MHH in these locations. MHH spaces, whether departments, programmes or networks, have espoused a common critique of biomedical dualism and reductionism, a celebration of qualitative evidence and the value of visual and performative arts for their research, therapeutic and transformative social potential. However, there have also been differences, and importantly a different 'identity' among some leading South African scholars and practitioners, who have felt that if MHH were to speak from the South as opposed to the North, they would say something quite different. We seek to contextualise our personal reflections on the development of the field in South Africa over recent years within wider debates about MHH in the context of South African academia and practice, drawing in part on interviews conducted by one of the authors with South African researchers and practitioners and our own reflections as 'Northerners' in the 'South'., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Australian institutions are developing and using performance indicators (number of publications, research grants, and of Ph.D. graduates) to distribute resources. Some of these are disadvantaging the Humanities. This paper addresses differences in chemistry, engineering, English, and law as they are described by other researchers. (Author/MLW)

The paper engages with a variety of data around a supposedly single biomedical event, that of heart transplantation. In conventional discourse, organ transplantation constitutes an unproblematised form of spare part surgery in which failing biological components are replaced by more efficient and enduring ones, but once that simple picture is complicated by employing a radically interdisciplinary approach, any biomedical certainty is profoundly disrupted. Our aim, as a cross-sectorial partnership, has been to explore the complexities of heart transplantation by explicitly entangling research from the arts, biosciences and humanities without privileging any one discourse. It has been no easy enterprise yet it has been highly productive of new insights. We draw on our own ongoing funded research with both heart donor families and recipients to explore our different perceptions of what constitutes data and to demonstrate how the dynamic entangling of multiple data produces a constitutive assemblage of elements in which no one can claim priority. Our claim is that the use of such research assemblages and the collaborations that we bring to our project breaks through disciplinary silos to enable a fuller comprehension of the significance and experience of heart transplantation in both theory and practice., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.)

INTRODUCTION For many years the annual meeting of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters has been a golden place to exchange ideas about the Pleistocene flora and fauna [...]

Research on nuclear technologies has been largely driven by a detachment of the 'technical content' from the 'social context'. However, social studies of science and technology--also for the nuclear domain--emphasize that 'the social' and 'the technical' dimensions of technology development are inter-related and co-produced. In an effort to create links between nuclear research and innovation and society in mutually beneficial ways, the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre started fifteen years ago a 'Programme of Integration of Social Aspects into nuclear research' (PISA). In line with broader science-policy agendas (responsible research and innovation and technology assessment), this paper argues that the importance of such programmes is threefold. First, their multi-disciplinary basis and participatory character contribute to a better understanding of the interactions between science, technology and society, in general, and the complexity of nuclear technology assessment in particular. Second, their functioning as (self -)critical policy supportive research with outreach to society is an essential prerequisite for policies aiming at generating societal trust in the context of controversial issues related to nuclear technologies and exposure to ionising radiation. Third, such programmes create an enriching dynamic in the organisation itself, stimulating collective learning and transdisciplinarity. The paper illustrates with concrete examples these claims and concludes by discussing some key challenges that researchers face while engaging in work of this kind., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Issues in curriculum and research that will arise during a period of change in higher education are discussed, including course content, trends toward vocational education, relationships with industry, technological change, scientific research, research support, academic freedom, the humanities, and governance and institutional management. (MSE)

Reform in language and literature programs requires faculty to teach a mix of basic and advanced courses in language, composition, and literature to assure students access to the best teacher-scholars the college offers. The humanistic element in graduate education would also benefit from this improved undergraduate training. (MSE)

International collaboration is one of the effective ways to enhance the impact of scientific research papers. In this research, international research collaboration papers published by world-class universities in the field of humanities and social sciences from 2015 to 2019 were selected as the research object, and the effective enhancement of the impact of international research collaboration papers was found to not be dependent on expanding the scale of international research collaboration, but rather on selecting researchers with different international backgrounds and from high-level institutions for collaboration. It was also discovered that, in the field of humanities and social sciences, despite a relatively low proportion of international research collaboration papers being led by Chinese scholars, the Chinese research is characterized by a higher impact compared with the research led by non-Chinese scholars. In light of this, a series of proactive measures should be taken by China's world-class universities, such as actively participating in and initiating international