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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09684880010312686. When citing the article, please cite: Martin Belcher, Emma Place, Grainne Conole, (2000), “Quality assurance in subject gateways: creating high quality portals on the Internet”, Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 8 Iss: 1, pp. 38 - 48.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the steps the hospitality sector is taking to ensure compliance with the age discrimination legislation introduced in October 2006.

A survey of the five sub sectors of the hospitality industry, hotels, restaurants, pubs and clubs, contract catering and hospitality services, was conducted during April 2006.

It was found that ageism was considered a problem by respondents from hospitality services, largely public sector organisations, and the greatest impact from the legislation was considered to be within these firms. Overall, 45 per cent of respondents reported knowing “little” or “nothing” about the incoming legislation and the overwhelming majority felt they did not know enough.

Out of the postal survey of 950 organisations there were 112 respondents, representing a response rate of just below 12 per cent. Perhaps the most prominent issue with surveys of this type are the concerns of employers about compliance and being caught out or, in this case, it may highlight a greater level of apathy or lack of awareness than the following results show.

The findings show the need to target the message about the age discrimination legislation particularly to the pub, club and hotel sector.

The paper highlights the desire for knowledge about the legislation across the sector and the lack of awareness of sources of information.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the emotional competence of first year undergraduates enrolled on a high or low drop‐out rate (HDR and LDR, respectively) course, at a newly established university within the UK.

A mixed methods approach using both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods was used. The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) established participants' emotional competence, and semi‐structured interviews were used to probe the findings from the TEIQue.

The results indicate that typical HDR course participants have high self‐esteem and a good level of interpersonal skills, but are controlled by their emotions and exhibit an external locus of control. This manifests itself in a distrust of peers as a source of support and a reactive attitude to self‐improvement. Typical LDR course participants have low self‐esteem and a good level of intrapersonal skills, but have developed the ability to control their emotions and exhibit an internal locus of control. This manifests itself in a high level of confidence in peers as a source of support and a proactive attitude to self‐improvement.

The paper contributes to the learning styles literature by investigating the impact of students' characteristic affective behaviours on their vulnerability to drop‐out.

Despite the renowned poor employment practices across the hospitality industry recent analysis of the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey reported higher levels of job satisfaction among hospitality employees than those in other industries. This paper presents a collective case study of hospitality employees across four small independent restaurants to shed light onto why this situation might exist. The paper discusses the influence an employee's orientation to work has and demonstrates how orientations underpin individual attitudes and behaviour. In presenting four different orientations to work, how individuals manage work and life for personal satisfaction and gain, is illustrated. Indeed, this individualistic ideology contributes to the levels of job satisfaction reported.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the best approaches management should embrace to successfully attract and retain high quality human resource talent within the Niagara region's hospitality industry.

A selected cross‐section of relevant and recent publications are reviewed. The key findings from a mini survey involving 14 senior hospitality managers in the Niagara region are shared.

This paper suggests that the hospitality managers should: understand the basics related to good human resource management practices; know the “fair market value” for each position; foster relationships with colleges and universities to tap into student labor; encourage mature workers to apply for part‐time work; and cultivate a good relationship with seasonal employees and educate them on the rewards of a career within the hospitality industry. Through the industry survey, it was discovered that hospitality managers within the Niagara region are already executing some of these strategies. However, it was concluded that a stronger working relationship with the seasonal employees is required in the region.

Two academics with hotel general manager experience in five countries join hands with the president for three four‐diamond hotels to write this paper. Given the background of the authors, it is expected that the viewpoints would be welcomed by hospitality managers.

