European Lifelong Learning Initiative

The economic and social forces that are rapidly remodeling the world require increased skills in our workforce to maintain European competitiveness. Personal commitment and motivation are the key to this objective, but to obtain them from the large number of individuals as required by the European economy, harmonized changes in the organization of companies and institutions, in the social attitudes to the learning process as well as a wise use of available research and technology need to be made. The European Lifelong Learning Initiative believes that lifelong learning concepts can be used to inspire, guide and encourage these activities.     

Dystopia on the Health Superhighway

The emerging Information Superhighway is starting to induce visions of dystopia within the medical profession. In several countries, doctors have opposed plans for the establishment of national health data networks. In the most recent example, the Council of the British Medical Association threatened to boycott the government's national data strategy. This action followed the lead of Australian doctors, many of whom have consistently opposed a national wide-area network for health data. In common is the fear that this data linkage will erode medical independence, increase the power of government health authorities, and eliminate the confidentiality of medical information. Doctors have a duty of care to patients to protect confidentiality, and they say the emerging national networks compromise this responsibility. Here, I argue that the emerging health superhighways should either conform to strict privacy standards or they should be demolished.     

The information handling techniques of research (laboratory and clinical) scientists: preliminary indications of current practice

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The Rise and Fall of the Neo-liberal University

The rise of neo-liberal universities over the last 15–20 years has been characterised as an inevitable effect both of globalisation and the associated dominance of capital. In this article we will analyse that rise, seeking to understand how it has come about and its impact on intellectual work. In the final pages of the article we turn towards its fall.     

Reading and Mathematics Attainments and Self-esteem in Years 2 and 6 - an eight-year cross-sectional study

This eight-year cross-sectional study measured the self-esteem, reading and mathematical attainments of eight cohorts of Year 2 and Year 6 children over the period of the introduction of the National Curriculum and assessment procedures into primary schools (the first cohort was pre-national curriculum: the others were post-national curriculum). All Year 2 (N=1513) and Year 6 children (N=1488) in five randomly selected primary schools within one Local Education Authority (LEA) comprised the sample to which the Lawseq questionnaire (Lawrence, 1982), Mathematics 7 or 11 (National Foundation for Educational Research, 1985, 1987a) and The Primary Reading Test Level 1 or 2 (France, 1981) was administered. Self-esteem means for Year 2 shows a downward trend in the first 4 years of the study followed by an upward trend in the second half of the study with the mean of Cohort 8 being slightly below that of Cohort 1. Self-esteem means for Year 6 fluctuated for the first 5 years followed by a steady rise until the mean for Cohort 8 is 2.17 above that of Cohort 1. An analysis of variance showed there were significant differences between both years groups with cohorts focused around the introduction of the national tests having significantly different scores than other cohorts (Year 2 significantly lower: Year 6 significantly higher). Overall, there were significant positive correlations between the children's self-esteem and all their attainment scores. When the correlation coefficients were computed separately for the pre- and post-national test groups differences emerged. There were no significant correlations for the Year 2 pre-national test cohorts but for the post-national test groups all the correlations were significant. For Year 6 all correlations were significant. Discussion centres on the possible link between national testing and self-esteem.     

LIFE: Costing the Digital Preservation Lifecycle

The LIFE project creates a digital lifecycle model based on previous work undertaken on the lifecycle of paper-based material.Web Archiving, Voluntarity Deposited Electronic Publications (VDEP), and E-Journal are chosen as case study for application and evaluation of the LIFE Mode.Case studies show its potential for further use in a numble of roles,such as improving assessment of the financial commitment,more effective planning for preservation activities etc.The LIFE Mode will be revised and refined in LIFE2 Project.