collaboration, selecting high-level research collaborators, and attracting scholars from different countries to engage in research collaboration in the field of humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonised approaches to education, especially in humanities and social sciences, have since Independence perpetuated dominant narratives, providing limited space for diverse knowledge systems and marginalising Indigenous cultures and communities. This research paper delves into the process of decolonising pedagogy within these disciplines, emphasising the need to dismantle Eurocentric approaches to learning. In pedagogy, language, in particular, is pivotal in shaping the linguistic competence of a learner. However, the approaches to teaching the same differ substantially from what is expected in the research environments. Therefore, it highlights the urgency to Indianise the existing colonial frameworks in academia. There is a pressing need to decolonise curriculum content, recognising the systematic exclusion of history, stories, and diverse experiences. By doing so, we can attempt to unchain these subjects from their colonial entanglements and embrace their potential for social change. Therefore, the current paper will address the prevailing issues in academia/research spaces and attempt to address the possible solutions. Furthermore, decolonising teaching methodologies will help us engage critically with the above-stated concerns. By implementing these transformative measures, we draw attention to the potential of humanities and social sciences as vehicles for decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accompanying the ageing of contemporary ageing societies is an increase in age associated morbidity, with dementia having an important impact. Mental frailty in later life is a source of fear for many and a major policy concern to all those concerned with health and welfare services. This introduction to the special issue on 'Ageing, dementia and the social mind' situates the selected papers within the context of debates about dementia and its social relations. In particular it draws attention to the importance of the social imaginary of the fourth age and what this means for the issue of personhood, care, social representations of dementia and its social contextualisation. The papers illuminating these themes draw on a variety of disciplines and approaches; from the social sciences to the humanities and from the theoretical to the empirical in order to help orientate future researchers to the complexities of dementia and the social and cultural matrix in which it exists. This paper provides an introduction to the potential for a more extended sociology of dementia; one which could combine the insights from medical sociology with the concerns of social gerontology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the nature of academic research in the Humanities. It questions whether such scholarship has been instrumentalised to a narrowly individualistic, short-termist and action-orientated pursuit – whether, in simpler terms, there is too much writing and not enough reading. In the first part of the paper, the authors argue that such instrumentalisation is evident in the very language we use; we speak of research 'outputs', research 'impacts' and research 'targets', and all of these terms position Humanist scholarship closer to archery than human understanding. In the second part of the paper, Mahon and Henry foreground particularly the relationship between scholarship and silence as well as the importance of close and careful reading. Throughout the paper, the authors draw on the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Stanley Cavell in order to highlight a more edifying framework for research in the Humanities – one that might resist the darker impulses of a marketised academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematics is a fundamental tool of research. Although potentially applicable in every discipline, the amount of training in mathematics that students typically receive varies greatly between different disciplines. In those disciplines where most researchers do not master mathematics, the use of mathematics may be held in too much awe. To demonstrate this I conducted an online experiment with 200 participants, all of which had experience of reading research reports and a postgraduate degree (in any subject). Participants were presented with the abstracts from two published papers (one in evolutionary anthropology and one in sociology). Based on these abstracts, participants were asked to judge the quality of the research. Either one or the other of the two abstracts was manipulated through the inclusion of an extra sentence taken from a completely unrelated paper and presenting an equation that made no sense in the context. The that included the meaningless mathematics tended to be judged of higher quality. However, this "nonsense math effect" was not found among participants with degrees in mathematics, science, technology or medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on how contributions are argued in research proposals in the humanities. Due to standardizing tendencies in research funding towards formats characteristic of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects, there has been concern that the humanities are marginalized. In this study, 'contribution statements' were identified in proposals funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation across the humanistic disciplines. These statements were systematically analyzed in terms of type and structure of contributions advanced. The results suggest that the humanities differ from the sciences in terms of specificity of focus, a high level of 'acceptable serendipity' in proposed outcomes, but that these disciplines structurally tend to adhere to the same types of research contribution arguments as STEM. A better understanding of the way in which humanities scholars frame contributions offers insight into how these fields change and how they relate to developments in the science policy and funding landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Alternative metrics (altmetrics) are non-traditional metrics to measure the social impact of research results, which were unable to be assessed by the previous