Introducing self-assessment on an in-service certificate in education programme for teachers in post-compulsory education

This article describes how self-assessment was introduced into a Certificate in Education course for practising teachers in the post-compulsory sector, and how the method and instrument of self-assessment used was refined over successive cohorts for a 4-year period. It describes an action research project (which, as a whole, lasted 6 years), but does not discuss the methodology of action research. Rather it provides a narrative on how one piece of action research was actually carried out.     

An approach for the capture of context-dependent document relationships extracted from Bayesian analysis of users' interactions with information

A number of technologies exist which enable the unobtrusive capture of computer interface interactions in the background of a user's working environment. The resulting data can be used in a variety of ways to model aspects of search activity and the general use of electronic documents in normal working routines. In this paper we present an approach for using captured data to identify relationships between documents used by an individual or group, representing their value in a given context—that may relate to specific information need or activity. The approach employs the use of a naïve Bayesian classifier to evaluate possible relationships that are derived implicitly from the data. It is intended that the relationships established be stored within an information retrieval (IR) system to aid in the retrieval of related documents where future users arrive at a similar context. In the evaluation of the approach over 70 hours of data from computer users in industrial and academic settings are collected to assess its overall feasibility. The results indicate that the approach provides a useful method for the establishment of identifiable relationships between documents based on the context of their usage, rather than their content.     

The problem with women? Challenges posed by gender for career guidance practice

Institutionalised discrimination continues to perpetuate deep rooted social divisions, with gender inequality persisting as a pervasive feature of labour markets across the world. Despite the depth and breadth of gender inequality, there is limited acknowledgement in career theory that the career support needs of women are distinctive. A qualitative international comparative study into the career trajectories of older women (aged 45–65) has been conducted across six countries (Australia, Argentina, Germany, Italy, England and South Africa). The results provide an international understanding of women’s careers and offer insight into career theory and practice for women that are culturally relevant.