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The idea that computers are important as an aid to learning has gathered momentum due to ecomomic and social conditions. Moreover, the number and flexibility of computer hardware and software has lead to them being used at all levels of education, from primary school to higher education. This is learning at a distance as it involves no direct contact with the teacher in the traditional sense. This study, which is in the form of a formative evaluation, involves computer-based aids used to deliver commercial packages and reading lists in information and library studies topics. The evaluations involved tutors, academic librarians and students at all levels; research and undergraduate. Staff and students from Loughborough University and the Department of History at Leicester University were participants, as well as tutors and academic librarians from various British universities. To complete the study, questionnaires and interview questions were designed to reflect the backgrounds of participants, their views on the success, or otherwise, of the aids and their views on computer-based learning in general. Quantitative and qualitative techniques were to determine outcomes. Commercial packages were highlighted and some comparison was made between staff and students with regard to outcomes. Features which were more successful were identified, and information was gathered on how students use automated reading lists. The value of this study is two-fold. First, it brings forward information which can be used to improve computert-based learning and, second, it pinpoints the situation as it was during the years of evolution, i.e. 1992-1996.

This thesis attempts to describe and delineate the ways in which madness is represented on British television. The empirical analyses are guided by two theoretical approaches. These are social psychology, particularly the theory of social representations, and media studies. The central findings are that madness is very strongly associated with violence on British television; that nearly all representations are negative; that there is a lack of explanation and accounting for madness; that psychiatric experts are tinged with the same negative evaluations and even violence that characterises the representations of those who are mentally distressed; that there is multiplicity and confusion in the representations and that filming styles mark off the mad person as different to other characters who appear in the data. These findings lead to the argument that the mad person is constituted as Other on British television. The empirical data are compared to the theoretical frameworks and it is proposed that, in terms of the theory of social representations, mental illness is not represented in the same way as other social objects. Madness does not obey the laws of representation as proposed by social psychologists. Rather the mad person resists safe classification and thereby is constructed as a fearful Other. The thesis also attempts to integrate theoretical ideas from social psychology and media studies. It is suggested that there is scope for this around the concepts of narrative structure, cardinal news values and dramatic form although integrating postmodernist approaches is more difficult. The methodological contribution of the thesis consists in the attempt to combine quantitative and qualitative means of analysis and to eschew the search for underlying meanings or deep structures. Future work will build on current analyses of audience responses to media representations of mental illness and will also look at those responsible for television productions. It is argued that the symbolic environment of television has an impact on social attitudes towards mental illness and may adversely affect the policy of caring for mentally distressed people in community, social settings.

The thesis is an annotated edition of MS Rawlinson Poetical 147, a miscellany of seventeenth-century verse written mainly by poets associated with Cambridge. The text of the MS is transcribed and presented (with a few exceptions) in its original form, retaining the scribe's spelling and punctuation. The textual introduction outlines the procedure adopted. The notes accompanying the verse provide a summary of the contemporary background and identify, where known, people, places and events directly relevant to the poems; allusions and obscure words are also explained. Where applicable, the commentary serves to provide additional information concerning the poems' origins, including authorship, variants in other MSS, and publication details. The biographical index provides details of the lives of the poets, particularly those who have received little or no scholarly attention. The introduction explores four topics of direct relevance to the study of minor seventeenth-century verse: the problems associated with establishing the authorship of minor verse where autograph variants are no longer extant; the style and purpose of topical and political satire; style as a reflection of contemporary taste and trends; and the specific style of Clement Paman, whose work comprises the largest body of unpublished verse in the collection. In conclusion the aim of the work is to increase the reader's perception of how contemporary tastes and trends influenced and directed the writing (and reception) of verse designated 'minor' in the twentieth century. In addition this study will furnish the student of seventeenth-century literature with an increased knowledge of the background against which poets such as Donne, Jonson and Milton were writing.