Improving success probabilities of faculty requests for extramural research support

The study focuses on a predetermined selection of variables which are amenable to administrative control and which are frequently cited in the literature as having an impact on success probabilities, and it offers estimates of the magnitude and direction of the effect of these on the chance of obtaining an award from either of two leading sponsors of research at universities and colleges. It finds that as much as 50 percent of the variability in the probability of success is attributable to the selected variables and that individual measures of impact vary both within and between sponsoring agencies. This outcome is evidence that action taken by university administrators could improve the competitiveness of faculty in the sponsored funds market.     

Visionen und Herausforderungen in der Informatik

Zusammenfassung Das Denken von Ingenieuren und Informatikern ist typischerweise auf die Zukunft gerichtet. Sie stellen sich vor, welche Antworten zu unseren Fragen und welche L?sungen zu heutigen Problemen wohl demn?chst m?glich sind. Je nachdem, ob es dabei mehr um die L?sungen als um die Probleme geht, spricht man entweder von Visionen oder von Herausforderungen. Auch in Deutschland fehlt es nicht an entsprechenden Bemühungen. Einige ver?ffentlichte Beispiele zeigen M?glichkeiten und Schw?chen. über Visionen zu reden ist nützlich; noch besser ist es, sie umzusetzen. Das technische und wirtschaftliche Potenzial, das die Informatik bietet, ist enorm. Wir haben erst gerade damit begonnen, es zu nutzen.

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The thinking of engineers and computer scientists is typically about the future. They envision answers to our questions and solutions for today’s problems that will be possible in the near future. Depending whether the emphasis is more on the solutions or on the problems, we talk of visions or challenges respectively. In Germany, we do not lack appropriate attempts. Some published examples show possibilities and weaknesses. To talk about visions is useful; it is better though to realize them. The technical and economic potential offered by computing is immense. We have just started to exploit it.

     

The Price and New Title Output of Scholarly Books: 2009–2016

The majority of scholars in the humanities and the social sciences, the scientific, technical, and medical, and the legal, tax, and regulatory fields are interested in the state of scholarly book publishing because these books often play a pivotal role in the often-opaque tenure, promotion, and grant application process. In the past, several studies analyzed new title output and scholarly book prices. However, no one investigated the impact of the Recession of 2007–2009 on scholarly books. This study looks at the impact of this recession, its impact on scholarly book prices and new title output between 2009 and 2016, and makes a series of recommendations for university presses.     

How much anatomy is enough?

Innovations in undergraduate medical education, such as integration of disciplines and problem based learning, have given rise to concerns about students' knowledge of anatomy. This article originated from several studies investigating the knowledge of anatomy of students at the eight Dutch medical schools. The studies showed that undergraduate students uniformly perceived deficiencies in their anatomical knowledge when they started clinical training regardless of their school's didactic approach. A study assessing students' actual knowledge of clinical anatomy revealed no relationship between students' knowledge and the school's didactic approach. Test failure rates based on absolute standards set by different groups of experts were indicative of unsatisfactory levels of anatomical knowledge, although standards differed markedly between the groups of experts. Good test performance by students seems to be related to total teaching time for anatomy, teaching in clinical context, and revisiting anatomy topics in the course of the curriculum. These factors appeared to outweigh the effects of disciplinary integration orwhether the curriculum was problem‐based or traditional. Anat Sci Ed 2008. © 2008 American Association of Anatomists.     

A time allocation study of university faculty

Many previous time allocation studies treat work as a single activity and examine trade-offs between work and other activities. This paper investigates the at-work allocation of time among teaching, research, grant writing and service by science and engineering faculty at top US research universities. We focus on the relationship between tenure (and promotion) and time allocation, and we find that tenure and promotion do affect the allocation of time. The specific trade-offs are related to particular career paths. For example, full professors spend increasing time on service at the expense of teaching and research while longer-term associate professors who have not been promoted to full professor spend significantly more time teaching at the expense of research time. Finally, our results suggest that women, on average, allocate more hours to university service and less time to research than do men.     

The Pooled Data Approach for the Estimation of Split-Ballot Multitrait–Multimethod Experiments

Saris, Satorra and Coenders (2004) proposed a new approach for estimating the quality of survey questions, which combines the advantages of the following two existing approaches: the multi-trait-multi-method (MTMM) approach and the split-ballot (SB) approach. In practice, this new approach led to frequent occurrences of non-convergence and improper solutions in the case of a two-group design (Revilla &; Saris, 2013 Revilla, M., &; Saris, W. E. (2013). The split-ballot multitrait-multimethod approach: Implementation and problems. Structural Equation Modeling, 20(1), 27–46.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This was very problematic because this approach had been used in many experiments to determine the reliability, validity and method effects of questions that are used in the European Social Survey, which is used in approximately 30 countries. In this article, we propose a new estimation procedure, which we call estimation using pooled data (EUPD), to overcome the problems with this experimental design. We show that EUPD can also be applied in a general setting of structural equation modeling when the sample size is too small for precise estimation but several similar data sets are available.     

The expansion of adult education and training in Europe: Trends and issues

The main purpose of this article is to describe the factors that are contributing to the recent expansion of adult education and training in the European region, A second purpose is to spell out the ramifications of the problems and policy issues that arise. The focus is on the dilemmas faced by decision-makers which, formulated as challenges confronting European adult education, will be summarized towards the end of the article. The central theme running through these concluding paragraphs is that there may well be a conflict between the economic and labour market objectives of adult education, on the one hand, and its cultural, social and redistributive goals on the other. The overriding challenge is how to find innovative ways of reducing this apparent conflict.

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Zusammenfassung Hauptziel dieses Artikels ist die Beschreibung von Faktoren, die zu der kürzlich begonnenen Erweiterung von Erwachsenenbildung und Weiterbildung im europäischen Raum beitragen. Außerdem sollen die Zusammenhänge der auftretenden Probleme und politischen Themen verdeutlicht werden. Im Brennpunkt stehen die als Herausforderung für die europäische Erwachsenenbildung formulierten Schwierigkeiten der Entscheidungsträger. Im Schlußteil werden diese Schwierigkeiten noch einmal kurz zusammengefaßt. Zentrales Thema dieses letzten Abschnitts ist der befürchtete Konflikt zwischen den Zielen der Erwachsenenbildung in Bezug auf Wirtschaft und Arbeitsmarkt auf der einen Seite und kulturellen, sozialen und umverteilenden Aspekten auf der anderen. Die vorrangige Herausforderung besteht darin, innovative Möglichkeiten zur Verringerung dieses offensichtlichen Konflikts zu finden.

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Résumé L'objectif majeur du présent article est de décrire les facteurs qui contribuent à l'expansion récente de l'éducation et de la formation des adultes dans la région Europe. Le second objectif consiste à mettre en lumière les ramifications des problèmes et des questions politiques qui se manifestent. L'accent est mis sur les difficultés auxquelles font face les décideurs. On les résume à la fin de l'article où elles sont présentées comme les défis auxquels l'éducation des adultes est confrontée en Europe. Le thème central qui sous-tend les paragraphes de cette conclusion se rapporte au fait qu'il pourrait très bien y avoir un conflit entre les objectifs de l'éducation des adultes en matière d'économie et d'emploi, d'une part, et ses buts culturels, sociaux et de redistribution, d'autre part.