Using and writing reviews to inform your practice

Reviews are seen as a way of exploiting existing data or research findings more fully and can offer a summarised insight into the current understanding of the evidence. Library and information science (LIS) workers can use reviews to inform their decision-making and service planning. Although the LIS evidence base continues to grow there will frequently be times when no published reviews are available. In these instances, you may consider undertaking your own review. Different types of review require different approaches and, by deciding from the outset what kind of review yours will be, will inform your methodology. Guidelines on writing reviews for the Health Information and Libraries Journal are presented.     

Funded research in communication: A chairperson's perspective

There are several benefits to developing a successful funded research portfolio, as well as several challenges inherent in funded research. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the benefits and challenges of funded research from a department chairperson's perspective. Several issues are addressed: the benefits of extramural funding; strategies for developing and sustaining a department's funded research portfolio; the impact of funding on a department's identity; the impact of a funded research program on the scholarship of a department and its graduate program; the implications of funded research for interdisciplinary cooperation; and various administrative concerns that accompany an active and extensive portfolio of funded research. The goal of this essay is to provide the reader with a more complete understanding of the positive and negative implications of funded research for a communication department.     

The erosion of university independence: Recent Australian experience

This article is concerned with the issue of institutional independence in the Australian university context. It considers why institutional independence is important, maps how independence has been reduced since the late 1960s, discusses factors leading to this erosion of independence, and explores possible university responses. It argues that, while recent cases of government interference give cause for disquiet, there is probably more reason to be troubled about where recent developments might lead and about the ability of universities to withstand and contest further encroachment.     

(Re)beginning and becoming: antiracism and professional development with white practicing teachers

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on an educational foundations-based professional development (PD) curriculum of antiracist conscientization we as two teacher educators designed and implemented with eight white practicing teachers in the Midwestern United States. We first articulate our conception of educational foundations and curriculum theory as a framework for our PD. We briefly review literature on other PD on race in the United States, outline our data sources, and describe the pedagogy and curriculum of RaceWork’s Tripartite Model of race-visible and antiracist praxis. We then highlight, through interview data, the significance of group (relational) accountability and collaborative relationships that supported these teachers’ self-designed antiracist interventions in their own unique school contexts during the 2-year PD experience. An ongoing, relationship-based PD model leading to material antiracist changes and practices points to a need for a broader, more holistic, and contextualized conception of antiracist interventions in U.S. public P12 school contexts, but also one grounded in the notion that in a white supremacist society, we (as race-visible white educators) are always becoming antiracist.     

Improving quantitative volumetric analysis skills in first year university chemistry courses

This paper describes a project in the School of Chemistry at The University of Melbourne. During 1992 thirty hours of videotapes were taken of students doing quantitative volumetric work in first year laboratories. These were viewed to find out what problems students encountered and what interactions they had with other students and with demonstrators. The data were logged on a Hypercard stack and novel visual images were produced to map student activity, both qualitatively and quantitatively. These data contributed to the design of a multimedia learning package which students worked through at the beginning of 1993. Video data of their laboratory performance after this intervention provides evidence of improved performance. Specializations: academic development in the sciences, evaluation of computer-based learning materials. Specializations: physical chemistry, chemical education at tertiary level. Specializations: design and development of computer-based learning materials. Specializations: electrochemistry, general physical chemistry at secondary and tertiary level. Specializations: chemical education at secondary and tertiary level, theoretical chemistry.     

Language and Williams Syndrome: How Intact Is "Intact"?

It has been claimed that Williams syndrome (WS), a rare neurodevelopmental disorder, is characterized by serious cognitive deficits alongside intact language. The syndrome is often used as a prime example of the modularity of an innate faculty for morphosyntactic rules. We challenge this claim and hypothesize that morphosyntax, although surprisingly good given WS level of mental retardation, is by no means intact. We make an initial test of this hypothesis through an analysis of the receptive language of a group of English-speaking WS individuals on a standardized morphosyntactic test. We then present an experimental study of expressive language that examines grammatical gender assignment in French-speaking WS patients. Despite a Verbal Mental Age selected to be higher than the chronological age of the young control group, these people with WS continue even in adulthood to show clear-cut deficits in their production of an aspect of morphosyntax that normal children acquire effortlessly very early. The results of the 2 studies, one focusing on receptive language and the other on expressive language, challenge the notion that comprehension and use of morphosyntactic rules in WS individuals are intact. The within-domain dissociations regarding the use of grammatical gender assignment across several sentence elements and their difficulties in understanding embedded sentences—two quintessentially linguistic skills—suggest that we must rethink the notion of spared, modular, language capacities in Williams syndrome. We conclude that WS language follows a different path to normal acquisition and may turn out to be more like second language learning.