Fatal child maltreatment in England, 2005-2009

Objective

This paper presents comprehensive and up-to-date data covering 4 years of Serious Case Reviews into fatal child maltreatment in England.

Methods

Information on all notified cases of fatal maltreatment between April 2005 and March 2009 was examined to obtain case characteristics related to a systemic classification of 5 broad groups of maltreatment deaths (severe physical assaults; covert homicide/infanticide; overt homicide; extreme neglect/deprivational abuse; deaths related to but not directly caused by maltreatment).

Results

A total of 276 cases were recorded giving an incidence of 0.63 cases per 100,000 children (0-17) per year. 246 cases could be classified based on the data available. Of these the commonest specific group was those children who died as a result of severe physical assaults. Apparently deliberate overt and covert homicide was less common, while deaths as a direct consequence of neglect were rare. In contrast, some evidence of neglect was found in at least 40% of all cases, though not the direct cause of death.

Conclusions

Class characteristics differ between the different categories of death and may suggest the need for different strategies for prevention.     

How prevalent are plagiarized submissions? Global survey of editors

Most analyses of plagiarism focus on published content and do not report on the prevalence of plagiarism in submitted articles. Fears over large‐scale plagiarism, particularly in articles submitted by authors for whom English is a second language, have only been investigated in small publishing communities or using duplication‐checking analysis, which does not separate legitimate from unacceptable duplication. This research surveyed journal editors from around the world to ascertain recent (past year) experiences of plagiarized and/or duplicated submissions. We then compared their experiences to their assumptions about global levels of plagiarism. The survey received 372 responses, including 119 from Asian editors, 112 from European editors, and 57 from editors in North America. The respondents estimated that c.15% of all submissions contained plagiarized or duplicated content, although their own experiences were in the range of 2–5% of submissions. Of the respondents, 42% reported no incidence of plagiarized or duplicated submissions in the past year. Asian editors experienced the highest levels of plagiarized/duplicated content, although most of the problem articles were resolved, indicating that most of the identified duplication constituted relatively minor problems, rather than fraudulent plagiarism.     

What influences the regional diversity of reviewers: A study of medical and agricultural/biological sciences journals

There is evidence of a geographical imbalance of reviewers, leading to concerns about the sustainability of peer review to ensure high‐quality, timely publications. This research evaluated articles submitted during 2016 to 149 Wiley‐owned journals in two disciplines: medicine (112 journals), and agricultural and biological sciences (37). We compared the reviewer location with the location of the author and the Editor‐in‐Chief, the size and rank of the journal, and whether the journal had difficulty in obtaining reviews. We found that reviewers mostly came from the USA, but there was a correlation between the reviewer location and the country and region of the Editor‐in‐Chief and that of the corresponding author. Reviewers were also more likely to accept invitations to review articles when the corresponding author was from their region and were more likely to be positive about such articles. We found no difference between journals of different disciplines and of different rank or size or difficulty in obtaining reviews.     

Space matters: framing the New Zealand learning landscape

Learning Environments Research - Significant funding is devoted across the world to transforming traditional classrooms into flexible learning environments. These efforts are often...     

Book reviews

The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption Clay Johnson O'Reilly, 2011, 150pp. ISBN 978‐1‐449‐30468‐3, £11.20 hbk www.informationdiet.com     

Connecting the dots: Theorizing and mapping learning entanglement through archaeology and design

Designing for digitally enhanced learning has increased in complexity. In response, this paper calls for a reconceptualization of technology—as the reconfiguring of space, place, materials, time and social relations—enrolled and refashioned in emergent learning activity. Such reconceptualization requires analytical tools, methods and processes to map heterogeneous assemblages of people, tools and tasks. Educational researchers and designers are in need of approaches and theories that move beyond deterministic accounts about the utility of individual learning technologies, to connect theory, research and practice. Our research shows that in learning to distinguish between elements that are open to alteration through design and those that are not, educational designers gain deeper insights into the flows of matter, information and humans characteristic of productive networked learning environments. And this, in turn, gives rise to valued qualities of emergent learning activity in alignment with current theories about learning. In this paper, we present a series of methods adapted from archaeology and design, illustrating their power in tracing the complex webs of dependence characteristic of productive learning entanglement, with the aim of supporting future design for learning.     

'How Does It Get into my Imagination?': Elementary school children's intertextual knowledge and gendered storylines

This article draws on a case study of children's response to stories and uses post-structuralist theory to examine how the children who participated in the study used their intertextual knowledge to understand and produce disruptive stories. 'Disruptive' refers here to texts that challenge and go beyond conventional and limiting traditional storylines about race, gender and class through presenting unexpected characterisations, plots, outcomes or details-for example, feminist fairy tales, or stories where the protagonists belong to visible minorities. This article looks specifically at stories that disrupt conventional storylines about gender, and explores ways of broadening children's intertextual knowledge and enhancing their ability to read and write critically. Examples from children's writing and conversations are analysed.     

E‐journals: developing country access survey

Concern over the information gap between developed and developing countries has led to a number of initiatives to promote access to information, but is there a potential of overlapping and conflicting information being given to the recipients? And what are publishers' attitudes towards the supply of their content at greatly reduced prices, or for free? During 2002 INASP was commissioned to undertake a survey to identify publishers' activities and opinions in this area. The survey found that the majority of respondents were involved in one or more access programmes and there was a willingness from both the commercial and the non‐commercial sector to provide their information in this way.