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Previous studies in higher education have found that a considerable number of students do not access feedback. Here, we use assessment system data on nearly 300,000 assignment submissions to statistically analyze demographic and timing factors leading to lower likelihood of feedback collection. The most significant factors were student performance, gender, course level, assignment number, and timeliness relative to the next assessment date. Deprivation was not found to be significant once other factors were accounted for. The insights gained from this study suggest dedicated time for reviewing feedback in course design and consideration of demographics in engagement interventions are needed.

Drawing on insights from a four-day online workshop, which explored geo-engineering and policy making with 13 youth participants, an academic and youth authorial team provide a guide to the co-creation of policy briefs. Drawing on excerpts from the policy brief at different stages of development and commentary provided by the authors during the workshops, we set out four stages including (1) Identifying the key message and audience, (2) Reading and critically engaging with examples of policy briefs during the drafting process, (3) Developing the policy brief text, and (4) Reviewing and revising the policy brief. We have developed this guidance with a co-creative, group work approach in mind and suggest that this has relevance for those working in and beyond the discipline of geography.

In acute hospital settings, medical trainees are often confronted with moral challenges and negative emotions when caring for complex and structurally vulnerable patients. These challenges may influence the long term moral development of medical trainees and have significant implications for future clinical practice. Despite the importance of moral development to medical education, the topic is still relatively under-explored. To gain a deeper understanding of moral development in trainees, we conducted a qualitative exploration of how caring for a stigmatized population influences their moral development. Data were collected from 48 medical trainees, including observational field notes, supplemental interviews, and medical documentation from inpatient units of two urban teaching hospitals in a Canadian context. Utilizing a practice-based approach which draws on constructivist grounded theory, we conducted constant comparative coding and analysis. We found that caring for stigmatized populations appeared to trigger frustration in medical trainees, which often perpetuated feelings of futility as well as avoidance behaviours. Additionally, hospital policies, the physical learning environment, variability in supervisory practices, and perceptions of judgment and mistrust all negatively influenced moral development and contributed to apathy and moral detachment which has implications for the future. Recognizing the dynamic and uncertain nature of care for stigmatized patients, and addressing the influence of structural and material factors provide an opportunity to support moral experiences within clinical training, and to improve inequities.

This paper tests a new theoretical framework for engaging students by evaluating two project-and-design-based pedagogies: "Arts Integrated Collective Creation (AICC) and Educational Social Enterprise (ESE)." Findings provide statistical support for benefits with middle school students when instruction is designed around Socially Empowered Learning (i.e., group-based, creative agency, real-world issues, and positive social impact). We advance the theory of Socially Empowered Learning (SEL) in identifying and finding empirical support for a novel instructional approach with strong effects and implications for the power of the arts to enhance cross-curricular learning.

Statistics pervades everyone's lives, whether it is through media coverage, reading reports, weighing up internal risks or evaluating decisions. Most managers are swamped by endless targets, dashboards and spreadsheets, but few organisations have enough employees with statistical skills to support the requirement for evidence based decision making. The need to equip today's workforce to deal with the increased amount of data is imperative. The shortage of mathematics and statistics teachers is also likely to increase as the Government aims by 2020 to provide all post 16 students with continued mathematical education until the age of 18. At The Open University we have devised a highly successful first level statistics module which is simultaneously studied by students across a range of different disciplines, many of whom encounter statistics at some point in their qualification. This has been achieved by using topics which are of interest to everyone rather than being discipline specific. The module has produced some impressive results particularly when analysing the progress of different cohorts of students, not just from varying disciplines, but also across a broad spectrum of students with differing backgrounds. It is thought that by adapting these techniques it is possible to produce high quality statistics provision to be widely used as professional career development for employees.

This article introduces our "Sector Guidance" to "Address Staff Sexual Misconduct in UK Higher Education." The problem that the guidance seeks to address is that existing student complaints and staff disciplinary procedures relating to student complaints in this area fail to offer similar protections and privileges to the student complainant and the responding staff member and, as a result, students are often excluded from the process purporting to resolve their complaint. We outline the changes that would need to be made to staff disciplinary processes to follow a process more akin to civil justice than criminal justice, thus ensuring that the process accords equal rights to complainants and respondents. The article highlights points of discussion that came up in the consultation process to devise the guidance, including sharing outcomes with complainants, recording data on disclosures as well as formal reports, and proactive investigations in the absence of formal reports.

