Making sound decisions: A framework for judging the worth of your data

In our daily lives, we encounter decision points on a continuous basis. To maximize the likelihood of successful decisions, organizational members must draw on relevant, reliable, valid, and complete data. Sometimes copious data are available, but an overabundance can make it difficult to judge the worth of the data. This article presents a data evaluation framework that provides guidance for decision makers to evaluate and determine the potential effectiveness of the data they will use to inform their decisions.     

The quest for visibility of scientific journals in Latin America

This article studies the strategies for visibility of some of the most outstanding publications from Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia, and the relationship between open access and the visibility of these journals. By means of in‐depth interviews with the editors, we explored their indexing and circulation strategies and examined certain organizational and contextual variables that may have helped them to remain in circulation. We also considered whether a combination of electronic publication and open access to the contents of the journals have increased the visibility of science from these developing countries. When these journals were not available electronically, even if they were distributed at no cost, their distribution was necessarily selective, and one could not properly speak of open access; once they were put on the Web, however, they became widely available at no cost to the reader. The editors' views on open access are also explored.     

Quantitative and qualitative evaluation of linguistic input support to a prelingually deaf child with cued speech: A case study

This paper studies the linguistic input attended by a deaf child exposed to cued speech (CS) in the final part of her prelinguistic period (18-24 months). Subjects are the child, her mother, and her therapist. Analyses have provided data about the quantity of input directed to the child (oral input, more than 1,000 words per half-an-hour session; cued ratio, more than 60% of oral input; and attended ratio, more than 55% of oral input), its linguistic quality (lexical variety, grammatical complexity, etc.), and other properties of interaction (child attention and use of spontaneous gestures). Results show that both adults provided a rich linguistic input to the child and that the child attended most of the input that the adults cued. These results might explain the positive linguistic development of children exposed early to CS.     

Cinders in Snow? Indigenous Teacher Identities in Formation

The identity work engaged in by Indigenous teachers1 1. We use the term ‘Indigenous’ here to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in Australian schools, although most of our informants to date are from Victoria, NSW and Queensland, who do not use the term ‘Indigenous’ when identifying themselves and their communities, preferring ‘Aboriginal’, ‘Koori’ or ‘Murri’.. View all notes in school settings is highlighted in a study of Australian Indigenous teachers. The construction of identity in home and community relationships intersects with and can counteract the take up of a preferred identity in the workplace. In this paper we analyse data from interviews with Indigenous teachers, exploring the interplay between culture and identity. We foreground the binary nature of racial assignment in schools, demonstrate how this offers contradictory constructions of identity for Indigenous teachers, and note the effects of history, culture and location in the process of forming a teaching ‘self’.     

EGO‐TRAP: A Mobile Augmented Reality Tool for Science Learning in a Semi‐formal Setting

Abstract EGO‐TRAP is a cellphone‐facilitated interactive narrative game created at the Experimentarium in Copenhagen. Designed to support scientific literacy among students from upper secondary schools, the project is part of a reform that has increased focus on educational methods and alternative learning resources in Denmark since 2005, and that explores the educational potential of museums and science centers outside formal school settings. EGO‐TRAP can be called a “digital narrative” or Augmented Reality (AR)—a digital extension of a physical setting.     

An Air of Sharing. A Format of Open Interviewing in a Joint Nordic Project

The five Nordic countries and their respective quality assurance agencies ¹ 1. EVA, FINHEEC, NOKUT, HSV, and the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of Iceland. have convened annually for over a decade to exchange experiences and discuss issues concerning quality assurance in higher education. In recent years this has resulted in a regional network for the quality assurance agencies (NOQA). During this period, methodological issues have increasingly been emphasised within the network’s activities, and the current article presents and discusses a new format of open interviewing in a setting where the quality assurance work of four higher education institutions were analysed. The openness of the process was the key in providing an opportunity for the higher education institutions to learn from each other.     

Conceptions of quality in four different disciplines

Abstract

The paper is based on a book (written by the author and his colleague Markku Lehikoinen) dealing with definitions of quality and views on the applicability of different methods of quality assessment to four different disciplinary fields: physics, biology, sociology and history. The paper focuses on conceptions and definitions of quality voiced by scholars representing the different disciplines. The study involved semi‐structured in depth interviews with 33 experienced scholars. The disciplines under study were chosen to represent diverse disciplinary cultures, with the aim of finding out about the potential impact of (social and cognitive) cultural characteristics of the disciplines on conceptions of quality. The findings show both common views across disciplinary fields and disciplinary differences.     

The impetus for organisational change: An exploration

Abstract

This paper examines the factors that cause universities to undertake academic change, specifically, changes to achieve more effective teaching and learning. Based on an analysis of 30 reform‐oriented US colleges and universities, it suggests that universities respond to diverse environmental pressures, not solely to external mandates. There is evidence, too, that internal forces within universities can be an impetus for change.     

Language of inclusion and diversity: policy discourses and social practices in Finnish and Norwegian schools

The terrain of inclusion studies in discussed in this paper from the perspective of policy discourses and teachers’ constructions on student diversity. We start by discussing the concept of inclusion from normative and analystic perspectives. We then look at the kinds of discourses that can be found in the Finnish and Norwegian curricula, as well as teachers’ interviews when they talk about their students. On this basis we analyse how the patterns of diversity and inclusion are conceived and constructed; the phenomenon of ‘diversity’, as it is formulated in policy documents and as it is expressed in categories with which teachers operate and act upon in school; and, ‘diversity’ in the context of inclusive practices. We draw from ethnographic studies in Finnish and Norwegian schools; both from mainstream and from special classes.