Highlights the increasing pressure that British higher education institutions (HEIs) are coming under to provide basic training in tertiary‐level teaching for their academic staff…
Abstract
Highlights the increasing pressure that British higher education institutions (HEIs) are coming under to provide basic training in tertiary‐level teaching for their academic staff as a result of recommendations made in recent major reports. Identifies some of the (often conflicting) demands and constraints that HEIs are generally confronted with in developing and running such programmes, e.g. striking a balance between competence‐based training and academic education, avoiding making unreasonable time demands on either trainees or trainers, and reconciling the internal requirements of the institution with external pressures and constraints. Examines these various issues in some detail, and shows how they have been resolved within Scotland’s Robert Gordon University, which has been running a highly successful postgraduate course in tertiary‐level teaching for its staff since 1989.
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Shows how Scotland’s Robert Gordon University is currently attempting to address the recommendations of the Dearing Report in respect of detailed programme specifications, and of…
Abstract
Shows how Scotland’s Robert Gordon University is currently attempting to address the recommendations of the Dearing Report in respect of detailed programme specifications, and of the Partington Report regarding benchmarking of levels of student achievement, in the course of implementing a university‐wide course modularisation programme. Describes how the university has developed a set of generic level learning outcome templates which specify the levels that students should attain in the four areas identified by Dearing (knowledge and understanding; key skills; cognitive skills; and subject‐specific skills) at the various stages of undergraduate and taught‐postgraduate courses. Explains how course teams are using these generic templates to produce “contextualised” versions for their own courses, and are then using the resulting contextualised level learning outcomes as benchmarking guidelines when writing the individual module descriptors for these courses. Describes how this work is being facilitated throughout the university.
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Henry Ellington and Gavin Ross
Presents the general thesis that absolute academic quality is something which must be sought after but, by its nature, can never be fully attained. Describes the quality‐assurance…
Abstract
Presents the general thesis that absolute academic quality is something which must be sought after but, by its nature, can never be fully attained. Describes the quality‐assurance and quality‐control systems which operate within The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, and shows how these have recently been supplemented by the establishment of an internal quality audit team within the university, charged with the task of monitoring the quality of these existing quality systems. Describes the team′s first three audits – evaluating the university′s course appraisal system, evaluating its validation and review procedures, and evaluating the quality of its teaching. Then outlines the team′s future programme as currently envisaged, showing how this is designed to help the university to prepare for its first HEQC Audit, which is expected to take place around 1995‐1996. Finally, evaluates the success of RGU′s Internal Quality Audit Team, and argues that other higher education establishments might find it useful to establish similar “meta‐quality” systems.
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Henry Ellington and Gavin Ross
Recognizes that universities are coming under increasing pressure from anumber of sources to produce evidence of the quality of their teaching.Outlines the approach to evaluating…
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Recognizes that universities are coming under increasing pressure from a number of sources to produce evidence of the quality of their teaching. Outlines the approach to evaluating teaching quality being implemented within The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Shows how this is based on the use of a self‐assessment pro forma that enables staff to rate their performance against 28 basic criteria which characterize effective teaching and related activities. Describes how the scheme was piloted on a voluntary basis throughout the university during 1992‐93, and how subsequent evaluation indicated it had proved both acceptable to staff and successful in achieving its various design aims. Shows how the scheme is now being formally incorporated into the university′s Staff Development and Career Review Scheme, and is also being used to accumulate evidence of teaching quality for use in external quality assessments and audits.
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Sonia Coman and Damon J. Phillips
We propose that the ambiguity of discourse around a category – rather than being problematic – improves the longevity of that category. This is especially true in the creative…
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We propose that the ambiguity of discourse around a category – rather than being problematic – improves the longevity of that category. This is especially true in the creative industries. Using methods and theories drawn from sociology and art history, we tested this thesis using swing as a case study. Based on three years of archival research we found 70 co-existing definitions of swing and 89 different uses of the term. These multiple meanings enabled various understandings to come in and out of focus over time, contributing to swing’s longevity. Our findings extend to other categories within the creative industries.
