朱元璋驭宦之析

历代史家在谈及明太祖朱元璋严驭宦官时，皆赞誉有加，认为明代重用宦官源于成祖朱棣，与朱元璋毫无干系；其实不然，明代宦官擅权的祸根在太祖，朱棣不过是“萧作曹随”而已。宦官出使、监军、干预经济、刺臣民隐事监觞于洪武年间，它是封建君主专制制度的产物，并不以朱元璋个人意志为转移。     

如何在局域网上实现虚拟Internet

为了充分利用局域网，提高单位内部的工作效率，可以实现在局域网上模拟Internet功能，首先在WindowsNT服务器上安装DNS、IIS组件，然后配置WWW服务器、FTP服务器，建立邮件系统，就可以实现虚拟的Internet．     

Students with special educational needs within PISA

Abstract

Since 2003, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has included students with special educational needs (SEN), identified as those with functional disabilities, those with cognitive/behavioural/emotional disabilities and those with limited test language proficiency. While the number of countries and included students has increased with each test administration, the percentage of students with SEN remains extremely low. The inclusion of these students is not an intentional PISA design parameter but rather a response to the interaction between the need to maintain strict sampling criteria and country-level educational mandates to include SEN students in standardised testing. Based on the analysis of student participation and performance across four cycles of PISA (2003–2012), this paper examines the challenges that exist in current PISA procedures related to: student sampling, eligibility and identification; assessment methodology; and reporting results. PISA practices, their limitations for scientific inferences and recommendations for design improvements are given.     

Influence of improved teaching practices on student satisfaction ratings for two undergraduate units at an Australian university

To track the quality of instruction delivered at the University of Western Australia, the university surveys all units using its Students’ Unit Reflective Feedback (SURF) metrics, and faculties use these metrics to benchmark student satisfaction. Consequently, teaching staff are actively encouraged to adopt teaching practices that will increase the average levels of these metrics. Using a ‘before-after’ approach, we compared these metrics before and after the implementation of improved teaching practices that addressed specific weaknesses identified through student responses for two undergraduate units. Despite the implementation of improved teaching practices, SURF scores did not increase significantly for the two units assessed, due possibly to the components of the academic programme covered by the SURF questions, the field-based nature of the units, and the difficulty in measuring an increase in the SURF scores of units which already score highly. This poor sensitivity of the SURF metrics to the implementation of improved teaching practices could have implications for their use for performance assessment by the university.     

Equality and excellence. Hegemonic discourses of economisation within the German education system

Looking to conflicting constitutions of education systems through the terms equality and excellence, this paper examines the discursive formation of two political rationalities in the contemporary German education system. While early childhood and primary education discourses are dominated by a terminology of equality, tertiary education institutions such as universities are described using a terminology of excellence that has become a reference point for political interventions and institutional reform processes. Drawing from hegemony theory, governmentality studies and systems theory, this paper analyses the rules of justification referred to by such hegemonic discourses. It presents a policy discourse analysis of strategic, conceptional and institutional texts produced between 2003 and 2010. Through this analysis, the paper suggests that ‘mobilising’ and ‘optimising’ represent the common principles of equality and excellence as economic rationalities.