Faculty Development through Computer Awareness

Although the use of microcomputers and their associated software programmes has the potential to help faculty work more efficiently, their use is not yet as widespread as it might be and many faculty members are still unaware of how they might use computers both to facilitate their own research and report writing and as an adjunct to their teaching. Efforts to encourage greater usage of computers which emphasise the acquisition of appropriate skills only, in many instances appear to have limited long-term effectiveness. A multi-dimensional model for the promotion of educational change has been developed and tested in a stafl development programme to promote the awareness and use of computers to assist faculty at a large Australian institute of technology. The beginnings of the model and the programme are described together with the results of an initial post-programme survey. These represent the preliminaly findings of a longitudinal study of effective models for the promotion of educational innovation in higher education. The initial results suggest implications both for the teaching of computer awareness and for the building of an effective theory of innovative change in higher education [1].     

Designing and Implementing a European Integrated Training Programme: a Model for Integrated Training in Europe

In June 1990 a conference took place in the Politecnico di Torinowhich was organised by the politecnico, the Brighton Polytechnic, and the Associazione per la Scuola per Esperti delta Produzione with the sponsorship of the British Council. The aim of the conference was to discuss the results obtained after a full four years’ of activity of the school and the graduation of the first group of students. During the conference a paper was presented to illustrate the genesis and activity of the school during the first cycle of life: I think that this paper is of interest for the readers of the SEFI review

We have created the school with the purpose of facilitating the exchange of students between different countries looking ahead for Europe after 1992. The project has the aim to consider the Common Market and a unified Europe in the frame of each national culture and traditions and to give to the students an international approach to the problems. In addition, we would like to underline that the school leads to the joint awards of BSc(Hons) European Business with Technology and Diploma di Esperto della Produzione Industriale.     

Globalisation and Internationalism: Democratic prospects for world education

The logic of globalisation contrasts markedly with that of internationalism. The latter, with its intrinsically democratic foundation, looks to a world ordered by structures supportive of that functionalism which is embedded in accountability. Globalisation, by contrast, implies few logical imperatives in favour of accountability, but rather looks to the pursuit of interest on the global level through the operation of unfettered capitalism. Implications for the sustaining of multilateral post-war arrangements are explored and analysed particularly in terms of war, its causes and its prevention. The notion of peace as human rights in action leads to the consideration of multilateral agenda in education, and the stances in a globalising world of the key multilaterals in education-UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank-with conclusions put forward concerning their relative grounding in the logic of internationalism or, alternatively, in the logic of globalisation.     

Measures for inclusion: coping with the challenge of visual impairment and blindness in university undergraduate level language learning

This paper develops from previous research ( Orsini‐Jones et al., 2005 ) and reports on the experience of three students, two visually impaired and one blind, reading languages at Coventry University, on the adjustments made to meet their needs and on the challenges encountered on their learning journey both from their point of view and from the point of view of the staff involved. It focuses on three students' experience of their languages course and considers the challenges they met in each of their years of study. It concludes by evaluating these students' language learning journey at Coventry University, reporting on their feedback on their experience and on whether or not they feel that staff have successfully catered for their individual needs. It is argued here, as in the previous related work ( Orsini‐Jones, et al., 2005 ) that ‘there still exists some tension between the reasonable anticipatory adjustments that lecturers can put in place and the necessary ad hoc ones that will be needed for a disabled student with very specific needs’.