Governance and Decision–making in Smaller Colleges

A small pilot project suggests that the governance of smaller colleges differs significantly from that of large universities, including the former polytechnics which were incorporated at the same time. The differences do not only relate to size, even though small size allows greater contact between governors and academic activities in their role in relation to 'the general educational character' of an institution. Small size also creates possibilities of a 'drift' to a greater role for governors in management rather than governance, and key issues emerge of role boundaries and relationships with staff. Smaller colleges have other factors affecting governance. Some have particular specialisms – music, art, land–based industries and so on – with their own cultures, shifting employment contexts, and considerable overlap between professionals inside and outside the colleges. The history of some as church colleges also continues to have influence. In general, their size allows a more 'familial' climate in decision–making, but that, too, has strengths and weaknesses.     

Severe Learning Difficulties in Northern Ireland: Leaving School

Responsibility for pupils with severe learning difficulties in Northern Ireland was only recently taken by the education authorities. The findings of research into the school leaving arrangements are described by Dr Ian Wells, senior research officer with the Northern Ireland Council for Educational Research (NICER), Belfast.     

Indexing consistency in MEDLINE

The quality of indexing of periodicals in a bibliographic data base cannot be measured directly, as there is no one "correct" way to index an item. However, consistency can be used to measure the reliability of indexing. To measure consistency in MEDLINE, 760 twice-indexed articles from 42 periodical issues were identified in the data base, and their indexing compared. Consistency, expressed as a percentage, was measured using Hooper's equation. Overall, checktags had the highest consistency. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and subheadings were applied more consistently to central concepts than to peripheral points. When subheadings were added to a main heading, consistency was lowered. "Floating" subheadings were more consistent than were attached subheadings. Indexing consistency was not affected by journal indexing priority, language, or length of the article. Terms from MeSH Tree Structure categories A, B, and D appeared more often than expected in the high-consistency articles; whereas terms from categories E, F, H, and N appeared more often than expected in the low-consistency articles. MEDLINE, with its excellent controlled vocabulary, exemplary quality control, and highly trained indexers, probably represents the state of the art in manually indexed data bases.     

Scholarly communication in the digital environment: what do authors want?

This article reports on a large‐scale international survey of authors' perception and experience of the journals system conducted by ciber in association with National Opinion Polls (NOP). It explores the factors that inform authors' decisions where to publish and, in particular, which groups of readers they perceive to be most important. It probes readership behaviour and the values that underlie authors' attitudes towards copyright and emerging business models, notably open access. It is concluded that many aspects of author behaviour are highly conservative and that a significant shift towards open access is, in the short to medium term, highly unlikely.     

Digital is the Future—And the Now: EmPosium on Digital Platform Listening Trends

Editor’s Note: A JRAM email symposium is structured in the same way of a convention symposium. A group is empaneled to discuss an issue, a moderator asks the panel to address a series of questions while one or more discussants are tasked with responding to the panelists and acting as a surrogate for the audience in the understanding and the interrogation of the ideas presented. In this symposium, panelists were emailed a list of identical questions by the moderator. Panelists and discussants were selected for their knowledge, experience, and the diversity of ideas they bring to the symposium. The answers were then collated, lightly edited for spelling or syntax, arranged in a readable order, and then emailed to the discussants for their feedback. Follow-up questions were only asked for the purpose of clarity with regard to a definition or a convoluted sentence. Both panelists and discussants were encouraged to respond conversationally to the issues.     

Writing Characteristics of Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder: A Meta‐Analysis

Students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD) frequently experience significant difficulty mastering basic academic skills. This meta‐analysis focuses on one specific potential area of learning difficulties for these students: namely, writing. To identify the extent and depth of the potential writing challenges faced by students with ADHD, we conducted a meta‐analysis comparing the writing performance of grade 1 to 12 students with ADHD to their normally achieving peers. We located 44 papers, yielding 45 studies with 87 effect sizes. The average weighted effect sizes showed that students with ADHD obtained lower scores than their normally achieving peers for writing quality (–0.78), output (–0.64), number of genre elements (–0.69), vocabulary (–0.76), spelling (–0.80), and handwriting (–0.62). Contrary to expectations, moderator analyses found that neither study quality nor the source from which ADHD students were drawn (i.e., school/community vs. clinic/hospital) accounted for variability above sampling error alone.     

Breaking up is hard to do: the resilience of the rock group as an organizational form for creating music

Though there is a long tradition of band members quitting the group or taking a hiatus, the rock group as an organization to produce music continues to be both popular and economically viable. The research question addressed in this paper is whether or not it is a good idea to quit or take a hiatus from the group. We begin with a discussion of the framework for understanding why groups are formed and why they may be difficult to keep together. We then discuss differences between groups in the decade of the 1960s versus today. We argue that there is something unique about the output of the group even with the changes in the structure of contracts, compensation, and consumer focus on the artist that explain the resilience of the rock band as an organizational form within which to create music. We compare the charting success of bands that have members leave the group with the charting success of the members who left the group. We identified the groups in five representative years: 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, and 2005. We then analyzed the entire Billboard Hot 100 charting careers of those groups and the artists who quit those groups. Our main finding is that when charting success is divided equally among members, going solo pays off—there is a clear economic rationale because solo acts have greater average charting success than the original bands they started in. The other ensuing side projects: duos, collaborations, and other groups are not as lucrative as the original bands. These findings are valid for members of charting groups from each of the 5 years examined. Despite the difficulties in keeping a rock band together, there are fewer band breakups today and remaining with the group generally results in a longer and more productive charting career. Thus, the rock group remains an important organization for producing contemporary music. However, there remains a compelling incentive to go solo. Superstars may benefit from solo projects, but for the average, non-superstar group member, in many circumstances it is better for the band to stay together if the income is divided equally.