methods, by calculating how research results are reflected in various social media. The purpose of this paper is to measure and compare the impact of Korean study results in four fields that were published in international journals using altmetrics.Design/methodology/approach This study analysed the impact of 383 Korean research articles published by international journals in the field of medical science, engineering, social science and arts and humanities through altmetrics and compared it with bibliometrics.Findings As a result, the frequency of research articles which are “discussed” through social media such as Twitter was shown to be highest in the medical science than in other fields. In addition, the frequency of research articles which were “saved” through reference management tool such as Mendeley was shown to be higher in the social science and the arts and humanities than in other fields. Furthermore, as a result of a correlation analysis between altmetrics and bibliometrics, it is found that there exists a positive correlation between the number of articles which were “saved” in Mendeley and “cited” in follow-up studies.Originality/value This study examined the impact of the articles originating in non-English-speaking nations; it could be referred by other non-English-speaking nations that are trying to identify invisible impact of their research output on global society. By finding the academic field which are receiving special attention from global community using altmetrics, researchers could prospect country’s overall research impact and utilize it to make a future R&D plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to reflection on how rural research can better serve rural communities. Using the results of literature searches across the disciplines, it explores some major 21st Century debates about improving the usefulness of research for policy and practice. The paper begins with an examination of different debates in biomedical and health research, moving on to other debates in the social sciences and humanities, particularly in sociology, political science, and history. Powerful critiques of the relevance of research are provided by case-based analysis, which raises the question of whether we need new forms of research evidence that reflect the configurational, synergistic complexity of policy and practice. The paper concludes with directions for what these debates collectively suggest for making rural research more useful to policy and practice. It also suggests how research methodology may be a political battlefield for democratic accountability in the 21st Century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Norwegian public health nurses prevent diseases and promote health in children and young people aged 0–20 and their families. Public health nursing programs prepare students for their practical role and provide relevant theoretical knowledge. Objectives: To gain knowledge of the literature in the Norwegian public health nursing curricula, and to examine further the nursing base in these curricula. Design: An explorative and descriptive design was chosen. Sample: Reading lists based on syllabus documents from the 10 higher educational institutions in Norway offering programs in public health nursing. Measurements: A summative content analysis and a categorization of content from reading lists were performed. Results: Numerical information on the content and categorization of reading lists shows that social science and humanities literature dominates, followed by psychology and medicine. Nursing texts, theories and philosophy comprise only a minor part of the curricula. Conclusion: The paper provides valuable data on the theoretical focus in Norwegian public health nursing and raises important questions about the paucity of nursing texts in the curriculum. The imbalance in reading lists in Norway should be studied further and similar studies conducted in other countries to encourage reflection on the theoretical content of public health nursing education globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Much has been written about the crisis in the Humanities even as student interest in the Humanities continues to decline. In the so-called "post-truth," "post-COVID19" period," however, the Humanities deserve attention for the important role they must play in preparing students for the world during a period of dramatic change. Design/methodology/approach: Discussion focuses on the "post-truth" period and how the Humanities have a role in confronting misinformation and "fake news." It provides specific actions for how those in the Humanities might address the current situation. It relies on the author's considerable background as a university Dean and President over a period of over 40 years and draws on a variety of written material addressing the future of the Humanities. Findings: In a period when the world confronts unprecedented change, when misinformation is confused with the truth and when social media exercises so much influence, students more than ever need the insight and context of the Humanities to mitigate the cant, bogus claims and questionable ethics that so much shape the world. Responsibility falls to faculty as they must make clear to their students how the Humanities provide a perspective that allows students to work through the big questions of their time. Research limitations/implications: Much has been written about the challenges facing the Humanities. It is hoped that this paper will generate additional discussion on how the Humanities might assert themselves during what are troubling times in higher education. Originality/value: The author's long experience as a senior university administrator provides a perspective that faculty and administrators might find useful as they consider the future of the Humanities at their institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research, the painstaking gathering and verification of evidence that builds into ideas that should lead to the resolution of given problems, is one scholarly endeavour that has impacted greatly on the quality of man's life. As a result, considerable resources are devoted to research in different disciplines and at various levels of education across the world years in years out. In spite of the