A journal is a club: a new economic model for scholarly publishing

A new economic model for the analysis of scholarly publishing – journal publishing in particular – is proposed that draws on club theory. The standard approach builds on market failure in the private production (by research scholars) of a public good (new scholarly knowledge). In this model, publishing is communication, as the dissemination of information. But a club model views publishing differently: namely as group formation, where members form groups in order to confer externalities on each other, subject to congestion. A journal is a self-constituted group, endeavouring to create new knowledge. In this sense, a journal is a club. The knowledge club model of a journal seeks to balance the positive externalities of a shared resource (readers, citations, referees) against the negative externalities of crowding (decreased prospect of publishing in that journal). A new economic model of a journal as a knowledge club is elaborated. We suggest some consequences for the management of journals and financial models that might be developed to support them.     

The Use of Flexible Learning Resources for Geographically Distributed Rural Students

The focus of this paper is to describe and explain the evolution of teaching resources and tuition on the Rural Development Studies undergraduate degree programme at the UHI Millennium Institute. This degree was selected for development in a flexible style of delivery due to the curriculum contents and its delivery to a very scattered student population over a wide rural area. The degree has a multi-disciplinary approach with a variety of tuition styles, assessment mechanisms, and student support that have been tutored in both face-to-face and remote delivery, and this illustrates well the changing nature of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in student-tutor interaction. Increasing emphasis is on the simplicity of the application of new technologies to facilitate interactivity between students and tutors but, most importantly, on improving the optimum mixture of the different teaching media used. The emphasis is on consistency and quality in distributed learning to encourage the sustainable delivery of formal education in rural and remote areas where it is not normally readily available. Current course research is investigating the sense of online community identity exhibited by groups of students on different levels, different study modules, and using different blends of resources for tutor-student-student communication.     

The impacts of an early mathematics curriculum on oral language and literacy

Competence in early mathematics is crucial for later school success. Although research indicates that early mathematics curricula improve children's mathematics skill, such curricula's impacts on oral language and early literacy skills are not known. This project is the first to investigate the effects of an intensive pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum, Building Blocks, on the oral language and letter recognition of children participating in a large-scale cluster randomized trial project. Results showed no evidence that children who were taught mathematics using the curriculum performed differently than control children who received the typical district mathematics instruction on measures of letter recognition, and on two of the oral language (story retell) subtests, sentence length and inferential reasoning (emotive content). However, children in the Building Blocks group outperformed children in the control group on four oral language subtests: ability to recall key words, use of complex utterances, willingness to reproduce narratives independently, and inferential reasoning (practical content).     

Adults’ Learning about Science in Free‐choice Settings

This paper synthesizes findings from three studies to answer a general question: What do casual, adult visitors learn about science from their science‐related experiences in free‐choice settings? Specifically we asked whether there are changes in how people think about science in their daily lives, the nature and use of scientific knowledge, and its communication by scientists. The three studies involved samples of visitors to an interactive science centre, visitors to a traditional natural history museum, and attendees at a series of public lectures, each given by an expert scientist in human genetics. Pretest and post‐test data collected by parallel questionnaires indicated that, despite the different nature of their experience in the three different settings, participants became more positive about the value of science and the work done by scientists and their ability to communicate with the public. At all venues, however, participants became less scientific in their thinking about the nature of scientific knowledge, becoming more likely to believe it to be infallible. The consistency of these findings was surprising, and participants’ changed views about the nature of scientific knowledge were unexpected. Possible explanations for theses outcomes were suggested in terms of participants’ reasons for attending the venue, the nature of their engagement, and the non‐controversial ways in which the exhibitions and lectures were structured. The findings suggest that the educational role of free‐choice settings should be considered carefully, particularly with regard to the representation of science.     

Curriculum reform and choice of science: Consequences for balanced and equitable participation and achievement

In 1988, most schools in Western Australia adopted a Unit Curriculum structure in the first three years of high school, following piloting of the scheme in seven schools in 1987. The goais of the Unit Curriculum are stated to be excellence, equity, and relevance, and one of its key features is the increased flexibility students have in making their subject selection. This article reviews the science enrollment and achievement patterns of males and females studying in the pilot schools in 1987, and for the first three years of the operation of the Unit Curriculum in 1988, 1989, and 1990. The data indicate that lowering the age for subject choice is associated with a reduction in the amount of science studies, especially by females, and with the early manifestation of sex-stereotyped subject selection. It appears that if early sex stereotyping is to be avoided, then students need to be provided with more structure in their selection of units. This article emphasizes the need for all involved in system-wide curriculum change to be fully informed of the potential benefits and dangers of curriculum models which allow wide flexibility, especially where curriculum change affects students' “choice point”.