The Feeling of ‘Silverland’

This is a discussion of the group of journalists working in and around Virginia City during the 1860s and 1870s, when the area became the world centre of the silver mining industry. The so-called Sagebrush writers reported on mining prospects for readerships locally and internationally, as well as writing anecdotes and stories about the life of the highly transient local communities generated by the search for silver. Theirs is writing characterised both by caution in responding to the mining industry and by an aggressive humour in depicting the local life of a cosmopolitan instant city. These newspaper writers have been considered in the local context of the Nevadan frontier. Here, I discuss their engagement with a complex and internationally networked industry, and also their address to the collectivities of the local population.     

Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians by Lesley Ellen Harris

Successful implementation of standards like Shared E-Resource Understanding (SERU), Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources (COUNTER), Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI), and I² (Institutional Identifiers) can simplify and improve your ability to manage your e-resources. Other initiatives like the Journal Usage Factor, EigenFactor^?, and Metrics from Scholarly Usage of Resources (MESUR) are envisioned to become the basis for future tools to evaluate the impact of scholarly information. This article will provide a brief survey of current and future standards and initiatives related to e-resources and discuss why they should matter to you.     

Letter from the Editor

Getting help in understanding how to use and interpret a new information system is a crucial organizational and individual resource. Indeed, both informal and formal sources of information technology help are expensive and necessary, but largely unidentified, unmanaged, and underresearched. This study proposes that two types of factors influence the formation of information technology helping relationships: individual and structural. Based on a survey of employees in an organization implementing a new workstation‐based customer database system, the study compares influences on being sought as an informal source of IT help, and on types of help (individual or positional) that one seeks. One individual factor (some forms of computer expertise) and most structural factors (especially measures of employees’ perceived socialization, task interdependence, and communication networks) exerted weak but significant influences on employees’ IT helping relationships.     

E-Readers: New Opportunities for Hospital Patients and Staff

E-readers provide an opportunity for hospital librarians to reach out to staff and patients with new approaches to library lending. Librarians in four Veterans Health Administration medical centers are using e-readers to enlarge their scope of service in unique ways. The libraries of VA hospitals in Minneapolis, Des Moines, Tampa, and Philadelphia have developed several ways to reach out to new library users.     

Can Schools Change? I. Outcomes at Six London Secondary Schools

Abstract

Much work on school effectiveness has been based on cross‐sectional comparisons between schools. Longitudinal studies of schools over time may complement this approach. Changes in both school practice and pupil outcomes were monitored in a five year study of change in six London secondary schools. This paper reports on changes in outcomes, illustrating marked improvements in some areas. A companion paper (Ouston, Maughan & Rutter, in press) explores associated changes in school practice.     

Living action research: authoring identities through yaya projects

This article examines the authors’ experiences living action research through an art therapy activity known as YaYa that involved creating and sharing visual representations of themselves as beginning researchers. This activity was part of a graduate course on education action research and students in the course found the activity transformative. The article first explores how four students in the course created and presented their YaYas. It goes on to discuss how the activity provided opportunities for students to imagine and re-imagine authored identities in the figured worlds of teaching and research. The role that visual arts play in transforming consciousness is also used to help understand the powerful impact of the YaYa activity. The YaYa as a visual artistic process opened students up to meaning-making and reconstructing identities that involved not only the mind, but also the emotions, body and spirit. The authors claim that learning action research can itself be a process of action research, and that living such practice is about involving and imagining the whole self in multiple figured worlds.     

Diversity in Sport? Utilizing the Business Literature to Devise a Comprehensive Framework of Diversity Initiatives

Diversity in sport, especially in relation to those who hold positions of power in interscholastic, intercollegiate, and professional sport, seems to be some what of an oxymoron. There is ample evidence that those who are not similar to the status quo that has long dominated such sport settings (i.e., white, heterosexual, male) are far less represented within positions of power in sport than they are in the population at large (Acosta & Carpenter, 1996; Washington. 1998). Furthermore, some suggest that the maintenance of the status quo goes beyond demographics and that homologous reproduction exists in attitudes. values, and leadership priorities among those in leadership positions in sport (Boutlier & San Giovanni, 1994). Because diversity and valuing diversity have received a greal deal of attention in the corporate world, this paper utilizes the business literature in an attempt to obtain a fresh perspective regarding the lack of diversity in one of the most criticized areas of sport, Division IA intercollegiate athletic organizations. A review of the literature resulted in a framework comprised of three dimensions: 1) noncompliance/compliance. 2) reactive diversity management; and 3) proactive diversity management. The framework is presented and described and its application to kinesiology, physical education. and sport is provided.     

‘Awakening the mind’: the educational philosophy of William Godwin

I have advocated the cause of technical education for thirty years, for I have seen how, slowly but surely, year by year, and step by step, the Germans more than any other nation, have made advances, solely through the superior instruction of their people. (A.J. Mundella, Hansard CCCXVIII, 9 August 1887, 1849)     

Professional development for online university teaching

Almost every higher education institution is challenged to develop increasing numbers of staff to teach online or blended modes of learning. The process needs to be rapid, cost-effective and lead directly to practical outcomes. From our experience, we had little time, opportunity or the need to start from scratch, and we chose to adopt and adapt a course that was based on a well-rehearsed and respected pedagogical model. We offer our experience to date as a case study with some extracted principles for others to explore and follow. We discuss the value of contextualization, incremental innovation, and mentoring of online convenors. This article will be of interest to those seeking to provide effective professional development routes for large numbers of staff.     

Exploiting Online Interactivity to Enhance Assignment Development and Feedback in Distance Education

Networking provides the means to deliver enhancements to assignment development and feedback which have not previously been possible for ODL courses. This paper describes the experimental introduction and evaluation of network delivered model answers and peer review as additional formative feedback on assessment. The enhancements assisted students in attuning themselves to the writing demands of the course, and there may be particular times in a course when they are most of value. Use of a network allowed for delivery within a controlled time frame, whilst providing an interactive environment for debate on alternative perspectives.