Weblogs for organizational knowledge sharing and creation: a comparative case study

The use of weblogs as an information and communication technology for knowledge sharing and creation is a novel social and organizational phenomenon. In this paper, we identify and explain contingency factors that influence the successful use of weblogs for knowledge sharing and creation. We start from the assumption that successful knowledge management requires the motivation of people to engage in knowledge-related communication. Based on a comparison of two antithetic cases, we identify and discuss four contingency factors that directly influence the motivational impact of weblogs on organizational knowledge sharing and creation.     

Managing Quality Assurance in Higher Education: a Scottish Example

This article outlines the principal parameters of the quality debate in higher education and considers issues and developments from the standpoint of the different key stakeholders. The analysis will be illustrated by the experiences of the University of Strathclyde in developing transnational policies and procedures for the quality assurance of awards and programmes which it provides or validates. Internally, the University of Strathclyde operates within an ethos of academic and financial devolution to its five Faculties. Central steering has been targeted primarily at negotiating understandings and agreements and at promoting reflection, evaluation, monitoring, and the dissemination of good practice. Applying that philosophy to transnational education has presented some interesting challenges. These are discussed, including the development of agreements to guide validated arrangements and modifications to evaluation and monitoring for programmes delivered at a distance. These developments are now an integral part of the approach taken by Strathclyde to the management of quality assurance of educational programmes.     

Control–value appraisals and academic emotions: An intensive longitudinal examination of reciprocal effects

This study examined the reciprocal relation between lesson-specific perceived cognitive appraisals and academic emotions on an intra-individual level. A daily diary study was conducted using a sample of 266 Chinese Han students (Grades 7–8; 56.8% boys; M_age = 13.70, SD_age = 0.52) during 10 mathematics lessons in 2022. Standardized questionnaires were also administered to these students before the daily diary study. The results of the dynamic structural equation modeling revealed significant reciprocal relations between cognitive appraisals and academic emotions within early adolescents and highlighted the role of emotions in guiding cognitive appraisals. Additionally, the study identified similarities and differences in the inter-individual relation between appraisals and emotions across self-reported questionnaires and daily diary measures.     

Retroactive revaluation of an odor-taste association

Rats showed an increase or decrease in preference for an aqueous odor conditioned stimulus (CS) presented in compound with a palatable (sucrose) or unpalatable (quinine) taste unconditioned stimulus (US), respectively. Four experiments then studied the consequences for odor preference of presenting water in the context where the odor-taste compound had previously occurred (i.e., no-CS-no-US experience). Exposure to that context increased the preference for the odor associate of sucrose and decreased preference for the odor associate of quinine. The increased preference for the odor associate of sucrose was contingent on reexposure to the context where the odor-sucrose compound had occurred (i.e., retroactive revaluation) and was reduced by preexposure to the context where the odor-sucrose compound was to occur (i.e., latent inhibition of the context). The retroactive revaluation of within-event learning caused by exposures to the associated context is discussed in terms of (1) the modified version of the SOP model (Wagner, 1981) proposed by Dickinson and Burke (1996) and (2) the comparator model (Miller & Matzel, 1988).     

Solving the Self-Transformation Puzzle: The Role of Aspiration

If the received views on self-transformation in philosophical literature are correct, then either self-transformation (1) is caused by forces beyond oneself and beyond one's control, (2) is not rational to pursue, or (3) does not ever really happen. In this essay, James Gordon highlights the philosophical puzzle known as the “self-transformation puzzle,” as raised by Ryan Kemp, who suggests that transformation of the sort educators are interested in cannot be self-caused: it is either something that happens to a person, or something that, if agent guided, is not full-fledged transformation. Next, Gordon turns to an alternative take on the puzzle that tries to recast the conceptual terrain and offer a new way of thinking about self-transformation, namely, the “aspirational” account of self-change offered by Agnes Callard. He argues that Callard's aspirational account of transformation shows that at least one of the premises of Kemp's argument is false. Finally, he suggests several ways that those interested in transformative education might appeal to the concept of aspiration to revise their educational practices.     

Marital conflict and finances among Filipinas in Australia

Differences in finance practices emerged as a major theme in interviews conducted by The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health among the Filipina community in Queensland. Women's decisions to migrate and marry Australian men are influenced by their perceptions of relative wealth of their future husband, and their presumed enhanced ability to provide support for Filipino kin. However, because of unrealised financial expectations, issues related to the remittance of money to family in The Philippines, the husband's disapproval of his wife's participation in the paid workforce, and financial practices such as the management of the household finances and roles with money, finance is a constant point of tension in many Filipina–Australian marriages. It seems that in migrating to Australia, many Filipinas exchange one type of money problem for another — one that they rarely foresee.