Wirkungen zentraler Abschlussprüfungen im Mehrebenensystem Schule. Eine Zwischenbilanz internationaler und nationaler Befunde und Forschungsdesiderata

Statewide exit exams have become a central governance instrument at the end of secondary schooling in Germany. In the article, the current state of research in Germany is systematized from an international comparative perspective in relation to intended and unintended effects. Findings regarding state exam policies and effects at the school and instructional level are presented as an interim report on a comparably young field of research. The findings show differences by states, subjects and courses which suggest that there is no general effect of statewide exams. In this context, future research should account for the heterogeneity of exam procedures to a greater degree.     

Elite und Exzellenz aus der Perspektive von Jugendlichen und ihren Peers an exklusiven Schulen

Against the backdrop of the recent political discourse on elite and excellence in the German education system, this paper examines how such constructions manifest themselves in programmatic concepts of schools and in the orientations of their pupils and their peers. They are reconstructed on the basis of a qualitative research project on educational careers of young people. This paper focuses on pupils and their peers at an elite school of sports and an international school. Firstly, the state of research on those types of school as well as on educational careers of their pupils will be presented. Secondly, the theoretical reference points and the methodological design of the study will be introduced. At the core of the paper is the analysis of the education related orientations of selected cases of young people and their peers: How do they position themselves towards elite and excellence in their individual and collective orientations and how is this relevant for processes of distinction and coherence building in the groups? In the resuming part of the paper, the results will be summarised and related to the state of research and the scientific discourse on elite and excellence.     

Creating technology-enriched classrooms: implementational challenges in Turkish education

This paper provides an overview of the status of educational technology in Turkey. In the face of severe social and economic challenges, many developing nations, including Turkey, are looking to education as a potential remedy. Recognizing that in an increasingly technology-dependent world, information and communications technology skills and knowledge are critical in order to compete in the global marketplace, Turkey is firmly committed not only to improving its education system, but also to incorporating the use of educational technologies into the instructional strategy and curriculum used in schools. This is a critical initiative because, as research shows, technology-enriched educational environments can provide students with significantly expanded learning opportunities, which are linked with increased levels of academic achievement. However, like many other developing countries, Turkey is struggling to overcome a number of serious barriers to full technology integration at the classroom level, the most significant of which is non-compliance on the part of teachers. With respect to technology use in education, teachers are consistently failing to utilize technological tools for instruction purposes, for a variety of reasons. Turkey must address these reasons in order to ensure that the agenda of technology adoption into schools, an enormously expensive undertaking, does not fail.     

知识考古与历史重诂:编撰《林纾年谱长编》的构想

论述编撰《林纾年谱长编》的总体构想。课题尝试运用现代史学方法对近代闽籍历史名人林纾进行知识考古和重诂,涉及谱主一生四个不同特质的时期。介绍这项课题的选题背景、动机和主要任务,同时提出年谱编撰方法方面的新观点。研究的目的是以新的历史观重构特定时期的历史人物。     

Quality Audits as a Tool for Quality Improvement in Selected European Higher Education Libraries

From the beginning of the 1990s, different types of quality management and evaluation systems have become integrated into higher education institutes throughout Europe due to the creation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This has meant that the university libraries have had to learn how to evaluate their services and improve their quality. Quality audits are one tool that can be used in quality management approaches to assess how well an organization is being managed. This paper describes and benchmarks the use of external and internal auditing in three European academic libraries, i.e. the Medical Library of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Germany), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Library (Spain) and the University of Eastern Finland Library (Finland). The results reveal the best practices of auditing in these institutions; and recommendations are provided for the further development of library auditing and ways to improve co-operation between libraries.     

Secret keys from quantum correlations

Quantum mechanics allows to create information-theoretical secure key based only on observed data. We review the current status of the resulting field quantum key distribution.