谈新形势下高校图书馆的信息服务

信息时代高校图书馆应加快适应由传统服务环境向网络化服务环境的转变，积极地为教学和科研提供特色服务。更好地搞好特色资源建设，开发利用网上信息资源，开展用户教育，以适应时代发展的需求。     

Localized Representation of Formative Assessment in China: A Regional Study from a Sociocultural Perspective

Formative assessment originated and developed in a Western context. With its function of learning improvement being evidenced in research, formative assessment has been adopted in assessment initiatives in multiple contexts including that of China. Research, however, reveals that formative assessment as implemented in Chinese contexts is by no means equivalent to what is understood and implemented in the West; rather, in many cases, it is decontextualised and recontextualised, or culturally appropriated. This paper presents findings of a study which examined the culturally appropriated representation of formative assessment within eight universities in a mid-western province of China. Senior administrators in each university were interviewed face-to-face and individually to fulfill three purposes: (1) To clarify understandings of formative assessment in the area of college English education; (2) To explore the existing gap between formative assessment principles and their representation in College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR), and the gap between formative assessment initiatives at the national level and local contexts; and (3) To distill implications for policy-borrowing and effective implementation in the Chinese context.     

关注高校贫困生:问题、原因与对策

20世纪 90年代中期以来 ,我国高校贫困生人数和比例迅速增长 ,贫困生问题日益突出。这不仅严重影响了贫困生的正常生活、学业 ,而且引发越来越多的家庭和社会问题 ,制约了我国高等教育和基础教育事业的健康发展。本文在对当前我国高校贫困生问题的现状和原因进行深入分析的基础上 ,从政府、高校和社会三个层面提出了切实解决贫困生问题的对策 ,其中政府统筹、政策导向 ,尽快完善贷学金制度是解决问题的根本。     

‘Social Skills’: Following a Travelling Concept from American Academic Discourse to Contemporary Danish Welfare Institutions

The article traces the origin and development of the concept of social skills in first and foremost American academic discourse. As soon as the concept of social skills was coined, the concern for people lacking such skills started and has been on the increase ever since (now sharing public attention with related concepts such as self-control, emotional intelligence and empathy). After the analysis of the academic history of the concept follows an examination of the implementation of a range of assessment instruments and training programmes related to social skills (and lack hereof) in contemporary Danish welfare institutions (more specifically, day nurseries and schools, employment and penal services). The analysis forwarded in the article thus demonstrates how an intellectual idea may develop and travel - and on its journey connect to pre-existing cultural logics and societal concerns. The idea of social skills has through its development been made uncontroversial – everybody wants to be skilful. The concept does, however, convey an individualistic view on social life and imposes a reflexivity over own performance on the participants. Further, its normative character contributes to a problematization of those who are perceived to lack these skills.     

Breaking up is hard to do: the resilience of the rock group as an organizational form for creating music

Though there is a long tradition of band members quitting the group or taking a hiatus, the rock group as an organization to produce music continues to be both popular and economically viable. The research question addressed in this paper is whether or not it is a good idea to quit or take a hiatus from the group. We begin with a discussion of the framework for understanding why groups are formed and why they may be difficult to keep together. We then discuss differences between groups in the decade of the 1960s versus today. We argue that there is something unique about the output of the group even with the changes in the structure of contracts, compensation, and consumer focus on the artist that explain the resilience of the rock band as an organizational form within which to create music. We compare the charting success of bands that have members leave the group with the charting success of the members who left the group. We identified the groups in five representative years: 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005. We then analyzed the entire Billboard Hot 100 charting careers of those groups and the artists who quit those groups. Our main finding is that when charting success is divided equally among members, going solo pays off—there is a clear economic rationale because solo acts have greater average charting success than the original bands they started in. The other ensuing side projects: duos, collaborations, and other groups are not as lucrative as the original bands. These findings are valid for members of charting groups from each of the 5 years examined. Despite the difficulties in keeping a rock band together, there are fewer band breakups today and remaining with the group generally results in a longer and more productive charting career. Thus, the rock group remains an important organization for producing contemporary music. However, there remains a compelling incentive to go solo. Superstars may benefit from solo projects, but for the average, non-superstar group member, in many circumstances it is better for the band to stay together if the income is divided equally.     

The impacts of fundraising periods and geographic distance on financing music production via crowdfunding in Brazil

We conduct an analysis of 1835 pledges to 10 music production projects hosted on the largest Brazilian crowdfunding platform, namely the Catarse Web site, and we assess the relation between the fundraising accumulation period, the donor–entrepreneur distance and the propensity of donors to back projects. Our results suggest a significantly negative association between distance and the value of capital pledged to projects, which is consistent with the notion that the entrepreneur’s network of close contacts might play a central role in funding. Furthermore, our results contradict the idea that crowdfunding reduces the inhibiting effect of donor–entrepreneur distance. In addition, the results show that a long project exposure is associated with higher values of pledges. These results suggest practical implications for the study of crowdfunding as a financing platform. This study contributes to the literature on the use of crowdfunding as an alternative funding source in a major emerging market.     

Does the long tail really favor small publishers?

A growing body of literature is devoted to testing the reality of the “long-tail” phenomenon. This literature is mostly, if not exclusively, focused on the impact of Internet on the distribution of sales by product. However, the long tail also raises the issue of a possible change in the usual market structure of cultural industries: an oligopoly with a competitive fringe. To our knowledge, no paper addresses the following question: If the long-tail effect does exist, is it of more benefit to small or dominant publishers? The aim of this paper was to address this issue in the context of the French publishing industry. Our main findings are as follows: (1) the market concentration of the French book industry is lower online than offline and (2) the difference in concentration between the two channels of distribution tended to widen over the period 2004–2010. Strategies adopted by leading publishers on the Web do not allow them to maintain the market share obtained with bricks-and-mortar retailers. Furthermore, we show that the market share lost by dominant firms is captured by small publishers online and by medium-sized publishers in conventional stores.