Faculty learning about service-learning is an important area of research because understanding how faculty develop their practice is an important first step in improving student learning outcomes and relationships with community members. Enacting reciprocity in service-learning can be particularly troublesome because it requires faculty to learn to develop courses and partnerships in counternormative ways. This article reports on an approach to investigating and generating faculty learning--in our case about the threshold concept of reciprocity--through a group self-study process that included a new-to-the-field interview method developed for Decoding the Disciplines (Pace & Middendorf, 2004) followed by individual and then group reflection. Our self-study resulted in new perspectives and new awareness related to the value of examining the concept of reciprocity and the role of group dialogue in generating learning--although the specific nature of these changes was somewhat different for each of us--and analysis shows that that the Decoding interview and the multidisciplinary nature of our group were important in developing the trust necessary for this study to generate learning. We suggest that further collaborative inquiry within and across different service-learning and community engagement contexts could yield new insights about the value of using and integrating methods from self-study and ethnography for faculty professional development and research on faculty learning and could advance our collective understanding of the dynamics of co-learning and co-generation of knowledge within but also transcending SLCE.

A longstanding problem in the teacher workforce, internationally and in the UK, is the continuing and substantial numbers of qualified teachers who leave the profession within five years. This paper uses data collected from a survey to the last five years of teacher education graduates of UCL Institute of Education (IOE) in London, to explore what originally motivated them to teach, and the reasons why they have left or may consider leaving in the future. We discovered that despite claiming to be aware of the challenges of workload before entering teaching, workload was the most frequently cited reason for having left, or for leaving in the future. The data spoke to the reality of teaching being worse than expected, and the nature (rather than the quantity) of the workload, linked to notions of performativity and accountability, being a crucial factor. This paper draws on a substantial new source of data and explores reasons for leaving in the context of reported initial motivation of individuals who have left teaching, individuals who are planning to leave and individuals who are planning to stay in teaching.

Across the Higher Education (HE) sector student feedback is used to feed into university processes and guide decision making. In this study, data gathered allowed the authors to investigate a hitherto neglected, but important, cohort of successful students -- those who succeeded when all the odds were stacked against them. The identified group of students had relatively low predictive probabilities of passing their module, and yet despite all the odds passed. These identified students were interviewed by phone which yielded a much richer data set than is often available from student surveys. The advice they considered to be important to future students included specific guidance to get ahead, to plan and to contact their own academic tutor. Based on this advice an opportunity for future students to have a flexible early start on a specific module was created. A 4% increase in the number of registered students who subsequently started the module was maintained through to module completion.

Students from many different subject areas are required to study statistics as part of their qualification. The Open University developed a statistics module which could simultaneously be studied by students from a variety of different disciplines, by engaging them with topics which are of interest to everyone, namely money, education and health, rather than being based in the student's own discipline. The module attracts students from a wide variety of backgrounds and has one of the highest retention and pass rates of any OU module at level one. In addition, it has succeeded in successfully teaching a highly visual subject, which includes a wide range of online resources, to all students, including widening participation priority groups. It is hoped this can provide a model for other large service teaching courses, together with providing career and professional development for professional bodies.

Virtual reality (VR) offers potential for teaching and learning, though there seems to be no prior use of VR for teaching library and information science. This paper reports on a project that used VR for teaching library design, specifically for designing a library for customers with physical impairments. A survey and interviews were used to collect data. The results suggest that students prefer using VR to more traditional forms of learning because it makes physical problems seem more real than they would if presented in a book or video.

Joint use libraries in New Zealand are generally found in the form of School and Community Libraries, primarily in rural areas, but there is little information available about their effectiveness or success. Research was undertaken by surveying all identified joint use libraries in New Zealand and then following this with detailed Case Studies of three selected libraries. As these joint use libraries continue to be established in rural and urban areas of New Zealand, this research aimed to establish the Critical Success Factors for School and Community (Joint Use) Libraries in New Zealand. A comparison of these factors with those found in overseas literature on Joint Use Libraries has yielded guidelines to enable present and future manifestations of these libraries in New Zealand to be effective and successful. (Contains 2 figures.)

This chapter describes a multidisciplinary faculty self-study about reciprocity in service-learning. The study began with each coauthor participating in a Decoding interview. We describe how Decoding combined with collaborative self-study had a positive impact on our teaching practice.