importance of research, it would seem that man has not applied it rigorously enough for problem solving, especially in the humanities, which include the arts, social sciences, law and education. It is possible for research in these academic areas to be strengthened with more purposeful use of tests, which are carefully designed instruments for gathering information that could lead to balanced judgements regarding knowledge dissemination and application. Thus, this paper is an attempt to advocate more appropriate use of test in the conduct of research in the humanities. In so doing, the paper explores the meaning, nature and scope of test and suggests ways of more effectively suiting it to research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of European Journal of Language Policy is the property of Liverpool University Press / Journals and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Narrative inquiry is a branch of interpretative research. It is the latest arrival in the mainstream of the interpretative family of research in humanities and particularly in educational sciences. However, its widespread use has been associated with considerable conceptual confusion. This paper examines the concept, nature and development of the narrative method in educational research. This research technique is also critically examined as an approach for qualitative research. This paper outlines a number of methodological issues regarding the narrative inquiry that needs careful considerations. The concepts and principals discussed here encourage the researchers to interpret the outcomes of studies using this method with more caution and suggest the needs for undertaking theoretical issues relating to narrative research methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – To provide an overview of the history, evolution, and existing research on continuous improvement Design/methodology/approach – Extensive review of the literature. Findings - This paper provides an overview of continuous improvement, its inception, how it evolved into sophisticated methodologies used in organizations today, and existing research in this field in the literature. Research limitations/implications – It does not provide an exhaustive review of the existing literature, or an exhaustive list of all continuous improvement programs, only the most well known. Originality/value – This paper traces how organizations have used various tools and techniques to address the need for improvement on various levels. The paper also presents research conducted in this field. It should be of value to practitioners of continuous improvement programs and to academics who are interested in how continuous improvement has evolved, and where it is today. To the authors' knowledge, no recent papers have provided an historical perspective of continuous improvement Furthermore, our paper also discusses the existing research in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses papers submitted in the 26th Annual Conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts which was held in Washington, D.C. from October 12 to 15, 2000. Main challenges for the arts and humanities; Central topic of the event; Topics of the papers.

In this paper, concerns are addressed regarding the validity of the Quest scale introduced by Batson (1976) and Batson and Ventis (1982). Some have wondered whether this scale might be more a measure of agnosticism, of anti-orthodoxy, of sophomoric religious doubt, or of religious conflict, if indeed, it is a measure of anything religious at all. We have reviewed the available evidence regarding validity, much of which has appeared in unpublished research reports, theses, dissertations, or convention papers, and thus has not been widely available. Based on the evidence, we have concluded that the Quest scale does indeed measure a dimension of personal religion very much like the one it was designed to measure: an open-ended, active approach to existential questions that resists clear-cut, pat answers, Concerns regarding the reliability of the Quest scale, which have proved more persistent, are addressed in a companion paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In academic contexts, digital games are often studied as texts or are used as pedagogical tools to teach basic concepts in early education situations. Less usefully, their systems and economies are often co-opted and decontextualized in short-sighted attempts to "gamify" various aspects of learning or training. However, given that games are highly controlled, conditional, choice-and-consequence-based, problem-solving environments in which players are expected to interact with simulated settings and elements after agreeing to take on particular roles and subject positions, there are promising potential uses of these experiences in academic contexts that have not been fully considered. Motivated by the imperative to explore alternative modes and methods of scholarly research and communication, and guided by the values of open social scholarship practices, this paper reconsiders games not as things to study, but as instruments to study with. Given that games can function as simulations, models, arguments and creative collaboratories, game-based inquiry can be used as a potential method of post-secondary and post-graduate humanities research and scholarly communication. While these ideas have been explored in a preliminary way in relation to a number of different academic disciplines (Donchin 1995; Boot 2015; Mitgutsch and Weise 2011; Westecott 2011) this paper is meant to catalyse a humanities-calibrated consideration of the pragmatics and potentials of game-based research, games as instances of critical making and scholarly communication, and more complex forms of game-based learning than those currently practiced. A number of examples that make use of the open source Twine platform will be featured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article previews several conferences related to systems research and practice in July 2006. The Fourth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities will be held at the University of Carthage in Tunisia. The Sixth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change in Organisations will be held at the Monash University Centre in Italy.

