The Future is Flexible,Extensible, and Community-Based: Stories of Successful Electronic Resources Management

Centralized Online Resources Acquisitions and Licensing (CORAL) is an open source electronic resources management system originally developed by the University of Notre Dame Hesburgh Libraries. The CORAL system consists of five modules designed to manage the library electronic resources life-cycle, including licensing and contact information, procurement and activation workflow, usage statistics, and the storage of documentation. CORAL was designed as a flexible and customizable management system, with the ability to utilize each module independently or as a suite to maintain the electronic resources management needs of individual institutions. Scott Vieira of Rice University, Steve Oberg of Wheaton College, and Andrea Imre of Southern Illinois University Carbondale present on the functionality of CORAL and demonstrate the system’s flexibility and extensibility in managing library electronic resources.     

Developing and Validating a Novel Anonymous Method for Matching Longitudinal School-Based Data

Prospective longitudinal data collection is an important way for researchers and evaluators to assess change. In school-based settings, for low-risk and/or likely-beneficial interventions or surveys, data quality and ethical standards are both arguably stronger when using a waiver of parental consent—but doing so often requires the use of anonymous data collection methods. The standard solution to this problem has been the use of a self-generated identification code. However, such codes often incorporate personalized elements (e.g., birth month, middle initial) that, even when meeting the technical standard for anonymity, may raise concerns among both youth participants and their parents, potentially altering willingness to participate, response quality, or generating outrage. There may be value, therefore, in developing a self-generated identification code and matching approach that not only is technically anonymous but also appears anonymous to a research-naive individual. This article provides a proof of concept for a novel matching approach for school-based longitudinal data collection that potentially accomplishes this goal.     

Carnival in the Curriculum

This article focuses on a carnival in the curriculum project designed to revitalise the arts in the experience of students in Higher Education preparing to become primary school teachers. It argues the relevance of a combined arts or trans‐disciplinary artform in the remit of a visual arts education journal and explores carnival as a complex, inclusive, multifaceted and multidimensional cultural practice with deep historical and social roots. It locates carnival within theory and the debate about the arts in schools in the UK from the early 1980s. Drawing on the analysis of interviews with students and teachers in carnival project schools, issues and themes such as student involvement, creativity, artists in schools, and cross‐curricular learning are explored, concluding that carnival in the curriculum provides an opportunity for agency within the regulated official curriculum.     

Inflation of comparator stimuli following CS training

Water-deprived rats served in seven conditioned lick suppression experiments designed to assess the effects on responding to a target CS of a series of unsignaled USs given in the training context following completion of CS training. Such treatment has been hypothesized to increase (inflate) the associative strength of the background cues from training (putatively, the CS’s comparator stimuli), thereby reducing responding to excitatory CSs and increasing the inhibitory potential of inhibitory CSs. Although posttraining extinction (deflation) of the CS’s comparator stimuli usually decreases inhibitory potential and increases excitatory potential of the target CS, posttraining inflation of the comparator stimuli had no effect on either excitatory responding to the target CS or summation test performance indicative of conditioned inhibition. This outcome was consistently obtained across a number of training, inflation, and test conditions selected to maximize sensitivity to any possible effects of comparator inflation. Implications of these null results for the comparator hypothesis of conditionedresponse generationare discussed.     

Self‐concept and science achievement: Investigating a reciprocal relation model across the gender classification in a crosscultural context

Science achievement and self‐concept are articulated in this study to examine a model of reciprocal relationship during a crosscultural transition. Trend data have been gathered to assess changes of the perceived English importance before and after Hong Kong's sovereignty handover from Britain to China. The data analyses were conducted four times across dimensions of gender and timing over which the political transition took place. Besides small gender differences in the statistical results, weak but significant reciprocal relationships have been found between science achievement and self‐concept. In line with a policy of switching the medium of instruction from English to Chinese in most secondary schools, interpretation of different path coefficients obliges incorporation of cross‐cultural understanding in science education. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 711–725, 2008     

Validation of Using Fitness Center Attendance Electronic Records to Assess the Frequency of Moderate/Vigorous Leisure-Time Physical Activity Among Adults

The purpose of this study was to provide three construct validity evidence for using fitness center attendance electronic records to objectively assess the frequency of leisure-time physical activity among adults. One hundred members of a fitness center (45 women and 55 men; aged 18 to 64 years) completed a self-report leisure-time physical activity questionnaire. The theory of planned behavior constructs (e.g., intention and perceived behavioral control), VO₂max, and % BF were assessed. Fitness center attendance electronic records were expressed as the weekly mean number of mandatory check-in records retrieved from the fitness center's electronic database over a 12-week period prior to participant's physical fitness evaluation. A continuous (frequency) and categorical (“adherent” versus “non-adherent”) scores were computed. Results indicated that perceived behavioral control was associated with fitness center attendance electronic records and mediated the fitness center attendance electronic records–intention relationship. Fitness center attendance electronic records were associated with VO₂max and self-report leisure-time physical activity. Therefore, results provide three evidence of construct validity of using fitness center attendance electronic records scores to assess leisure-time physical activity behavior.     

Design observations for interagency collaboration

We present 14 design observations for public safety networks (PSNs) and describe how they may apply more broadly to a wider range of inter-organizational systems within the public sector. A PSN is an interagency collaboration focused on developing and using information systems in support of information sharing and functional interoperability among public safety organizations engaged in law enforcement, criminal justice, and emergency response. We base our design observations upon an analysis of an extensive survey of 80 PSNs plus 6 in-depth case studies. The design observations identify commonalities that can guide agencies participating in interagency collaborations in addressing the interlocking issues they face. Our goal in presenting this set of design observations is to: (1) encourage improved PSN systems design and (2) draw attention to the importance of jointly addressing governance and technological considerations when designing PSNs.