Reconceptualising educational assessment in South Africa — testing times for teachers

This paper explores some of the problems arising when Continuous Assessment (CA) is grafted onto established pedagogic practices. It focuses on three issues: teachers' restricted understandings of assessment, teachers' emphasis on criteria that demonstrate concern with social control, and some of the problems connected with peer assessment. Two vignettes derived from fieldwork associated with a project to improve the quality of primary education are used to raise the issues. We argue that the development of desired practices is hampered above all by tacit values in tension with those underpinning the new curriculum. These values, together with the complexity of curriculum design, create serious problems of manageability and interpretation, which can only be addressed through detailed interactive in-service training, aimed at reconceptualising teachers' notions of assessment.     

Metaphor and Totem: Exploring and evaluating prior experiential learning

The evaluation and recognition of prior experiential learning is now well established. A significant issue in such evaluations has been the centrality of the learner and his/her empowerment in the educational process. However, most models of evaluation require equivalency between the unique experiences of the subject and existing course analogues. In these models evaluation is based on metaphor, on finding varying degrees of similarity between the experience being assessed and currently existing academic structures. The present paper calls for a richer perspective to be taken in assessing prior experiential learning with particular interest being seen in the notion of totemism as characterised by anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. A replacement of metaphor by totemism may restore power, ownership and centrality of the experience to the candidate for assessment, while allowing evaluators an opportunity to engage in a novel but authentic articulation of the underlying academic equivalency of the experience.     

Interlibrary loan and commercial document supply: Finding the right fit

This study examined the cost and performance of six commercial document suppliers accessible via OCLC, and comapared their service to that of traditional interlibrary loan (ILL). Results indicated that, while commercial firms cannot be recommended as a wholesale replacement for ILL, they can add much-needed flexibility to a library's overall plan for document delivery.     

Developing a general practice library: a collaborative project between a GP and librarian

The authors report on a self‐completed questionnaire study from a North Yorkshire based general practice regarding the information needs of its clinicians. The work was carried out with a particular focus on the practice library, and the findings identified that a new approach to maintaining and developing the library was needed. The literature regarding the information needs of primary care clinicians and the role of practice libraries is considered, and compared to those of the clinicians at the practice. Discussion follows on how a collaborative project was set up between the practice and a librarian based at the local NHS Trust library in order to improve the existing practice library. Difficulties encountered and issues unique to the project are explored, including training implications presented by the implementation of electronic resources. Marketing activities implemented are discussed, how the library will operate in its new capacity, and how ongoing support and maintenance of the library will be carried out. It is concluded that although scepticism still exists regarding librarian involvement in practice libraries, collaboration between clinicians and librarians is an effective approach to the successful development and maintenance of a practice library, and recommendations are therefore made for similar collaborative work.