FIGHTING has indeed ceased in Europe and our gratitude, especially in London and its adjacencies, is profound. It is shared by all, of course. War is by no means over and that and the drearier contentions of politics for a month or two, or it may be for years, are likely to act as a brake on many schemes. It is true a substantial Education Act has been achieved during the war but such peace as we have achieved finds none of the great social schemes, other than this, anywhere but in the realm of talk. Older men may well be cynical and more may be sceptical; so, it becomes those who believe a better world is possible to be aware. Hardly a town or county is without a scheme of development of sorts, ranging from entirely new, and always enlarged, central libraries to extended branch schemes. The cold fact is that only in a few cases, if in any, will any building of libraries be permitted yet. That does not mean that scheming is a vain occupation. Librarians realize as other men do that housing needs will overwhelm building resources for a few years and that schools, which are disastrously inadequate to permit the full implementing of the Act of 1944, and hospitals, will be preferred to us. Librarians, however, must be opportunists, too ; they will lose nothing by readiness to seize chances. Let us take what we can get; if, in the many newly‐planned residential centres, satellite towns, or other communities, no elaborate library accommodation is possible, let us reflect that what really matters are a book service and a centre of information, which do not require elaborate buildings, only good librarianship. Then, when the needs of the area are known, an appropriate building may be provided. And, as Mr. Berwick Sayers has suggested, much more temporary buildings than have been erected in late years should be used ; we have too many “good buildings” which are obsolescent—to say the least. It can be assumed now that readers do not need so much inducement to use public libraries as they did formerly, although some do and it is well to insist that temporary buildings are not necessarily unattractive inside or outside.

This paper aims to outline the process of undertaking the Confidential Inquiry (CI) into the deaths of people with learning disabilities and discusses three particular issues: engaging with professionals; maintaining confidentiality; and the tension between wanting to base the findings on a sufficiently large number of cases so that the findings are robust and reliable, but also wanting to make immediate changes to any potentially modifiable factors found to contribute to the deaths of people with learning disabilities.

The CI into the deaths of people with learning disabilities reviews the deaths of all people with learning disabilities living in the (former) Avon and Gloucestershire areas. It has been commissioned by the Department of Health to run until March 2013. One of the key drivers for a CI has been the work of Mencap in exposing the unequal health care that some people with learning disabilities received in the NHS.

The principal goal of the CI is to improve the standard and quality of care for people with learning disabilities and ultimately their health outcomes. The CI team aims to detect potentially modifiable contributory factors in the care of a person with learning disabilities who has subsequently died, share any examples of good practice in their care and provide information to guide the commissioning of services.

It is anticipated that the findings of the CI will provide a considerable amount of evidence on which to improve the standard and quality of care for people with learning disabilities and ultimately their health outcomes.

This paper aims to provide a commentary on the previous paper in this issue “The Confidential Inquiry (CI) into the deaths of people with learning disabilities – the story so far.”

The author considers the potential impact of the CI in reducing the health inequalities and premature deaths of people with learning disabilities.

The author considers how the process of conducting the CI described in the paper will address the fundamental issues of indifference and discrimination documented in the Mencap report, Death by Indifference.

The author suggests that, in conjunction with the findings that the CI will publish in the future, that the political will to change the way health services are delivered to people with learning disabilities in the future will be crucial.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the use of humor in one-shot online negotiations affects the chance that the target of the humor will accept the offer. This study/paper proposes two competing hypotheses in this specific context: humor could be perceived as impertinent and thus decrease offer acceptance, or it could be perceived as friendly and thus increase offer acceptance.

To test these hypotheses, this study/paper conducted an experimental scenario study among 589 participants in a negotiation about selling a wardrobe on an online marketplace. Participants took the perspective of the seller, and this study/paper compared a condition in which the buyer used a joke versus a condition in which the buyer did not use a joke.

The use of humor by a buyer significantly increased the chance of offer acceptance by the seller. Without humor, 62% of sellers accepted the buyer’s offer. With humor, 82% of sellers accepted the offer. Further analysis suggests this is explained by the buyer being perceived as friendlier in the humor condition relative to the no humor condition. There were no effects on perceptions of buyer’s impertinence.

The findings indicate that humor is beneficial for buyers in a one-shot online negotiation. On the flipside, this implies that sellers should be cautious about being manipulated into accepting inferior deals by buyers who use humor in one-shot online negotiations.

The significant increase in the number of transactions on online marketplaces (such as AliExpress or eBay) justifies having a fresh look at the role of humor in one-shot online negotiations that are at the core of such transactions. Research in this domain is relatively scarce. In particular, there is no study that specifically tests whether humor is beneficial or detrimental in one-shot online negotiations. This study/paper extends the existing literature to the area of one-shot online interactions characterized by psychological distance.