Virtual realities in Brobdingnag and Lilliput: gulfs and bridges between large and small publishers

This article argues that the trend towards larger and larger publishing conglomerates is happening in parallel with apparently paradoxical changes in attitudes and approaches towards work and the organization of work. These changes, include for example remote working and the increasingly powerful potential of ‘outsourcing’. Looking at a publishing environment now populated mainly by very large and very small companies, the article suggests a symbiotic relationship between these giants and pygmies. It then looks at major characteristics of small publishers and how such companies can exploit the advantages of smallness to survive and succeed. The specific case of IP Publishing Ltd is used to illustrate some options for small publishers, including their opportunity to operate as ‘virtual’ companies. Finally, the article suggests that small companies can be useful to large corporations as indicators of change.     

What makes students satisfied? A discussion and analysis of the UK’s national student survey

This paper analyses data from the National Students Survey, determining which groups of students expressed the greatest levels of satisfaction. We find students registered on clinical degrees and those studying humanities to be the most satisfied, with those in general engineering and media studies the least. We also find contentment to be higher among part-time students, and significantly higher among Russell group and post-1992 universities. We further investigate the sub-areas that drive overall student satisfaction, finding teaching and course organisation to be the most important aspects, with resources and assessment and feedback far less relevant. We then develop a multi-attribute measure of satisfaction which we argue produces a more accurate and more stable reflection of overall student satisfaction than that based on a single question.     

Student engagement in the educational interface: understanding the mechanisms of student success

Student success and retention continue to be of concern for higher education institutions. Wider participation, combined with lower completion rates for non-traditional students, highlights the need for new ways of understanding the student experience to ground policy and practice. This article provides this insight by drawing together a number of key constructs to refine a recent framework of student engagement. We argue that the transition metaphor, focusing on the first year, is limited because it depicts differences between students and institutions as both transient and temporal. Instead, we use a cultural lens to introduce the educational interface as a metaphor for the individual psychosocial space within which institutional and student factors combine and student engagement in learning occurs. Incorporating the interface into the existing framework of student engagement makes three contributions to our understanding of the student experience. First, the educational interface is a tangible way of representing the complex interactions between students and institutions, and how those interactions influence engagement. Second, the refined framework highlights four specific psychosocial constructs: self-efficacy, emotions, belonging and well-being, which, we contend, are critical mechanisms for mediating the interactions between student and institutional characteristics and student engagement and success. Finally, the refined framework helps to explain why some students with demographic characteristics associated with lower completion rates are retained and do go on to successfully complete their studies, while similar others do not. These three contributions, the interface, the key constructs within it being mediating mechanisms and their explanatory utility, provide focus for the design and implementation of curricula and co-curricular initiatives aimed at enhancing student success and retention, and importantly to evaluate the impact of these interventions.     

Subject indexing of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy in MEDLINE and NAHL.

Rehabilitation professionals need access to current journal literature for research and patient care. Using the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, subject headings from the MEDLINE and NAHL files are compared to determine coincidence and numbers of headings. Based on the study findings, an information retrieval plan is suggested that librarians may use in assisting rehabilitation personnel in effective use of Index Medicus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health, and their online counter-parts.