Waves of (Dis)Satisfaction: Effects of the Numerus Clausus system in Portugal

Access to higher education in Portugal is governed by a quota system (numerus clausus). The purpose of this article is to answer two questions: First, how does the numerus clausus system shape the demand for medical studies? Second, how do non-enrolled medical candidates influence the global allocation system and generate waves of dissatisfaction? The results show that students who do not succeed in entering medicine register in other programmes, such as pharmacy, veterinary medicine and dental studies, generating a first wave of dissatisfaction. Because students who are not placed in medicine occupy a large share of the places available in those other programmes, the wave of dissatisfaction propagates, with students being pushed to other programmes, especially biology and biochemistry. This process has also been analysed from a spatial perspective. Apparently, when students are competing to obtain a study place in a programme with prestige and good professional career perspectives such as medicine moving to a more peripheral region becomes more frequent.     

Building student trust in online learning environments

As online learning continues to gain widespread attention and thrive as a legitimate alternative to classroom instruction, educational institutions and online instructors face the challenge of building and sustaining student trust in online learning environments. The present study represents an attempt to address the challenge by identifying the social and technical factors that can likely induce or influence students’ perception about the trustworthiness of an online course and integrating the factors into a socio-technical framework that can be empirically validated. The methodology used and the data obtained from a university-wide survey conducted in an American university are reported in this article. Feedback from students with disabilities was further investigated, and the result has important implications for our understanding of disabled students’ acceptance for online learning.     

Engaging students in learning: findings from a study of project-led education

This paper reports on findings from a three-year study of project-based learning implemented in the first year of the Industrial Engineering and Management programme, at the University of Minho, Portugal. This particular model was inspired on project-led education (PLE), following Powell and Weenk's [2003. Project-Led Engineering Education. Utrecht: Lemma] work. It aims to analyse students’ perceptions of PLE as a learning device and its implications for faculty and students’ role in teaching and learning. Data collection took place in two phases through individual surveys and focus groups to students. Findings suggest the importance of PLE as a device to enhance meaningful learning and provide evidence from students that it helps to increase their engagement in learning. Implications of PLE for faculty and students role in teaching and learning will be discussed in the paper.     

Interlibrary Loan Meets Six Sigma: The University of Arizona Library's Success Applying Process Improvement

In 2004, the University of Arizona Library Document Delivery Team embarked on a strategic project to assess the service quality and cost of filling interlibrary loan journal article borrowing requests. The Document Delivery Team utilized a Six Sigma Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control process improvement method. Improvements that were implemented as a result of this study led to increased satisfaction, decreased turnaround time, and lower cost per delivered article. Customer satisfaction surveys were utilized to discover customer expectations and requirements and to evaluate the effect of improvements on the customer experience. Measurement of internal business processes and cost analysis tools were used to determine cost savings.     

Annual Review of Work in Newspaper and Periodical History

Dynamics of the Pictured Page: representing the nation in the ‘Illustrated London News’, 1842–1852 Peter W. Sinnema, 1998 Aldershot, UK, Ashgate pp.231

American Photojournalism Comes of Age Michael L. Carlebach, 1998 Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press pp.224

Media Technology and Society. A history: from the telegraph to the Internet Brian Winston, 1998 London, Routledge pp. xiv, 374

On Television and Journalism Pierre Bourdieu, 1998 Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, trans. London, Pluto Press pp.97

A Journalism Reader Michael Bromley and Tom O'Malley, eds, 1997 London and New York, Routledge pp. xix, 394

Ulster Loyalism and the British Media Alan F. Parkinson, 1998 Dublin, Four Courts Press pp. 184

William Randolph Hearst: the early years 1863–1910 Ben Proctor, 1998 New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press pp. xiv + 345

Health and British Magazines in the Nineteenth Century E.M. Palmegiano, 1998 Maryland, Scarecrow Press pp. 296

The War Correspondents: the Crimean War Andrew Lambert and Stephen Badsey, 1994 Stroud, UK, Sutton Publishing pp. 335 including index

News from the Front: war correspondents on the Western Front, 1914–18 Martin J. Farrar, 1998 Stroud, UK, Sutton Publishing pp. 238 including index     

Navigating the Maze: Sources for press historians

Television history channels and programming have seen considerable growth in recent years, yet empirical research on television history audiences remains limited. This essay argues that media history scholars need better to understand what happens when audiences consume television history, examining the critical debates concerning the genre's specific modalities of rendering the past on screen before exploring what opportunities and problems it affords viewers. The essay draws on original qualitative, empirical research on audiences of historical reality television through a specific, small-scale case study of BBC Wales' Coal House at War (Indus 2008). It argues for the need to retain a dual focus upon such programming's historical content and its televisuality if we are to appreciate the intricacies of viewers' cultural consumption. The essay concludes by demonstrating that audiences' own oral and written responses to television history reveal something of how people, situated in their specific times and places, understand both their past and their present.     

Librarians and Graphic Design: Preparation,Roles, and Desired Support

Librarians often become de facto graphic designers for their libraries, taking responsibility for designing signage, handouts, brochures, web pages, and many other promotional, instructional, and wayfinding documents. However, the majority of librarians with graphic design responsibilities are not trained as graphic designers. This exploratory research study surveyed librarians to determine their graphic design training and preparation for their assumed design duties as well as the support and training they desire. Results from this study can be used by library administrators when providing support for librarians with graphic design duties.     

Urban Youth's Perspectives on Flash Mobs

Flash mobs are new, emerging, and evolving social phenomena that have recently been associated with youth violence in the US cities. The current study explores how youth understand flash mobs through focus groups conducted in Kansas City, Missouri (a site of violent youth flash mobs). Results indicate that youth have varying familiarity with flash mobs and define them in different ways; that youth perceive youth boredom to be the most frequent cause of problems with flash mobs; that youth connect ongoing social disorder with the violence associated with flash mobs; and that while social media are facilitators of flash mobs, flash mobs have their roots in youth activities that have been going on for generations (e.g., hanging out in groups and cruising). Results illustrate the importance of conducting formative research with youth, particularly about emergent phenomena, when developing interventions and communication campaigns aimed at reducing youth violence.     

Examining the factor structure of the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale—Revised

The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure of the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale—Revised (FCCERS-R) in high-stakes contexts. The results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed three dimensions of quality on the FCCERS-R: (1) Activities/Materials, (2) Language/Interaction, and (3) Organization. This study also explored whether abridged versions of the FCCERS-R could serve as a proxy for the full instrument. In addition to subsets of FCCERS-R items created from the factor structure, purposively and randomly chosen item subsets were created. The purposively chosen subsets included 6-, 9-, and 12-item scales comprised of the items with the highest factor loading across the three factors, whereas the randomly chosen subsets consisted of 12 items. Results of a discriminant analysis showed that the factor subsets were poorer proxies for the total FCCERS-R score than were the other subsets, which demonstrated comparable internal consistencies and discriminant power as the full FCCERS-R when classifying homes into general quality categories. Implications for adopting shorter versions of the FCCERS-R are discussed.