Core Skills and the Idea of the Graduate

The question ‘What is a graduate?’ is under scrutiny from Government, employers and the higher education community itself. There are two current approaches—one originating within the philosophy of higher education, one emerging from the demands of employers and the focus on ‘core skills’—which might appear to have something to offer to the debate but which when first examined seem hard to reconcile and both of them difficult to translate into ‘threshold standards’. However, more detailed examination suggests the possibility of a new synthesis which could, if supported by further research and action by the Higher Education community collectively, answer the question to the satisfaction of all stakeholders whilst preserving essential academic autonomy.     

Implications of legal and organizational issues for urban digital government development

This paper discusses implications of the convergence of legal and organizational issues in the context of developing and implementing digital government projects in large urban settings. By the convergence of legal and organizational issues we refer to two important aspects of urban government: (1) the close relationship between legal/policy structures and the way government is organized and functions, and (2) the way the legal/policy elements interact with organizational dynamics and work cultures to influence digital government projects (and government activities generally). It is our contention that convergence in the organizational and legal/policy context is a powerful determinant of how these projects develop and how likely they are to succeed. Therefore the understanding of this convergence and related dynamics is critically important to planning and designing both policy to promote digital government and particular digital government projects themselves. Illustrations of this convergence and its consequences are presented. They are based on research involving two digital government projects in urban settings: development of a management information system for homeless shelter administration and a developing a system for sharing information among New York City agencies.     

Principal and peer evaluation of teachers for professional development

Conclusion The St. Peter's College application of the Shinkfield model has proved itself to be a most attractive, successful approach for the evaluation of teachers. Provided that the teacher is being evaluated only with the expectation of positive outcomes in mind, improvement as a professional practitioner of teaching most likely will occur.The approach also has shown that the teacher-appraisal function can be a facilitating and enhancing process, characterized by openness of approach, mutual respect between teacher and principal and heightened awareness of the importance to teaching of mastery of particular skills and competencies. Any successful climate of process such as the one described here must strengthen the school itself and, more particularly, student learning.A South Australian with extensive experience in educational evaluation, Anthony Shinkfield is a member of CREATE's National Advisory Panel.