Freezing and higher plants

The stresses that can be imposed upon higher plant tissues by freezing may be damaging and potentially lethal. They influence the distribution and reproductive behaviour of plant species and are the cause of significant agricultural and horticultural crop losses. In contrast, however, low and ultralow temperatures can be used to conserve viable plant material for subsequent propagation, exploiting either natural resistance to freezing within the tissues or laboratory manipulation to sustain viability.     

Editorial

As the incoming editorial team we would like to introduce ourselves to our readers. We are looking forward to doing all we can to further the high standard of the journal and its relevance as an international forum for sharing research and scholarship on teaching, learning and curriculum, and the conditions and policy environment of higher education that impinge on academic work. In an effort to ensure that our processes are efficient and transparent, we have revised the Notes to Contributors, which you will find on the back page. Next year the journal goes to four issues which will together form a somewhat larger volume, but will mean that each issue is smaller. The intent is to publish more frequently so that relevance and currency is enhanced. For this reason we will need to put more stress on observing the general rule that papers are to be 5000–7000 words in length. We are also committed to a more rapid turnaround time for submitted papers and have been working to streamline our management systems with the help of our able administrator, Karen Sanecki.     

STAFF ASSESSMENT: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROCEDURES FOR AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITIES

In Australia, a recent Review of Efficiency and Effectiveness in Tertiary Education (Hudson, 1986) has produced an interest in formal staff appraisal schemes designed to assess performance of academic staff members for feedback and decision‐making purposes.

This paper outlines five principles which seem, after review of the literature on staff assessment schemes in the USA, to be important for the development of valid and reliable staff evaluation schemes. While the suggestions for Australian universities which have been made by the recent report are compatible with some of these principles, other principles are clearly violated, even in the sketchy outline of the scheme which has appeared to date.

It is suggested that these principles need to be emphasised once again in the hope that the Australian universities are able to gain from experiences which exist in the literature to date.     

SETTING OBJECTIVES AND ASSESSING COMPETENCE IN PROFESSIONAL LEGAL EDUCATION

Professional Legal Education in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is undertaken at the Legal Workshop. A problem‐based learning orientation is a prominent feature of their programme. In this paper the assessment of the problem‐based learning used in the Workshop is described. All stages of this assessment process, including setting the course objectives, defining the conditions under which the problems (tasks) will be undertaken, and setting the criteria which are the standards for the assessment of success in the task, are described. The importance of criterion‐referenced assessment in the stage of setting assessment standards is emphasised. The results of the first attempt to use this assessment method are then described, and problems emerging with the process are discussed. Although this first “reality test” reveals some difficulties with the assessment method, it is concluded that this novel and innovative teaching and assessment technique has been appropriately applied to Professional Legal Education. While some refinements are required in the implementation of the method, the overall assessment concept has been successfully developed.