Building the ‘front door’ within a web ecology: Informational governance and institutional shaping of national government webportals

Government webportals are central to governments' web strategy. They are designed to be nodal hubs, or gateways, for encountering government, and as such position government in the online world. Yet the designs of government webportals, particularly their location within wider web ecologies are scarcely studied. In additional to these web ecologies, this paper conceptualises webportals as being located within wider information and institutional ecologies. Methodologically, it comparatively examines the hyperlink structures of the national government webportals of the top ten e-government countries: Australia; Canada; Finland; France; Japan; Netherlands; New Zealand; Singapore; UK; and USA. Different ways governments approach this task are analyzed using webcrawls of the webportals and their neighboring webpages. Variations are considered in relation to the constitutional structures of the countries (i.e. unitary vs federated; centralized vs decentralized).This research highlights information referral versus information repository webportal designs, the latter of which appears to arise more in unitary and city states, than federal states. The hyperlink networks also demonstrate the important structural role of commercial social media websites in half of the countries, revealing a new interactive webportal design. Despite being constructed as whole-of-government entryways, national government webportals typically fail to connect to regional and local tiers of government. The paper provides the basis for assessing the effectiveness of different portal designs and investigating how portal designs arise out of varied government institutional settings.     

The association between environmental and psychosocial factors towards physical activity and screen time of children: an application of the Integrative Behavioural Model

Physical activity is beneficial at all stages of life, and has been linked as a protective factor from obesity, and other chronic health conditions. Despite the benefits of physical activity, less than half of US children meet the current recommendations, and activity levels decline with age. When planning physical activity interventions, behavioural theories should be utilised, given the inherent benefits theory-based approaches possess. The purpose of this study was to investigate how constructs of the Integrative Theoretical Model (IM) are associated with physical activity and screen time among children (9 years ±1.2; n = 264). Using structural equation modeling, a final model proved to have a good fit (CFI = 0.989; TLI = 0.975; RMSEA = 0.043), and results indicated intentions and perceived behavioural control (PBC) explained 19.4% of the variance for physical activity, and attitudes, perceived norms, and PBC accounted for 62% of the variance of intentions. Furthermore, attitudes and perceived norms were negatively associated with total screen time, and accounted for 10% of the variance. Results suggest that IM is a useful framework for explaining physical activity and screen time among children.     

Education policy: explaining,framing and forming

This paper presents a new heuristic device for the analysis of educational policy. Through an examination of the Evaluative State and the work of Brian Fay, the paper considers the way in which educational policy is subject to rational and linear forms of policy action and implementation. To counter this, positioning theory is deployed to consider the way in which we are produced both by discourse and the language of the ‘moment’ in discursive acts. Using the work of Gee, the paper contends that policy texts and policy Discourse ‘themselves form policy, that is, they position policy-explanation and policy-framing within the bounds of the institution and so give policy form’. Problematically, such mechanisms may succumb to the ‘death of subject’ and accordingly I offer a third method by which we might conceive of education policy: the discursively produced position call. Subsequently, I propose a tri-partite theory for the examination and understanding of policy: policy-explaining, the production of policy texts; policy-framing, the ways in which all can be positioned by texts and Discourse to produce the meanings imbued upon policy; and, policy-forming, the impact of moment-by-moment conversational acts for their production of the policy text itself, that is, the ways in which policy is locally formed rather than locally mediated.     

Aligning Assessment to Organizational Performance in Distance Education Service Delivery

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to provide an understanding of the issues in and possible steps of aligning the library's assessment processes to distance education service delivery. Through a review of the literature and current practices, the researcher sought to identify the need and value of aligned performance assessment processes for libraries, the primary contributing alignment factors affecting the library assessment process, and potential benefits of improved alignment of the assessment process for libraries in aligning assessment to the distance education services provided to customers. The results of the review suggest that libraries can improve the reporting and value of their assessment processes by improving the alignment of their assessment processes to distance education service delivery in 2 ways: internally through the use of consistent and innovative processes, metrics, and culture within the library and externally by embracing the alignment factors and available technologies of the library's service environment. The library must progressively elevate the alignment of the library's assessment processes from the traditional internal nonalignment of assessment to the total internally–externally integrated aligned assessment. This article concludes with a conceptual model of aligning library performance assessment to distance education service delivery for the effective reporting of library value and performance to stakeholders.     

Children's expectations for television entertainment vs. television news events

Young children's limited ability to recognize and defend against commercial messages has led to numerous concerns about advertising that targets child‐viewers. Industry self‐regulation of child‐oriented advertising content is one response to those concerns. With the demise of the National Association of Broadcasters Code in 1982, guidelines maintained by the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the National Council of Better Business Bureaus comprise the only industry‐wide self‐regulation. This study evaluates the extent of compliance with the CARU standards across a sample of over 10,000 ads directed to children. The results indicate a high overall rate of adherence to the guidelines. Two problem areas emerged which accounted for most of the violations observed: ads that featured premium offers, and ads for recorded telephone message services. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the child audience.