Authors and open access publishing

Surveys were carried out to learn more about authors and open access publishing. Awareness of open access journals among those who had not published in them was quite high; awareness of ‘self‐archiving’ was less. For open access journal authors the most important reason for publishing in that way was the principle of free access; their main concerns were grants and impact. Authors who had not published in an open access journal attributed that to unfamiliarity with such journals. Forty per cent of authors have self‐archived their traditional journal articles and almost twice as many say they would do so if required to.     

Reforming systems: Realizing the Fourth Way

This article outlines how the work of Andy Hargreaves has significantly and substantially informed our understanding of educational change, particularly systemwide change, by drawing upon his most recent research and writing to consider what is known about the process of successful, large-scale reform. It focuses on some of the “fallacies of change” derived from a recent project of high performing organizations the author has co-directed with Andy Hargreaves and then considers an alternative way of realizing and sustaining large-scale reform—described as the Fourth Way by Hargreaves and Shirley (The fourth way: The inspiring future for educational change, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, 2009). The article reflects upon the current reform process in Wales in relation to Fourth Way principles and considers the development of professional learning communities as a deliberate strategy for building and sustaining the capacity for systemwide change.     

A missing link? Contemporary insights into principal preparation and training in Russia

Over the last decade, the Russian education system has undergone significant transformation that has radically changed the expectations placed upon the school principals. This current reform process has placed far greater responsibilities and accountabilities upon principals to secure school effectiveness and improved student learning outcomes. This article offers some insights into the way in which principals in Russia are currently prepared and trained. It outlines initial quantitative findings from Russian principals, as part of a contemporary, large-scale empirical study of principal leadership preparation and training. The emerging empirical evidence highlights that the new principal standards and training requirements in Russia reinforce “managerial approaches” that are not necessarily meeting the needs of principals.     

Contemporary challenges and changes: principals' leadership practices in Malaysia

This article outlines the findings from a contemporary study of principals' leadership practices in Malaysia as part of the 7 System Leadership Study. Recent policy developments within Malaysia have increased principals' accountability and have underlined the importance of the role of the principals in transforming school performance and student learning outcomes. This article draws upon emerging empirical evidence about principals' leadership practices and highlights some of the challenges associated with the new accountability expectations and demands placed upon principals in Malaysia. It provides a contemporary insight into the way in which principals in Malaysia view their leadership practice. The article proposes that despite the pressure on them to secure better school and student outcomes, principals in Malaysia increasingly view their leadership practices as transformational and distributed.     

Qualified to lead? A comparative,contextual and cultural view of educational policy borrowing

Abstract

Background: Around the globe, education policy borrowing remains pervasive and prevalent. The strategies, interventions and innovations of education systems that perform well, in international assessments, are enthusiastically borrowed and copied in the anticipation of similar educational performance and outcomes.

Purpose: This purpose of the article is to highlight some of the implications and consequences of policy borrowing by comparing the preparation and development programmes for school leaders in various education systems. The article explores the way in which the leadership programmes and models are being adopted and developed by different countries.

Sources of evidence: The article draws upon findings from a contemporary, comparative study of leadership preparation and development across seven different education systems (Seven System Leadership Study). This large-scale, mixed-methods, comparative research study is collecting quantitative and qualitative data about the nature and impact of leadership development and preparation programmes in seven different education systems.

Main argument: The findings from the study reinforce how leadership preparation and development programmes are increasingly becoming standardised as a result of education systems borrowing and adapting from each other. This article also argues that in the contemporary policy discourse, important cultural and contextual influences that significantly affect subsequent implementation and outcomes are increasingly being side-lined and ignored.

Conclusions: This article highlights some of the limitations and unintended consequences of educational policy borrowing. It concludes that adopting some of the design features of effective interventions rather than simply borrowing policies or strategies, in part or in their entirety from very different contexts, may be a more productive way forward.     

Discrete-time recurrent high order neural networks for nonlinear identification

This paper focuses on the problem of discrete-time nonlinear system identification via recurrent high order neural networks. It includes the respective stability analysis on the basis of the Lyapunov approach for the NN training algorithm. Applicability of the proposed scheme is illustrated via simulation for a discrete-time nonlinear model of an electric induction motor.     

Teachers' Perspectives on Effective School Leadership

This paper considers teachers' perspectives on effective school leadership. It draws upon the findings from a study of effective leadership conducted by a research team from the University of Nottingham [1]. This research study considered effective leadership from the perspectives of different stakeholders within the English schooling system. This provided an opportunity to analyse leadership in a holistic way and to consider leadership from a variety of different perspectives.