Ways and means of reducing early student drop‐out rates

This paper begins by defining the term ‘student drop‐out’. Data are presented showing that the time that an external student is at greatest risk of becoming a drop‐out is during the first term, semester or year of study.

The reasons for this phenomenon are explored in the light of the theories of three writers in the field of distance education, namely, Otto Peters, Börje Holmberg and David Sewart.

The paper concludes by listing a number of suggestions that might be adopted in order to reduce early attrition rates and generally improve the functioning of distance education institutions.     

Bibliographic control of medical illustrations--a case study in the development of a library subsystem: II. Project implementation

This second part of a two-part paper describes how the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Library implemented a bibliographic control system for a medical illustrations collection. Discussed are the staffing of the project, the design of formats and computer programs, further design changes, the input process, quality evaluation of the illustrations, and production and distribution of the control products (printed indexes and microfiche replicas). The report ends with a note on the applicability of the UCSF system to other libraries, and some benefits of the project.