Bundled or unbundled? A multi-text corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the relationship between teaching and research in UK universities

Creating and disseminating knowledge through research and teaching has long been regarded as the hallmark of the modern university. However, new university business models have called into question the ‘bundling’ of teaching and research, and sustained research on the relationship between teaching and research has found little evidence of an insoluble connection between the two activities. In this article, we explore the relationship between teaching and research from the perspective of universities’ institutional discourse. We use corpus-assisted discourse analysis to examine the relationship between research and teaching as presented in two sets of institutional texts currently influential in UK Higher Education: Research Excellence Framework environment statements and Teaching Excellence Framework provider submissions (a total of 2143 documents and 12,492,071 words). Our findings show that, while universities emphasise the value of research to their teaching, they do not always emphasise (or sometimes even decry) the influence of teaching on their research. We empirically evidence that, according to what universities themselves write in institutional texts, teaching and research are not always in a mutually beneficial entanglement, but often rather a one-way relationship in which research expertise and institutional prestige are used to bolster claims of teaching excellence. This has implications for the communication of both the vision and the purpose of a university in regulatory exercises and wider policy, but also speaks to the broader idea and practice of being a university in the twenty-first century.     

产业集群:发展我国体育用品产业的战略选择——以福建晋江运动鞋产业集群为例

当前我国生产体育用品的企业大都是中小企业,与大企业比较,中小企业由于规模小、产品科技含量低、营销网络不完善等方面的原因往往缺乏竞争力。然而本文通过对福建晋江运动鞋产业集群的研究发现,如果中小企业通过形成产业集群,发挥产业集群的知识溢出效应、创新效应、追赶效应、吸聚效应和植根效应,就能够大大提高中小企业的竞争力。因而,在我国加入WTO,国外大型体育用品公司大规模涌入中国市场的情况下,产业集群无疑是发展我国体育用品产业的重要战略选择。     

CAS理论视角下Web2.0序化研究

CAS理论认为宏观的演化过程可以从个体行为规律中找到根源,本文以此为依据从系统微观层面出发,探讨了Web2.0系统的序化机制。本文以CAS理论为蓝图,构建了Web2.0的理论模型,界定了系统主体及各特征机制,并结合豆瓣实例阐释了主体适应与交互导致有序的机理。     

Buddhist Wall Paintings at Nako Monastery,North India: Changing of the Technology Throughout Centuries

The technical study of wall paintings from the Buddhist temple complex at Nako, Western Himalayas, was one of the basic preconditions required for designing an appropriate conservation strategy. The complex, composed of four temples from the eleventh–twelfth century, offered a unique possibility to carry out a comprehensive research of technology and painting materials used in early and later western Tibetan Buddhist wall paintings as well as a comparative assessment with murals from other sites in the Western Himalayas. The study was based on extensive fieldwork and an integrated analytical approach comprising a wide range of non-destructive and micro-destructive methods. Answering the question of the coevality of paintings in the smaller temples with other original murals, the precise characterisation of binding media, the detection of the yellow dye gamboge and natural minerals posnjakite and brochantite identified for the first time in Himalayan murals, the clarification of technology of metal decoration, and the making of raised elements are some of the most exciting results which emerged from the research.     

Disciplined freedom,branded authenticity,and dependable independence: how tensions enact flexibility in lifestyle blogging careers

Analyzing 219 blog posts from 52 self-employed women lifestyle bloggers in North America, this study shows how these digital professionals navigate tensions and communicatively constitute work flexibility. In their narratives, women bloggers employed tension management approaches such as reframing, continual connections, and reflective practice in response to tensions in enacting temporal–spatial, identity, and financial flexibility. Specifically, women followed oxymoronic constructions – disciplined freedom, branded authenticity, and dependable independence – to embrace and transform competing poles of fluidity?structure, authenticity?marketability, and independence?interconnection. Expanding work–life research to the self-employed digital labor context, this study responds to recent calls to uncover more-than tension management strategies in empirical settings and contributes to a tension-centered, contextual, and processual analysis of workplace flexibility construction.     

