Practising what we preach: working together to further scientific collaboration

The recent shift in Internet usage – from content being simply consumed by users, to content that users create, interact with, and share – has challenged traditional publishing values and processes. This has, in turn, brought opportunities to explore and experiment with new technologies in the publishing industry. Elsevier's social bookmarking and collaboration tool for researchers, 2collab, was launched in November 2007 to address this shift. This article reviews how 2collab was built in close partnership with researchers, and how traditional processes had to be adapted to facilitate this. It outlines the current use of social applications among scientists and shows that nearly 50% of researchers anticipate that social tools like 2collab will have at least some impact on all areas of their research in the next five years.     

The State University at Ghent,Belgium, Educates Engineers in Rwanda

Close established ties bemeen Belgium and Rwanda are also reflected in the setting up of civil and electromechanical engineering programmes in Rwanda, by the State University at Ghent, Belgium. The start-up and general organisation of engineering education, the experiences with four such education programmes and their extension into a practical post-university level education for solving urgent tangible problems of the country, are discussed.     

No Issue,No Problem? Co-education in Dutch Secondary Physical Education during the Twentieth Century

This article places the current state of Dutch co-education in physical education into a longitudinal perspective. Occasionally, comparisons are made with Germany and England. The dominant, twentieth-century, co-educational tradition in the Netherlands--including its pragmatic argumentation-- has influenced educational ideals, as well as school practice, with respect to physical education. Due to a historical lack of fundamental discussions about co-education, today's problems relating to nationwide co-education in Dutch physical education programmes are trivialised. This is highlighted within this article by an analysis of the only manual on co-education ever published in the Netherlands. In conclusion, the article suggests that because co-education is not regarded as a controversial issue in the Netherlands, gender problems in physical education are neglected.