This case study relates to distance learning students on open access courses. It demonstrates the use of predictive analytics to generate a model of the probabilities of success and retention at different points, or milestones, in a student journey. A core set of explanatory variables has been established and their varying relative importance at different milestones identified. The explanatory variables, milestones and reference points when the model is run will be different at other institutions but the approach may be generalised to distance learning institutions and, more broadly, to any HE institution. Institutions, and especially distance education institutions which do not have the advantages of frequently seeing students, need to make full use of any recorded information they hold to try and identify students who are, or become, at potential risk of leaving. The importance of different factors, at different milestones, may help tailor student support to individual students and therefore improve low retention in open access distance education.

This research builds on work carried out in England looking at how faculty negotiate their personal and professional identities. It focuses on a sample of full-time faculty in a private secular university in Kenya. Weekly time logs with follow-up individual semi-structured interviews were used as a basis for an examination on how faculty spend their time and cope with the dilemmas they face. The research probes the motivations and priorities of faculty and draws tentative conclusions regarding their professional identities. The picture emerges of a rapidly increasing workforce, very positive about teaching, facing the challenges of intensification of labour, conflicting priorities, outside pressures and a sense of lack of control over their professional lives. In contrast to the UK findings, what was most striking was the lack of dilemmas and agonising between competing claims on time that characterised the work of the UK lecturers. The Kenyan faculty appeared to approach tasks in a pragmatic way, with priority often given to family matters and a tendency to let things happen. Notions of professionalism appeared to be less well developed and appeared to point to compliance and acceptable standards of behaviour.

The decision by public libraries in New Zealand to implement Facebook has been uneven. Using Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations theory, a survey of nine public libraries investigated the process of its adoption or non-adoption. The motivating factors for the adoption of Facebook were identified. The surveyed libraries all met the four prior conditions for its adoption. In the innovation-decision process libraries fulfilled the knowledge stage to differing degrees. In the persuasion stage the attributes of relative advantage, compatibility and complexity were the most important factors to explain adoption. Other factors favouring adoption, such as the importance of change agents, were also discovered.

This article reports a case study of how staff in a new university in England are making choices about their use of time. Weekly time logs, small discussion groups and individual interviews reveal that the principle of "service" is embedded in the professional identities of staff. The paper explores how this perspective is reinforced by notions of "professionalism" that are encouraged within the community of practice. It indicates how keeping the narrative of service going can result in self-denial, with implications for reflection and scholarly activity. The paper concludes by posing questions about how staff can take care of their professional selves, as their work intensifies and resources fail to keep up with increasing government expectations of Higher Education.

Traditionally, women and minorities have not been fully represented in science and engineering. Numerous studies have attributed these differences to gaps in science achievement as measured by various standardized tests. Rather than describe mean group differences in science achievement across multiple cultures, this study focused on an in-depth item-level analysis across two countries: Spain and the United States. This study investigated eighth-grade gender differences on science items across the two countries. A secondary purpose of the study was to explore the nature of gender differences using the many-faceted Rasch Model as a way to estimate gender DIF. A secondary analysis of data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) was used to address three questions: 1) Does gender DIF in science achievement exist? 2) Is there a relationship between gender DIF and characteristics of the science items? 3) Do the relationships between item characteristics and gender DIF in science items replicate across countries. Participants included 7,087 eight grade students from the United States and 3,855 students from Spain who participated in TIMSS. The Facets program (Linacre and Wright, 1992) was used to estimate gender DIF. The results of the analysis indicate that the content of the item seemed to be related to gender DIF. The analysis also suggests that there is a relationship between gender DIF and item format. No pattern of gender DIF related to cognitive demand was found. The general pattern of gender DIF was similar across the two countries used in the analysis. The strength of item-level analysis as opposed to group mean difference analysis is that gender differences can be detected at the item level, even when no mean differences can be detected at the group level.

A centralised system monitoring attendance and performance among first year students in Biomedical Sciences has been established at Newcastle University. Early signs of absence and poor performance trigger immediate intervention by academic staff, with the aim of providing support for students at risk of failure or withdrawal. Difficulties associated with monitoring attendance in large lecture classes are avoided by monitoring attendance only at "high stakes" classes, namely practicals and seminars. Level of attendance at non-lecture classes was a predictor of academic achievement and the early intervention strategy was associated with improvements in attendance. Student perceptions of attendance monitoring were evaluated and found to be positive. Meeting with absent and underperforming students at the earliest possible opportunity has proved an effective way of promoting dialogue between staff and students who are experiencing difficulties. (Contains 5 figures and 1 table.)

