Survey research: Interpersonal Skill-Training Research: A 12-Year Review and Analysis

This article is a comprehensive survey of research published over a 12-year period on skill-training programs used to enhance the interpersonal effectiveness of counselors. It descibes, analyzes, and synthesizes significant patterns in the content and format of training programs and highlights the strengths and limitations in research methodology employed. The investigations reviewed were analyzed in relation to purpose, training models, training duration, training methods, interpersonal skill focus, and research design issues. Implications for counselor training are explored, and directions for future research are discussed.     

The Use of Portfolios in Evaluation—Revisited

In reply to Alschuler's commentary to their original article, the authors suggest that portfolios are valuable supplemental evaluation and assessment tools.     

AONS II: Continuing the Trend Towards Preservation Software ‘Nirvana’

File format obsolescence is a major risk factor threatening the sustainability of and access to digital information. While the preservation community has become increasingly interested in tools for migration and transformation of file formats, the National Library of Australia is developing mechanisms specifically focused on monitoring and assessing the risks of file format obsolescence. This paper reports on the AONS II project, undertaken by the National Library of Australia (NLA) in conjunction with the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR). The project aimed to develop a software tool which allows users to automatically monitor the status of file formats in their repositories, make risk assessments based on a core set of obsolescence risk questions, and receive notifications when file format risks change or other related events occur. This paper calls for the preservation community to develop a co-operating file format obsolescence community which includes registries, software tool creators and end users to effectively curate digital content in order to maintain long-term access.     

Selection and Elimination of Candidates in Counselor Education Programs

This study compared actual with ideal procedures in the selection and elimination of candidates in counselor education programs. A two-factor analysis for each category (selection and elimination) resulted in some significant differences (p< .001) between the actual and ideal procedures in both selection and elimination. The criteria for actual and ideal procedures in the selection and elimination of candidates were also treated by t tests, with highly significant differences (p<.075 to p<.0005) found on some of the criteria.