How society publishers can accelerate their transition to open access and align with Plan S

Wellcome, UK Research and Innovation, and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers commissioned Information Power Ltd. to undertake a project to support society publishers to accelerate their transition to open access (OA) in alignment with Plan S and the wider move to accelerate immediate OA. This project is part of a range of activities that cOAlition S partners are taking forward to support the implementation of Plan S principles. The objective of this project was to explore with learned societies a range of potential strategies and business models through which they could adapt and thrive under Plan S. We consulted with society publishers through interviews, surveys, and workshops about the 27 business models and strategies identified during the project. We also surveyed library consortia about their willingness to support society publishers to make the transition to OA. Our key finding is that transformative agreements emerge as the most promising model because they offer a predictable, steady funding stream. We also facilitated pilot transformative agreement negotiations between several society publishers and library consortia. These pilots and a workshop of consortium representatives and society publishers informed the development of an OA transformative agreement toolkit. Our conclusion is that society publishers should consider all the business models this project has developed and should not automatically equate OA with article publication charges.     

Transforming Perceptions of Urban Education: Lessons From Rowan University's Urban Teacher Academy

To be an effective urban educator requires teachers to understand the contextual factors of students, the school, and the community, and their cumulative effects on learning. Urban teacher academies support a better understanding of urban classrooms and challenge stereotypes of the urban context. The focus of this study was to compare participants' perceptions of urban settings before and after 2 weeks spent at an urban teacher academy for high school students.     

Bullying: teachers’ views and school effects

Fifty‐one teachers completed a questionnaire and 20 teachers were interviewed about bullying. The teachers taught at two Outer London schools with high proportions of ethnic minority pupils where pupils had previously reported significantly different incidences of bullying. Analyses of the teachers’ responses indicated that at the school where pupils had reported a higher incidence of bullying, teachers were significantly more likely to perceive behaviour as bullying, observe bullying and have pupils report bullying to them. The majority of teachers interviewed endorsed gender differences in type of bullying. Only a minority of teachers believed that there were clear‐cut bully typologies but most believed that there were typical victim personalities. These results are discussed within a phenomenological approach to bullying.     

STILL WORKING AFTER AGE 70: OLDER PROFESSORS IN ACADEME

The purpose of this interview study was to examine the perceptions and experiences of tenured university professors who continue to work in their career jobs after age 70. The study utilized the case study method to let professors describe in their own voices the personal, professional, and institutional factors in their decision to keep working beyond the conventional retirement age and their plans for the future. The population under investigation was all tenured professors aged 70-74 at a major public research university, the institutions most likely to be impacted by the end of mandatory retirement (Hammond & Morgan, 1991). Content analysis of the interview tapes revealed the following themes: most professors continued to work because they enjoyed it, or felt that it was important to continue their work, perceived the overall atmosphere in their department and the university as positive, felt little institutional pressure to retire, and had no plans to retire. Economic factors played a relatively small role in continuing to work.     

Education in the knowledge-based society: the case of the Philippines

There has been a sustained interest in the contribution of higher education in local, regional and national development in many countries. Along this line is the increasing internationalization and globalization of services to which the higher education sector is anticipated to respond through the updating and modernization of its offerings, changing of its formal structures and methods, policies regarding access, among others. The challenges of higher education in the global context anticipate the internationalization of this sector as a means that can provide an efficient response to and training for the evolving demands of modern society. This article reviews the programmes enacted by the Philippine government in response to the changing context of higher education with the move towards the knowledge-based society as central in policy. Issues relevant to the growing internationalism of education as seen through, among others, related human capital training, the role of research and development (R&D), and the increasing privatization of education as a result of the expansion of higher education will also be discussed.     

SATISFACTION AND ROLE STRAIN AMONG MIDDLE‐AGE AND OLDER REENTRY WOMEN STUDENTS

The major purposes of this study were: (1) to investigate a range of variables associated with satisfaction and strain experienced in the student role by mature (age 35 and over) reentry women students; and (2) to develop and test a model for predicting satisfaction and role strain in mature reentry women students. Questionnaire data were obtained from 141 women 35 years old and over who were enrolled as undergraduates at a major midwestern university. Significant correlates of satisfaction in the student role included: rated helpfulness of professors' attitudes, helpfulness of counseling, and psychological support from children and friends. Significant correlates of strain in the student role included: dissatisfaction with job, rated helpfulness of financial aid, and number of years since previous school enrollment; age of youngest child was correlated negatively with strain in the student role. Multiple regression results showed that the strongest predictor of satisfaction in the student role was helpful attitudes of professors. Implications of the findings for educators and counselors are discussed.     

The Effects of the Number of Scale Points and Non-Normality on the Generalizability Coefficient: A Monte Carlo Study

Increasingly, assessment practitioners use generalizability coefficients to estimate the reliability of scores from performance tasks. Little research, however, examines the relation between the estimation of generalizability coefficients and the number of rubric scale points and score distributions. The purpose of the present research is to inform assessment practitioners of (a) the optimum number of scale points necessary to achieve the best estimates of generalizability coefficients and (b) the possible biases of generalizability coefficients when the distribution of scores is non-normal. Results from this study indicate that the number of scale points substantially affects the generalizability estimates. Generalizability estimates increase as scale points increase, with little bias after scales reach 12 points. Score distributions had little effect on generalizability estimates.     

Improving emotional intelligence and emotional self-efficacy through a teaching intervention for university students

Emotional intelligence continues to receive a substantial amount of attention from researchers who argue that it is an important predictor of health, wellbeing and in particular, work-related outcomes. Emotional self-efficacy, which is concerned with beliefs in one's emotional functioning capabilities, has recently been shown to be important in relation to graduate employability. However, there are very few empirical studies which demonstrate that emotional functioning ability is something that it is possible to teach and develop. This study investigates whether it is possible to improve levels of emotional intelligence and emotional self-efficacy in university students through a teaching intervention. The findings show that it is possible to increase emotional self-efficacy and some aspects of emotional intelligence ability. These findings are considered within the framework of graduate employability, as improving emotional functioning may be particularly important to young people who will shortly join the graduate working population.