Joint-use libraries have identified staff integration as a problem. Using focus groups, this project investigated the culture, professional ethics, and attitudes of staff in a public-tertiary joint-use library in Auckland, New Zealand. Findings show some difference in organizational cultures, but more variation at the lower level of roles and tasks.

Pastoral care is the term used in education in the United Kingdom to describe the structures, practices and approaches to support the welfare, well-being and development of children and young people. This article takes a historical perspective and charts the shifts in priorities that pastoral care practice has taken over the past 50 years. The purpose of the overview is to challenge the notion of a common discourse or shared understandings. The article goes on to look at "care" as a concept and to underline the need for an increasingly multi-agency staff with different cultures, language and priorities to establish what is meant by care and pastoral care in schools and beyond, with a view to a greater understanding and more effective working practices.

The aim of this research was to investigate current issues faced by public library staff in rural South Australia and to examine some of the reasons why people choose to work in rural libraries. The study took a mixed methods approach, combining interviews and questionnaires to gain a fuller understanding of the issues and experiences of rural librarians. The findings show that rural library staff in South Australia are a dedicated group of individuals who are motivated by personal interactions with their communities. Constraints imposed by distance, travelling times and geographic isolation concerned many staff--especially the difficulty of finding professional development opportunities, with travel to Adelaide for workshops the most commonly stated barrier.

Recent debates on time-use suggest that there is an inverse relationship between time poverty and income poverty (Aguiar and Hurst in Q J Econ C(3):969-1006, "2007"), with Hammermesh and Lee (Rev Econ Stat 89(2):374-383, "2007") suggesting much time poverty is "yuppie kvetch" or "complaining". Gershuny (Soc Res Int Q Soc Sci 72(2):287-314, "2005") argues that busyness is the "badge of honour": being busy is now a positive, privileged position and it is high status people who work long hours and feel busy. Is this also true of work-life conflict? This paper explores the relationship between work-life tension and social inequality, as measured by social class, drawing on evidence from the European Social Survey. To what extent is work-life conflict a problem of the (comparatively) rich and privileged professional/managerial classes, and is this true across European countries? The countries selected offer a range of institutional and policy configurations to maximise variation. Using regression modelling of an index of subjective work-life conflict, we find that in all the countries under study, work-life conflict is higher among professionals than non-professionals. Part of this is explained by the fact that professionals work longer hours and experience more work pressure than other social classes, though the effect remains even after accounting for these factors. While levels of work-life conflict vary across the countries studied, country variation in class differences is modest. We consider other explanations of why professionals report higher work-life conflict and the implications of our findings for debates on social inequality.

Problem: No systematic research has explored the refereed publications records of vital business educators. Data Collection Procedures: A total of 120 prominent business educators were mailed a survey about their publication practices and history, yielding a 61% usable return rate from 73 completed questionnaires. Results: The six research questions yielded the following major findings. The number of refereed publications ranged from a low of 1 to a high of 147, accounting for a percentage of refereed to total publications ranging from 13% to 100%. The percentage of co-authored publications ranged from 0% to 100%. Taking a sabbatical leave (p = less than 0.01) and publishing from the dissertation (p = less than 0.05) predict refereed publications production. Conclusions/recommendations: Those aspiring to be prolific refereed publications authors should be guided by study findings, especially taking a sabbatical leave and publishing from the dissertation. (Contains 5 tables.)

This report describes the evaluation of a whole-school intervention to improve morbidity and psychosocial well-being in pupils with asthma. In all, 193 children with asthma (7-9 years) from 23 primary/junior schools in the south of England participated. Schools (n = 12) randomly assigned to the intervention group (IV) received a staff asthma training session, advice on asthma policy and practice and an emergency [beta][subscript 2]-agonist inhaler with spacer. Pupils participated in an asthma lesson. Staff and pupils in non-intervention (NI) schools (n = 11) received no asthma-oriented input. While wheeze reports improved for all children with asthma, only the IV group showed lower requirement for medication (P = 0.01), clinically significant improvement (P less than 0.05) in activity related quality of life (QOL) and increased self-esteem (SE: social P = 0.01; athletic P = 0.05; behaviour P = 0.001) in girls. SE decreased for NI girls but there was no change for non-asthmatic peers in NI or IV schools which had similar baseline levels of SE and QOL. There was a marginal improvement in the establishment of asthma policies/practices and no change in school absence or staff knowledge. The significantly increased peer group understanding of asthma seen in the intervention schools may have mediated increased well-being in the IV group. Primary schools are a potentially important context for improving asthma morbidity and psychosocial well-being of children with asthma. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