In the face of reduced public funding of science and increased demands for ‘value for money’, academic researchers find themselves hard pressed to produce relevant research and demonstrate their utility to society. These pressures are particularly prominent in the humanities and social sciences (HSS) where practical value is frequently questioned. This article investigates how HSS can be made ‘relevant’ through the qualitative case study of a funding instrument fostering immersive collaboration between HSS researchers and non-academic actors. The research is a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with the funded researchers and representatives of the funding agency. The paper provides insights into the motivations and experiences of HSS researchers embarking on the quest for relevance and the difficulties they encounter. In particular, the study finds that the key challenge for HSS researchers lies in balancing the level of engagement required to be relevant with the requirements of an academic career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An integrative literature review critiques and synthesizes representative literature on a topic in order to reveal new perspectives. An analysis of extant reviews (2002–2013) of transitions to school literature led to the identification of four theoretical perspectives of transitions: developmental, ecological, socio-cultural, and critical; and six recurrent concepts across these perspectives. These perspectives and concepts were used to develop the conceptual framework for the integrative review of transitions literature published between 2000 and 2015. Subsequent to the critique and analysis processes required by an integrative literature review, the findings revealed three significant shifts across this period of time: i) ecological and socio-cultural perspectives and relationships concepts now influence concepts of transitions more strongly than developmental perspectives and readiness concepts, ii) an evolving representation of critical perspectives that offers new insights into socially just approaches to transitions to school, and (iii) the emergence of the concept of continuity. Finally, the paper reports new perspectives of transitions to school that seek to address persistent concerns of (dis) continuity within the literature. By reframing the review findings as relational, practical and policy continuity, the paper concludes by suggesting ways these concepts could be applied to innovative approaches to and research about transitions to school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mathematics and science knowledge/skills are most commonly associated with engineering's pre-requisite knowledge. Our goals in this paper are to argue for a more systematic inclusion of social science and humanities knowledge in the introduction of engineering to K-12 students. As part of this argument, we present a construct for framing the humanistic side of engineering with illustrative examples of what appealing to the humanistic side of engineering can look like in a classroom setting, and opportunities for research that examines the dynamics that the humanistic side of engineering introduces into engineering learning and teaching. The illustrative examples are drawn from interactions among student-teams from elementary classrooms engaged in engineering activities that appeal to the humanistic side of engineering. Referencing these examples as well as other established engineering education programs, we will discuss opportunities for research in the education of K-16 students. These opportunities span understanding how students' attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions shift, particularly among traditionally underrepresented populations, to how students' engineering knowledge and practices develop in the context of a humanistic approach to engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past, humanists and scientists have held very different views about the role of collaboration in scholarly research. From the point of view of a Principal Investigator in a scientific laboratory, this article examines the increasingly dominant role of collaboration in scientific research. In contrast to the ‘consensus research’ model of the sciences, humanists have often viewed the role of collaboration in research with considerable skepticism and have placed greater value on the traditional model of the solitary scholar pursuing knowledge and truth. An examination of some of the distinctive cultural differences between the humanities and sciences suggests that the benefits of collaboration may come to play an increasingly significant role in the future of humanistic research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A problem facing most universities is how best to adapt time-honoured teaching methods to the skills and needs of new generations of students. There is strong evidence that employers, particularly in the professions, still expect graduates to have the same skills which have long been taught in law schools (see e.g. E. Peden and J. Riley, 'Law Graduates' Skills -- A Pilot Study into Employers' Perspectives' Sydney Law School Legal Studies Research Paper No. 07/81, 5). However, increasing numbers of students in the United Kingdom show weaknesses in skills which used to be assumed to be provided by schools and other secondary education providers. The issue is what and who is it that needs to change: expectations of universities and employers, or assumptions and practices of students. As noted by many employers of graduates in the United Kingdom, strong grades at university level are not necessarily an indication of having the necessary skills for entering the job market in any profession. Similarly, strong grades at secondary education level are not necessarily an indication of having strong skills for entering a particular field of study, such as law, at university level; the assumptions which universities make about their incoming students need to be revisited regularly and adjustments to provisions made accordingly. Many academics report that undergraduate students seem to perform far better in the classroom than in written assessments. In our paper, we will look at changes in secondary education which lead to different student expectations and skills, appropriate assessment methods and feedback at universities, and whether different models of skills support are now necessary for even the strongest student at university level. We will primarily use the examples of British law degrees throughout the paper , but it will be of relevance to many disciplines in many countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]