Disciplinary differences and other variations in assessment cultures in higher education: exploring variability and inconsistencies in one university in England

This article argues that differing disciplinary assessment cultures are likely to be an important factor in explaining differences in student marks and grades both within and between higher education institutions. Using institution-wide data on undergraduate student marks over the last five years in one UK higher education institution we demonstrate variability in the distribution of marks in terms of the ‘distance travelled’. This issue was further explored via interviews with senior teaching-active staff. We suggest that the distribution of marks is likely to reflect different disciplinary assessment cultures as well as complexity in the process of marking and assessment. These findings signify that it will be highly challenging, if not impossible, to establish nationally comparable learning gain measures using student mark data because of the underlying inconsistencies in the process of awarding marks. In the current higher education context, with the ongoing implementation of the Teaching Excellence Framework, it remains important to debate and further investigate these issues with all stakeholders, including students.     

Changing Educational Policies in the United States and India: Perspectives of Teacher Educators

Abstract

Educational policy changes are intertwined with teacher education at multiple levels, affecting teacher educators in a variety of ways. Despite the different contexts, teacher educators in the United States and India must fulfill a variety of roles in order to meet the demands within those contexts. This qualitative study compared the cases of seven teacher educators in Iowa in the United States and seven teacher educators in Delhi, India on their common experience of mandated policy changes. Collaboration was found to be central in the teacher education policy implementation process in Iowa, USA and Delhi, India.     

Copyright and Commerce: The DMCA, Trusted Systems, and the Stabilization of Distribution

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been criticized for granting too much power to copyright holders, offering them new technological controls that may harm the public interest. But by considering this exclusively as a copyright issue, we overlook how the DMCA anticipates a technological and commercial infrastructure for regulating not only copying but every facet of the purchase and use of cultural goods. In upholding the law in Universal v. Reimerdes, the courts not only stabilized these market-friendly arrangements in cultural distribution; they extended these arrangements into realms as diverse as encryption research and journalism, with consequences for the very production of knowledge.     

MEDLARS abbreviations for medical journal titles

The National Library of Medicine announces its adoption of the Anglo-American standard for the formulation of journal title abbreviations according to the American National Standard for the Abbreviation of Titles of Periodicals (1969), with individual words abbreviated, in turn, according to the International List of Periodical Title Word Abbreviations (1970).The history of the activity of the specific Z39 Committee of USASI (now ANSI) concerned with journal title abbreviations is reviewed, covering the period from 1962 to the present. A history of the National Clearinghouse for Periodical Title Word Abbreviations and of the International List is also given.Former NLM usage is compared with the forms of the present International List and examples show the major changes in NLM abbreviations.The NLM Rules for Abbreviation of Periodical Titles as derived from the new standard are appended.     

The Politics of Breathing: Asthmatic Medicaid Patients Under Managed Care

This article examines how routine and ostensibly rational administrative and medical procedures required of asthmatic Medicaid patients to gain treatment under a managed care health delivery system, in fact, further disenfranchise them.     

Stability of attitudes toward abortion and sex roles: A two‐factor measurement model at two points in time

In the decades since 1960, issues associated with the women's movement have significantly impacted American public opinion. Although it is generally agreed that women have made progress in the workplace, education, and politics, the trends supporting all aspects of the women's movement have not been uniform over time. Changing attitudes toward women's roles and toward the question of legal abortion are two clusters of attitudes that illustrate the complexity and multidimensionality of public perceptions of feminist issues. The purpose of this study is to test the hypotheses that these two clusters of attitudes are discrete, that they are correlated with each other, and that their relation to each other has remained stable over time.