The aim of this study was to relate discharge King's Outcome Scale for Childhood Head Injury (KOSCHI) category to injury severity and detailed outcome measures obtained in the first year post-traumatic brain injury (TBI). We used a prospective cohort study. Eighty-one children with TBI were studied: 29 had severe, 15 moderate, and 37 mild TBI. The male:female ratio was 1.8:1. The mean age was 11 years 10 months (SD 3.6, range 5-16y). Discharge KOSCHI categories were good (n=34), moderate (n=39), severe (n=6), and unclassifiable (n=2). KOSCHI category correlated strongly with admission Glasgow Coma Score, length of hospital stay, and post-traumatic amnesia. It also correlated significantly with Verbal IQ and Performance IQ (Wechsler); measures of attention; health status (Health Utilities Index [HUI]); health-related quality of life (Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory [PedsQL]); depressive symptoms (Birleson Depression Scale) assessed within 3 months postTBI; and with Verbal IQ, selective attention (map mission), and HUI and PedsQL domains assessed at least 6 months post-TBI discharge. KOSCHI did not correlate with behaviour or executive function. We conclude that the KOSCHI scored at hospital discharge correlates with severity of injury and some cognitive, health status, and HRQL outcomes early after TBI. It is not helpful at predicting later difficulties, or behavioural and emotional problems.

It is well documented that undetected hearing loss can have a profound effect on a child's holistic development, including communicative, language and cognitive development. It is crucial therefore that deaf and hard of hearing infants are detected as early as possible so that appropriate intervention services and support can be initiated. To assist parents in enabling their child's optimal growth and development, HI HOPES--the first South African home-based early intervention project--was launched in August 2006, offering families weekly home-based support that is both child-centred and family-directed. A critical overview of the pilot implementation of HI HOPES is presented, from inception to implementation, focusing on its innovative services and practices, and issues that influence the intervention process including a reflection on the challenges and areas for development. (Contains 3 tables and 2 footnotes.)

Language development is often slower in preterm children compared with their term peers. We investigated factors associated with vocabulary acquisition at 2 years in a cohort of children born at 28 weeks' gestation or less. For children entered into the United Kingdom Oscillation Study, language development was evaluated by using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories score, completed by parents as part of a developmental questionnaire. The effect of demographic, neonatal, socioeconomic factors, growth, and disability were investigated using multifactorial random effects modelling. Questionnaires were returned by 288 participants (148 males, 140 females). The mean number of words vocalized was 42 (SD 29). Multifactorial analysis showed only four factors were significantly associated with vocabulary acquisition. These were: (1) level of disability (mean words: no disability, 45; other disability, 38; severe disability, 30 [severe disability is defined as at least one extreme response in one of the following clinical domains: neuromotor, vision, hearing, communication, or other physical disabilities]; 95% confidence interval [CI] for the difference between no and severe disability 7-23); (2) sex (39 males, 44 females; 95% CI 0.4-11); (3) length of hospital stay (lower quartile, 47; upper quartile, 38; 95% CI -12 to -4); and (4) weight SD score at 12 months (lower quartile, 39; upper quartile, 44; 95% CI 1-9). There was no significant association between gestational age and vocabulary after multifactorial analysis. There was no significant effect of any socioeconomic factor on vocabulary acquisition. We conclude that clinical factors, particularly indicators of severe morbidity, dominate the correlates of vocabulary acquisition at age 2 in children born very preterm.

A great deal of value is placed on student research within universities, exemplified by the prominent role of the dissertation or extended written work at the end of many programmes, and the more general benefits of embedding research-based learning into a curriculum in order to develop higher-order learning. This article reports on a collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) activity undertaken by staff and students to run an undergraduate conference for first year students on how to develop a research culture. The aim is to better understand how students undertake research and how a research culture might be inculcated much earlier in undergraduate programmes.

Problem: No systematic research has been conducted about loss of face in Chinese business culture. General research questions: What causes Chinese businesspeople to lose face when conducting business intraculturally and interculturally? Setting: People's Republic of China. Participants: 34 Chinese businesspeople from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Methods: Structured open-ended interviews. Main findings: In intracultural business the major causes of loss of face were public criticism and rejection, with mild responses to loss of face except when subordinates caused superiors to lose face and sometimes when a peer caused another peer to lose face. In intercultural business the major causes of loss of face were foreigners' arrogance, politics and international events, and foreigners' criticism, with most responses to loss of face being minor. Recommendations: Recommendations are provided for businesspeople operating in the Chinese environment and for researchers conducting investigations about face in Chinese business culture.

