Open publishing

There is increasing pressure from academia to make the results of publicly funded research freely available to all. Preprint archives have grown up in some disciplines, and institutional archives are now being developed. While openly accessible preprints seem to have damaged publishers less than was originally feared, the final published versions of articles – when combined with sophisticated retrieval software – may turn out to be a different matter. Publishers have already done much to make their content more accessible through bundling, consortia licensing, access for less‐developed countries, more liberal customer and author agreements, and collective licensing. Some are experimenting with open access journals, although this may not work in all disciplines. It seems clear, however, that there are elements of value in journals themselves, and in the functions performed by journal publishers, which should survive.     

Three secondary school teachers implementing student-centred learning in Iraqi Kurdistan

In Iraqi Kurdistan, the educational system is going through significant changes. The educational system influences the students’ attitudes, and one wants the educational system to support the young democracy. In this study, student-centred learning (SCL) is seen as a first step to learning, but also to participation and engagement as a citizen. Three secondary school teachers worked with researchers from Norway and Kurdistan to implement SCL strategies in their daily teaching. Teachers experienced changes in their roles when emphasizing the importance of students’ participation in the learning processes. They could not lecture most of the time; they needed to make more space for the students’ activities and allow them to become more active. They acted more as mentors for their students. The content of the teaching also changed. When the teachers lectured it was about their subject. When the students were expected to be more active, the teachers also had to teach the students how to be more active. The traditional way of furnishing the classrooms in Kurdistan has been rows of benches and desks for the children and a desk by the board for the teacher. This way of furnishing was described as a hindrance when organising for students’ participation. The teachers’ experiences were of main interest in this action research project. Their responses to interview questions were validated by classroom observations. Also, a group of researchers with very different cultural and scientific background collaborated. This was in itself an interesting side effect in this action research study.     

Labour market intermediaries: a corrective to the human capital paradigm (mis)matching skills and jobs?

The orthodox supply-side human capital theory (HCT) paradigm is inadequate for understanding and adjusting to labour market volatility in UK regional economies like Wales. This article explores the role of regional labour market intermediaries (LMIs) in matching supply (skills) and demand (job opportunities) in regional labour markets. Some LMIs emerge because the HCT paradigm is failing. One Welsh LMI, Shaping the Future (StF), is explored empirically using qualitative methods. StF mainly adopted HCT tenets, but with some emergent demand-side focus. Despite helping workers adjust to labour market shocks, LMIs are not equipped to fix the structural demand-side problem of finite quality job opportunities in deindustrialized regions that accentuate skill use. A broader ‘skill eco-system’ paradigm is required, emphasising the foundational economy.