The role of a digital engineering platform in appropriating the creation of new work-related mind-set and organisational discourse in a large multi-national company

This paper reports on a case study involving a strategic and innovative approach to creation of an in-house multifaceted digital engineering platform (the DEP) in overcoming a number of organisational problems at a multinational engineering company. The DEP was to be used strategically for simplifying the operational complexity and to create and appropriate new work-related mind-set and new organisational discourse to achieve homogenous working across the organisation, which is a huge challenge. The need for this system emerged from the need to resolve many organisational services related problems that carried phenomenal amount of processes, health and safety risks and to regulate, and, control the running of engineering project. Research data were collected using a longitudinal case study approach over a period of six months. In order to make sense of how the DEP helped the organisation, the study used certain elements of Extended Structuration Theory as a lens to assess the case study. This research discovered that the DEP succeeded in creating and appropriating work-related mind-set and organisational discourse. It also had real influence on working processes and employees at all levels while encouraging transparency, responsiveness, agility and accountability. It continues to help the organisation to govern, manage and maintain good standard of service but many barriers still remain.     

Effects of pairs of problems and examples on task performance and different types of cognitive load

In two studies, we investigated whether a recently developed psychometric instrument can differentiate intrinsic, extraneous, and germane cognitive load. Study I revealed a similar three-factor solution for language learning (n = 108) and a statistics lecture (n = 174), and statistics exam scores correlated negatively with the factors assumed to represent intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load during the lecture. In Study II, university freshmen who studied applications of Bayes' theorem in example–example (n = 18) or example–problem (n = 18) condition demonstrated better posttest performance than their peers who studied the applications in problem–example (n = 18) or problem–problem (n = 20) condition, and a slightly modified version of the aforementioned psychometric instrument could help researchers to differentiate intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load. The findings provide support for a recent reconceptualization of germane cognitive load as referring to the actual working memory resources devoted to dealing with intrinsic cognitive load.     

Understanding value in the student experience through student–staff partnerships

ABSTRACT

Questions such as ‘what is value in the student experience?’ and ‘how do we measure or assess value in higher education?’ remain an under-researched area. However, in the context of marketisation and competitive forces in higher education, there is a need to unpack what is value in the student experience. In this article, a conceptualisation of value that can be applied in higher education (known as value-in-use) is introduced and applied to a specific and increasingly important aspect of the student experience – student–staff partnerships. Qualitative survey data (n?=?97) and interviews (n?=?35) from ten cases of various manifestations of student–staff partnerships in the Australasian context is presented and assessed in relation to value. The findings highlight that student–staff partnerships may enhance value in the student experience and that value-in-use may be an appropriate lens through which to continue to explore how value is created and measured in the student experience.     

小妥倮民营经济产业园调研报告

为了贯彻落实十八大"四化"精神,实施工业强省和城镇化带动战略,推动毕节试验区与全国全省同步小康进程,毕节市织金县结合自身实际,大力建设经济产业园区,努力发展民族特色产业。在政府政策的扶持下,小妥倮民营经济产业园发挥自身优势,突出民族特色,逐步建立发展壮大,在国际国内获得了诸多荣誉,不仅为群众增收致富搭建了平台,也拉动了当地经济的发展。小妥倮民营经济产业园的做法给人以五个方面的启示:选准方向是根本;组织领导是保障;外界帮扶是前提;民族特色是基础;强烈的致富愿望是内在动力。     

Critically reflexive dialogue and praxis: Academic/practitioner reflections throughout a formative evaluation of Circles® USA

Reflections about the use of critically reflexive praxis by academic/practitioners are offered based on a case study of a formative evaluation of Circles^® USA, a nonprofit organization coordinating initiatives across the U.S. working to move families out of poverty. Critically reflexive praxis is theorized as featuring several themes including acknowledging different levels of context, critical dialogue with collaborators, engaging cultural difference and intersectionalities, problematizing power relations and relationships among researchers and collaborators, and occurring throughout the research project. Examples of critical dialogic reflexivity and navigating common tensions that emerge throughout such community engagement projects are detailed during three phases: planning and design; fieldwork and interviews; and outcomes, applications, and implications.