In his influential book "Dialogues with Children" (1984), Gareth Matthews presents strong evidence that children as young as six can and should engage in philosophical discourse. His findings form the basis of this article, a theoretical and practical guide for parents and teachers seeking respectful and creative ways to encourage children to think philosophically. Methods discussed include the use of fables to generate metaphors with a strong philosophical content. (Contains 3 figures.)

Sophisticated software such as Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are rapidly being deployed by universities. Despite widespread use of such systems, experience shows that there is frequently poor pedagogic development, leading primarily to use of VLEs as electronic document repositories rather than as online learning systems in which the available suite of tools are used to their full potential. Online assessment is the major potential efficiency gain of such systems, but most staff do not scratch the surface of the full capabilities of the software. Based on our experience, we describe practical guidelines for a model of online assessment which promotes deep versus superficial learning, encourages higher level learning competencies and inclusivity. (Contains 1 table.)

A number of issues in contemporary distance education are reviewed from the perspectives of distance education as practice and as a field of study. In the practice of distance education, government agendas are supplanted by institutional agendas, the clientele shifts from undergraduate second-chance learners to fee-paying postgraduates, and the models and methods are under challenge by the online revolution. As a soft-applied field of study, distance education research is susceptible to externally set agendas and prone to external criticism. Distance educators need to address these externally defined issues in terms that speak to its critics.

Today, there is increasing concern about the health of "basic research", yet considerable disagreement about its definition. This paper examines the way in which the term is used in everyday practice. Drawing upon interviews with British and American scientists and policy-makers, we identify six different definitions currently in use. Given the utility and flexibility of the concept, it is useful to ask what function it serves, and whether we should develop new terminology.

Although many dream about conducting research abroad, few researchers achieve that dream. From research experiences in different parts of the world involving information access, research material organization, time perceptions, motivating respondents, research requirements, unexpected surprises, inappropriate arrangements, language and cultural fluency, and national and international events, lessons are learned that can help other researchers prepare for the challenges that may lie ahead.

The purposes of the study were (a) to identify perceptions about representative English-language accents from prospective and practicing providers of business-related language services residing in Argentina and (b) to examine the differences in their perceptions of these English-language accents. The respondents ranked the accents in this order: first, General American English; second, Received Pronunciation English; third, Indian English; fourth, Japanese English; fifth, Estuary English; and sixth, Australian English. Thirteen statistically significant differences were found to be related to demographic characteristics. Each of the studied English-language accents had an individualistic attribute profile pattern. Among other things, business educators and trainers should (a) encourage businesspersons and providers of business-related language services to select either General American English or Received Pronunciation English as their accent; (b) help those who speak other accents to modify their speech over time in the direction of one of these two international English-language standards; (c) serve as good accent role models for students and clients; and (d) conduct recommended related research. (Contains 2 tables.)

Discussion of trends in Australian higher education focuses on academic libraries. Highlights include online courses; integrating library services into curriculum development; workload priority for librarians; information literacy; and a case study of the University of Queensland, including their Web site, flexible delivery, special services for remote students, and digital learning objects. (LRW)

Gives an overview of women in both general and technical-vocational education and employment in Saudi Arabia. Reports on a survey of 220 private business managers: 83% indicated that Saudi women had limited participation in technical jobs; 63% suggested that vocational-technical education did not promote women's participation. (Contains 51 references.) (SK)

Discusses scholarly misconduct as a source of misinformation on the Web and describes the results of focus interviews conducted in Singapore that considered the potential impact of misinformation on the Web. Topics include motivation for publication; motivation for misconduct; improving information literacy; and possibilities for quality control. (LRW)

Managers in English social services agencies (n=10) identified themes related to their use of humor in social care settings: asserting invulnerability; coping with reality; controlling anxiety; working with ambiguity, paradox, and incongruity; resisting the dominant order; and making sense of organizational absurdities. Implications for business and organizational behavior research were suggested. (Contains 33 references.) (SK)

In a Canadian project, elementary teachers and professional artists collaborated to integrate artists' work into the curriculum. Teachers had opportunities to share ideas and concerns in learning communities and to develop leadership skills for arts education. (SK)