Reinventing a health sciences digital library--organizational impact

What is the organizational impact of becoming a digital library, as well as a physical entity with facilities and collections? Is the digital library an add-on or an integrated component of the overall library package? Librarians see sweeping environmental and technological changes. The staff members feel exhilarated and challenged by the pressures to adapt quickly and effectively. Librarians recognize that a Web presence, like other technology components, must be continuously enhanced and regularly re-engineered. The Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is reinventing its digital presence to better meet the needs of the community. This paper provides a case study focusing on major changes in planning processes, organizational structure, staffing, budgeting, training, communications, and operations at the Health Sciences Library.     

Watching People Watching Television: what goes on in front of the TV set?

This paper reports an observational study of families watching television in their own homes. Observational data were collected via a video camera housed within a special television cabinet placed in six family households. Results show that family members were absent for substantial proportions of the time the television set was in operation, and even when present did not pay full attention to the screen for more than a minority proportion of that time. Families and family members varied significantly in respect of certain patterns of television watching, but were similar in other respects. The results have implications for understanding the nature of television viewing in the natural viewing environment. Recommendations are offered for further analysis of these data.     

The Test's the Thing: viewpoints of students with special educational needs

This paper presents views on testing by a cross‐cultural sample of primary and secondary students with special educational needs. While some of the responses indicated that tests were useful for feedback and motivation, half of the sample disliked having tests and found them boring. These negative views were intensified by the marks that the students received and the physical and emotional effects during the testing. As the students viewed tests and assessment as necessary components of school life, the paper concludes that children with special educational needs are entitled to help to overcome their anxieties and that positive classroom practice can help to effect this.     

Tackling Truancy: an examination of persistent non‐attendance amongst disaffected school pupils and positive support strategies

The unauthorised non‐attendance of pupils constitutes an increasing area of concern for educationalists and one which has recently received much media attention. This paper seeks to locate the practice of truancy within an educational context, considers a framework for the support of pupils at risk and offers an ‘in‐school’ approach designed to ameliorate the effects of persistent non‐attendance     

Negative encoding in a language retarded group

Deaf children were presented with a pair of colours comprising a constantly presented option and an occasionally presented option, and were trained always to choose the latter. They were then required to transmit the solution of the problem to a naive subject, under the conditions that they knew that the receiver had the constant, wrong colour and one other colour which altered between trials, but without knowing the identity of the other colour. Because he could only identify the wrong choice, the best solution for the transmitter was to instruct the decoder not to choose the constantly presented colour. The choices made by naive receivers were no better than for subjects who lacked instructions from transmitters who had previously learned not to choose the constant colour. Only experienced receivers, those who had previously acted as transmitters, showed facilitation after repeated trials. A message analysis revealed that negative items were not used. It was concluded that negative forms were not fully integrated into the productive system of these children, and that the primacy of positives previously evident in comprehension has now been demonstrated in production.     

Content Evaluation of an Environmental Science Field Trip

Two important content areas associated with informal environmental science programs are ecology/natural science topics and awareness of environmental problems/issues. This study attempted to evaluate which of these content areas may provide a more optimum learning experience. A quantitative analysis was conducted on two field trips to a science center that represented an ecological oriented program and an environmental issue presentation. Two variables that were chosen as indicators of program success—knowledge retention and attitude change—are outcomes that have been found prevalent in informal, environmental science education. These programs were administered and evaluated during the 1996/1997 school year at the Paul H. Douglas Environmental Science Center at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The results of this study showed significant gains in science related knowledge following both the ecology and issue oriented treatments. The data indicate that the focus of the program (ecology or issues) did not significantly alter the way students responded to the knowledge section of the evaluation instrument. Results showed little impact on students' affect toward park site or related subject matter following either presentation type. Authors recommend multiple research methods to better evaluate affect changes following an informal environmental science experience.     

‘A lot more to learn than where babies come from’: controversy,language and agenda setting in the framing of school-based sexuality education curricula in Australia

Sexuality education in Australian schools continues to struggle in its ability and willingness to address many of the broader social issues associated with sexuality, such as the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) students. Studies involving teachers have demonstrated that a reticence on their part to teach GLBTIQ-inclusive sexuality education is driven by a lack of training in handling ‘sensitive’ issues, a fear of backlash and confusion over their obligations under relevant departmental policies. This reticence may, in part at least, stem from a commonly held inference that the inclusion of queer sexualities is inherently ‘controversial’. There appears to be a tendency for curricula and government directives to ‘juggle’ principles of social justice for marginalised sexualities with ‘risk management’ policies, which seek to screen course content for potential ‘controversy’. Much of this controversy has its roots in the language and rhetoric used to describe and discuss issues dealt with in sexuality education curricula. The paper demonstrates, through the process of ‘languaging’, how the language and rhetoric of controversy and sexuality can be exposed so that they may be better addressed through policy and government directives.