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I don’t remember exactly when I began to be interested in music, but my mother and godmother would laughingly recall when they knew I would be musically inclined. Though I was…
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I don’t remember exactly when I began to be interested in music, but my mother and godmother would laughingly recall when they knew I would be musically inclined. Though I was then in diapers, whenever Tommy Dorsey's recording of Boogie Woogie was played, I would immediately begin to pat my feet. My first conscious memory of reacting to music when I was very young were the times my father would sing little ditties and play his banjo. He could carry a tune, and he played the banjo quite well. His greatest musical feat, however, was as a whistler, and I would try to imitate his whistling style, without success as I grew older. Then too, my siblings and I would sing and recite little nursery rhymes before our parents, and I would compose songs for my sisters to sing. Before he died an early death at 37 my father gave me a mouth harp and a harmonica which I kept for many years; I later misplaced it while in college. I later bought another harmonica which I kept throughout my years in the U.S. Army, my travels throughout Europe, and throughout my years in graduate school. How and why we each possess the talents and skills we have are questions I’ve never fully understood. So I’ve concluded that we just have them, and we’ll never be able to explain it. Throughout this chapter four reference points will be used to explain my exposure to music and my music biculturality: schools, churches, home, and my neighborhood. If I make very few references to whites, it is simply because during my early life my contact with whites was minimal, and white individuals played a minor role in my life, as at home my world centered around my parents and godparents, siblings, and other family members, and neighborhood friends; at school my world was a completely black world. The first white I got to know outside of my early work experiences was the white Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church who visited St. John's Episcopal Church at least six or seven times a year.
Abstract
All workplace learning takes place under specific temporal conditions. In fact, one learns in order to be better equipped to deal with future challenges. At the same time…
Abstract
Purpose
All workplace learning takes place under specific temporal conditions. In fact, one learns in order to be better equipped to deal with future challenges. At the same time, learning is always embedded in previous experiences. Thus, the notion of time needs to be theoretically integrated into organization and workplace learning. This paper seeks to investigate the temporal aspects of organization and workplace learning by discussing the notion of virtuality as examined by the French philosopher Henri Bergson.
Design/methodology/approach
A study of organization learning among construction workers is used as an empirical illustration of the virtual as a specific form of temporality inherent in all organization learning.
Findings
In construction work, learning takes place through practical engagements and through sharing know‐how and experiences with peers. In these interactions between peers, practical concerns are woven into a temporal texture integrating past, present and future. Learning thus draws on its virtuality in terms of binding temporality and practical undertakings together in a coherent, seamless framework.
Research limitations/implications
The paper seeks to bridge organization and workplace learning theory and temporality, here expressed in terms of theories of virtuality, and more specifically the philosophy of Henri Bergson. When examining workplace learning, temporality needs to be recognized, and therefore theories of virtuality are of relevance.
Originality/value
The paper provides a review of the writing on virtuality in Bergson's work, to date little exploited in the workplace learning literature, and offers an empirical illustration of the conceptual thinking.
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Mohsin Malik, Salam Abdallah, Stuart Orr and Uzma Chaudhary
This paper responds to calls from the literature for research identifying the difference between the effect of internal agents and external agents, such as customers, suppliers…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper responds to calls from the literature for research identifying the difference between the effect of internal agents and external agents, such as customers, suppliers and government on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). The paper also determines whether there is a dynamic or interactive relationship between the two types of agents.
Design/methodology/approach
Activity theory was used as the theoretical framework for understanding how internal and external agents affected both SSCM motivation and facilitation and possible interactions between the two. A cluster analysis identified how internal and external agents affected SSCM initiatives, interactions, the conditions under which this occurs and the mechanisms of this effect.
Findings
Internal and external agents differ in the type, sequence and diversity of their effect on SSCM. While external agents had both an SSCM motivating and facilitation effect, internal agents only had a facilitating effect. Customers were only a significant SSCM motivation in 35% of the cases. Government regulations had a dynamic effect, changing from motivation to facilitation as the SSCM initiative developed. External agent SSCM motivation and facilitation were more internalized in organizations which were more internationally oriented.
Practical implications
Local institutional frameworks motivate and facilitate SSCM initiatives, while head office initiatives and international best practice agencies encourage an integrated combination of external agent motivation and facilitation and internal facilitation.
Originality/value
The findings extend the SSCM literature by identifying the processes of agent SSCM motivation and facilitation, the dynamic nature of agent SSCM effects and the mechanism through which externally motivated and facilitated SSCM becomes internalized.
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Since the early years of the Cold War, two countervailing trends have been present in the treatment of officially held information in the United States. On the one hand, as the…
Abstract
Since the early years of the Cold War, two countervailing trends have been present in the treatment of officially held information in the United States. On the one hand, as the foundations of U.S. information policy were being set after World War II, wartime practices were remade and made permanent in a crisis atmosphere, with the establishment of a classification system (essentially the same one used to this day) by executive order, as well, as the passage of the Atomic Energy Act in 1946 and the National Security Act in 1947. However, even as the practice of official secrecy took root, the United States took the lead in formalizing standards of openness by statute, beginning with the 1946 passage of the Administrative Procedures Act and culminating in the passage (and 1974 strengthening) of the Freedom of Information Act. This article traces the development of U.S. information policy since World War II and describes the impact of official secrecy on decision making and democratic practice more generally.