COUNTER: from conception to compliance

COUNTER was formally launched in March 2002. Within a year Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice had been published, and a number of leading publishers were working towards making their usage reports COUNTER‐compliant. This article describes the background to COUNTER, the main features of the Code of Practice, the current status of its implementation and the next steps for the project. It also stresses the particular benefits to publishers of COUNTER compliance and of COUNTER membership.     

Parasocial Breakup and Twitter: The Firing of Barb Abney

Audiences can and do form parasocial relationships with media personalities. Media personalities, programs, and stations can use social media to enhance this relationship. More and more stations and programs are using social media to cultivate parasocial relations, but the consequences of this cultivation are largely understudied in terms of parasocial responses. This paper examines the fallout on social media of the loss of a parasocial relationship (called “parasocial breakup”) with a large market radio DJ who is removed from the air. The results confirm the presence of a parasocial relationship, feelings of parasocial breakup, and the consequences of these parasocial disruptions on station brand identity.     

Funding,evaluation, and the performance of national research systems

Understanding the quality of science systems requires international comparative studies, which are difficult because of the lack of comparable data especially about inputs in research. In this study, we deploy an approach based on change instead of on levels of inputs and outputs: an approach that to a large extent eliminates the problem of measurement differences between countries. We firstly show that there are large differences in efficiency between national science systems, defined as the increase in output (highly cited papers) per percentage increase in input (funding). We then discuss our findings using popular explanations of performance differences: differences in funding systems (performance related or not), differences in the level of competition, differences in the level of university autonomy, and differences in the level of academic freedom. Interestingly, the available data do not support these common explanations. What the data suggest is that efficient systems are characterized by a well-developed ex post evaluation system combined with considerably high institutional funding and relatively low university autonomy (meaning a high autonomy of professionals). On the other hand, the less efficient systems have a strong ex ante control, either through a high level of so-called competitive project funding, or through strong power of the university management. Another conclusion is that more and better data are needed.     

Lifelong education for teachers: A valuable strategy for developed and underdeveloped countries?

Lifelong education is getting more and more into the centre of general interest. Small wonder that lifelong education for teachers is a widely discussed subject in circles of teacher education, like the ATEE. By taking up this issue from a somewhat more global point of view Peter Sachsenmeier gives a valuable contribution to those discussions, which seem to form the means by which we–teacher educators–realise our own lifelong education.