An examination of institutional policy on copyright and access to research resources in Uganda***

Education and research are the cornerstones of Africa's socioeconomic and political development. Yet several barriers stand in the way of Africa's education and research institutions in realizing their full potential. This paper examines copyright as a barrier in the access and use of electronic resources in Africa's education and research contexts. This paper addresses this policy question by examining the extent to which the draft policy on research and intellectual property rights management of Makerere University advances access to resources and the open sharing of knowledge. Based on the critical analysis of Makerere's policy, this paper notes that openness should trump other institutional interests in the copyright system. The position taken in the paper is that institutional policies should advance open sharing of information and knowledge (internal or external to the institution). Short-term legal remedies are proposed based on various Creative Commons' licenses that are designed to advance openness within existing national copyright statutes. Long-term remedies suggested involve reforming national and international laws and instruments to advance openness including protecting existing provisions for education and research. Protection of education and research activities can be attained by not simply availing the existing exceptions and limitations but also precluding statutory exceptions and limitations from being overridden by contractual licenses. The proposed short and long-term remedies are expected to be addressed by institutional policies to facilitate in the access and use of e-resources (and other research and educational resources).     

Print Media

Dick Lupoff and Don Thompson All in Color For a Dime (Arlington House, 81 Centre Ave., New Rochelle, New York 10801, $11.95, or $7.95 from Nostalgia Book Club)

Warren Chappell's A Short History of the Printed Word (Knopf, $12.50)

Turner Catledge's My Life and The Times (Harper & Row, $10.00)

Hodding Corter's Their Words Were Bullets: The Southern Press in War, Reconstruction, and Peace (University of Georgia Press, 04:00)

Winzola McLendon and Scottie Smith's Don't Quote Me: Washington Newswomen and the Power society (Dutton, $5.95)     

Public Education about Memory and Aging: Objective Findings and Subjective Insights

Public education about memory was evaluated with a controlled intervention trial. Participants in group 1 (n = 273) attended a symposium covering memory-related topics and received a magazine with identical information. Group 2 (n = 141) only received the magazine. Participants were nonprofessionals and professionals aged between 29 and 88. Outcome measures were knowledge about memory and subjective experience. For nonprofessionals, knowledge increment was higher in group 1 than in group 2, indicating that an objective increment in knowledge is present in nonprofessionals after attending the symposium. No knowledge change occurred in professionals. Furthermore, participants were very satisfied after both interventions, even when knowledge transfer was limited.     

Constructing Altitude Training Standards for the 1968 Mexico Olympics: The Impact of Ideals of Equality and Uncertainty

Today training at altitude is associated with better performances at lower altitudes by the majority of distance runners aspiring to world-class performance. The purpose of this article is to give an account of how certain altitudes and time-spans became a procedural standard of this type of training in spite of scientific controversies. In connection with the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City altitude was a particular pressing physiological problem to be solved. Altitude acclimatization for athletes competing in Mexico City and standards for altitude training, I argue, was a result of the interplay between a ‘procedural standard’ and important ‘design standards’ in athletics where ideals of uncertainty and equality were important. Without the new standards competitions in endurance athletics in the Olympics of 1968 would have been perceived as highly unfair.     

NewLink with Computers

The above authors, all from the Department of Adult Education, Nottingham University, have developed computerbased education and training for disabled adults in six centres in the East Midlands. In its service to the students – if not in its resourcing – it is a model for others to follow.     

Improving workplace-based assessment and feedback by an E-portfolio enhanced with learning analytics

Electronic portfolios (E-portfolios) are crucial means for workplace-based assessment and feedback. Although E-portfolios provide a useful approach to view each learner’s progress, so far options for personalized feedback and potential data about a learner’s performances at the workplace often remain unexploited. This paper advocates that E-portfolios enhanced with learning analytics, might increase the quality and efficiency of workplace-based feedback and assessment in professional education. Based on a 5-phased iterative design approach, an existing E-portfolio environment was enhanced with learning analytics in professional education. First, information about crucial professional activities for professional domains and suited assessment instruments were collected (phase 1). Thereafter probabilistic student models were defined (phase 2). Next, personalized feedback and visualization of the personal development over time were developed (phase 3). Then the prototype of the E-portfolio—including the student models and feedback and visualization modules—were implemented in professional training-programs (phase 4). Last, evaluation cycles took place and 121 students and 30 supervisors from five institutes for professional education evaluated the perceived usefulness of the design (phase 5). It was concluded that E-portfolios with learning analytics were perceived to assist the development of students’ professional competencies and that the design is only successful when developed and implemented through the eyes of the users. Feedback and assessment methods based upon learning analytics can stimulate learning at the workplace in the long run. Practical, technological and ethical challenges are discussed.     

Reflections on developing an offshore,action research/learning-based Ph.D. program

In this paper, the authors describe their experience of establishing an action research/learning-based doctoral program in Singapore by an Australian university, which was designed to help managers get academic accreditation while solving workplace problems. The program was designed by four managers working in Singapore and their supervisors. These managers had completed a Ph.D. program using action learning/action research in their workplace under the supervision of Australian academics. The paper describes the various challenges faced by the candidates, supervisors and administrators in developing and implementing the new program.