Open access developments in France: the HAL Open Archives System

This article presents an overview of open access publishing and open access archiving in France. In natural sciences, most articles are published in international journals; authors must therefore comply with the policies of their publishers, irrespective of their nationality. For humanities and social sciences, where publication tends to be distributed among many small journals, portals have been created to provide electronic publishing, with varied access policies. Open archives repositories have been in existence in France since 2001; from 2006, a proactive policy led the main research agencies and universities to coordinate their actions towards a common archiving platform, HAL (Hyper Articles on Line), operated by CNRS (Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique), with individual portals, either thematic or institutional. HAL stores now the majority of open access records – presently some 10–15% of French output – and is growing almost exponentially.     

FACE VALIDITY REVISITED

The literature of the concept of face validity is surveyed. A definition of face validity involving four facets is proposed. Empirical data suggesting that face validity is a characteristic of tests that can be validly and reliably measured are presented. Implications for research and for practical use are discussed.     

OPTIMAL NUMBER OF OPTIONS: AN INVESTIGATION OF THE ASSUMPTION OF PROPORTIONALITY

One assumption common to all models for determining the optimal number of options per item (e. g., Lord, 1977) is that total testing time is proportional to the number of items and the number of options per item. Therefore, under this assumption given a fixed testing time, the test can be shortened or lengthened by deleting or adding a proportional number of options. The present study examines the validity of this assumption in three tests which were administered with 2, 3, 4, and 5 options per item. The number of items attempted in the first 10 and 15 minutes of the testing session and the time needed to complete the tests were recorded. Thus, the rate of performance for both fixed time and fixed test length was analyzed. A strong and consistently negative relationship between rate of performance and the number of options was detected in all tests. Thus, the empirical results did not support the assumption of proportionality. Furthermore, the data indicated that the method by which options are deleted can play a role in this context. A more realistic assumption of generalized proportionality, proposed by Grier (1976), was supported by the results from a Mathematical Reasoning test, but was only partially supported for a Vocabulary and a Reading Comprehension test.