Launching an online‐only journal

In May 2006, the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) launched its first exclusively online journal, Education for Chemical Engineers ( http://www.icheme.org/ece ). The author describes the editorial and marketing strategy behind the successful launch of the new title and the challenges facing a publisher when launching an ‘online‐only’ title. The article discusses how IChemE's established presence in the chemical engineering community benefited the new journal's launch and concludes with a list of key points to remember when launching a new product – with particular relevance to online titles.     

Using discriminant analysis to predict faculty rank

Past attempts to predict the salary of faculty have been flawed by the use of rank, a potential source of bias, but removing rank from the equation seriously reduces prediction. This research studies the degree of bias in rank. Discriminant analysis produced a solution that correctly predicted rank 69% of the time for the 1083 faculty members used in the study. Among teaching and research faculty, there was a significant relationship between the direction of prediction error and gender. For women, the number of times they were predicted to have a rank higher than their actual rank exceeded the opposite condition by 2 1/2 times; for men, there was a slight tendency for the opposite. Methods were suggested for using the information administratively to correct problems. Further, recommendations are made to use the results to study salary-bias problems.     

An examination of the relationship between athlete leadership and cohesion using social network analysis

Two studies investigated the structure of different athlete leadership networks and its relationship to cohesion using social network analysis. In Study 1, we examined the relationship between a general leadership quality network and task and social cohesion as measured by the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ). In Study 2, we investigated the leadership networks for four different athlete leadership roles (task, motivational, social and external) and their association with task and social cohesion networks. In Study 1, the results demonstrated that the general leadership quality network was positively related to task and social cohesion. The results from Study 2 indicated positive correlations between the four leadership networks and task and social cohesion networks. Further, the motivational leadership network emerged as the strongest predictor of the task cohesion network, while the social leadership network was the strongest predictor of the social cohesion network. The results complement a growing body of research indicating that athlete leadership has a positive association with cohesion.     

Students with Disabilities and eLearning in Australia: Experiences of Accessibility and Disclosure at Curtin University

This article reports on a study into students with disabilities and their experiences of eLearning at Curtin University in Australia. The results are compared to an earlier study of students at Open Universities Australia (OUA) (Kent 2016). The results confirm the earlier study’s findings that these students are drawn to eLearning. The prevalence of mental illness and medical disabilities as the two most frequent impairment types amongst students with disabilities in Australia was confirmed, along with a need to rethink universal design for eLearning to better accommodate these students. It also finds that the students had difficulty accessing online platforms and notably those provided directly by the university. This survey confirmed that students at Curtin University were more aware than their OUA counterparts of accommodations that could be made to help with their studies. It also showed that, when used, those accommodations were more successful. However, the study also reported that Curtin University students were more likely to not disclose their disability as part of their studies.     

Omission training and positive conditioned suppression in the rat

Suppression of operant responding during a conditioned stimulus (CS) was studied in two procedures. In both procedures, operant leverpressing was maintained by a variable-interval 1-min food-delivery schedule, and insertion of a second lever served as the CS. In the first procedure, autoshaping, food followed each CS presentation irrespective of a subject’s behavior during the CS. In the second procedure, omission training, contact with the CS canceled the delivery of food scheduled for the end of that CS. In the first experiment, subjects were exposed to omission training followed by autoshaping; these procedures were reversed in the second experiment. In each experiment, the omission contingency resulted in fewer CS contacts and less suppression of operant responding during the CS than did autoshaping. These differences were more notable in subjects receiving the sequence autoshaping→omission training (Experiment 2). Direct observations in Experiment 2 revealed that, for subjects that were contacting the CS frequently when the omission contingency was introduced, reductions in signal contacts were accompanied by redistributions of behavior. The form of these redistributions depended upon behavior allocation at the time the omission contingency was imposed.     

Cultural Disintegration and the Decline of the Engaged Intellectual: the transformation of academic work

Recently, there has been a great deal of discussion about the impact of globalization on universities. Globalization theorists seek to explain how neoliberal strategies have transformed the economic infrastructure of countries; in turn globalization has forced universities to become more market oriented while government invests less in tertiary education. By way of 126 interviews with academic staff, administrators, and related personnel, the author investigates the redefinitions of academic work in a globalized economy. The author works from a cultural perspective of organizations to understand the changing nature of academic work. The author first outlines the problems that he found and concludes by suggesting how to resolve the problems. Among other suggestions, the importance of institutional mission and the role of the intellectual in the life of the university are considered.     

The autonomy of knowledge and the decline of the subject: Postmodernism and the reformulation of the university

The article pertains to how one might employ postmodern assumptions in the study and analysis of comparative higher education. The text first critiques the idea of modernism by way of a discussion about postmodernism. The author then analyzes the implications of postmodernism for comparative higher education research. In doing so, the author outlines five tenets of postmodernism that revolve around alternative ways of thinking about knowledge production and identity construction. The premise of the text is that postmodernism offers a different interpretation from modernism about the twin ideas of knowledge and identity. The author concludes by offering suggestions about how postmodernism might reorient the work of comparative higher education research. Accordingly, the goal of the text is to delineate competing conceptions of reality with regard to knowledge production, identity, and the role of the university.     

A comparison of performance and attitudes in mathematics amongst the ‘gifted’. Are boys better at mathematics or do they just think they are?

This paper explores gender differential performance in ‘gifted and talented’ 9‐ and 13‐year‐olds in a mathematics assessment in England. Boys’ and girls’ attitudes to mathematics and their views about which gender is better at mathematics are also considered. The study employs the use of a matched sample of boys and girls so that school, age and previous achievement in mathematics can be controlled whilst exploring performance on World Class Test items. The main result of this research was that there was no significant gender difference in performance for the 9‐ or the 13‐year‐olds. However, attitudinal differences were found, including a seemingly commonly held stereotypical view of mathematics as a boys’ subject. These results are important since the uptake of higher level mathematically‐based courses by girls is poor. Further findings reveal that where ‘gifted’ girls perform as well as ‘gifted’ boys, their confidence in the subject is lower than their performance might suggest. This work is also discussed in the light of related research findings and in relation to stereotype threat theory.     

Mapping next generation learning spaces as a designed quality enhancement process

The learning spaces of higher education are changing with collaborative, agile and technology-enabled spaces ever more popular. Despite the massive investment required to create these new spaces, current quality systems are poorly placed to account for the value they create. Such learning spaces are typically popular with students but the impact they have on learning outcomes is difficult to capture. Taking a design-research approach, this paper presents a way of assessing the value of learning spaces in context through systematically mapping the expectations reified in their designs. While presenting a series of specific tools that support this mapping exercise, this paper also contributes to a larger conversation about the sorts of tools and processes the academic community might use in accounting for the quality of its work.     

Management and leadership in UK universities: exploring the possibilities of change

This paper considers the case for reform of management structures in UK universities and offers proposals for change. The model of top-down, performance-led management that characterises many institutions is both outmoded and ill-suited to the challenges of an increasingly turbulent higher education sector. Drawing on the experiences of a university that introduced a new scheme of performance management, I explore alternative approaches to leadership and management, collaborative or partnership working designed to improve employee voice and the need to re-evaluate approaches to Human Resource Management. I conclude with a five-point model for change.